US is targeting CPEC to frustrate China and Pakistan
The growing strategic competition between China and the United States is detrimental to the smooth operation and progress of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor project. The Americans have been assisting their Asian allies, including India, in advancing their military capabilities to check the Chinese influence in Asia. Concurrently, they have been endeavoring to strangle Pakistan economically so that it will help them to execute the Trump administration’s Afghanistan strategy and also endorse India’s supremacy in South Asia.
Washington has cautioned the International Monetary Fund about its likely bailout package for Pakistan. On July 30, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said: “Make no mistake: we would be watching what the IMF does. There’s no rationale for IMF tax dollars – and associated with that, American dollars that are part of the IMF funding – for those to go to bail out Chinese bondholders or China itself.” His warning has not only exposed the credibility of the international monetary institutions but also illustrates the Americans’ unease about CPEC.
Earlier, Mark Sobel, the former deputy assistant secretary for international monetary and financial policy in the US Treasury Department, warned that the IMF must “ensure that its resources are not used to bail out unsustainable Chinese CPEC lending.” Would the US be able to block an IMF economic bailout package, given it has a permanent chair on the organization’s board of executive directors and also the largest share in the fund (about 16.52 percent)? Although international monetary institutions, including the IMF, are independent in their policy making, the US is still able to influence the fund. For example, Washington is already throttling Pakistan through the Financial Action Task Force.
Senior figures and analysts in the US have been proclaiming CPEC to be an unmanageable project, whereas the people of Pakistan recognize it as an economic opportunity with “game changer” potential. As the flagship project in China’s one-belt one-road initiative, CPEC has immense economic potential to help Pakistan improve its woeful infrastructure networks, and make its Gwadar port an economic hub through its development as a major petrochemical processing and trans-shipment center in the region. Perhaps CPEC can improve the economic productivity and export potential of Pakistan.
Though Beijing has been trying to avoid conflicts and confrontation with Washington and seek cooperation, which is in the interests of both states, the military buildup by both sides in the South China Sea is alarming.
Dr. Zafar Nawaz Jaspal
The transformations on the global landscape have sparked forecasts about the likelihood of China and the US falling into the Thucydides trap — a theory, named after the ancient Greek historian who first identified it, that argues that when one great power threatens to displace another, war is inevitable — despite them having strong economic interdependence. In the emerging global strategic environment China, the rising power, will inevitably challenge the US, the current, established sole superpower. Though Beijing has been trying to avoid conflicts and confrontation with Washington and seek cooperation, which is in the interests of both states, the military buildup by both sides in the South China Sea is alarming.
On June 27, 2018, US Secretary of Defense James Mattis accused China of militarization and coercion, and threatened an impending conflict. The Americans for the first time sent two American warships from the Taiwan Straits into South China Sea. The Chinese Navy did not block or challenge the American gunships in its waters — next time, it might be a different story.
The good news regarding this worsening security situation in the South China Sea is that, so far, China and the US have been observing maximum restraint. As a result of this, both sides have successfully avoided any conflict or confrontation in the past decade, even at times when they had strong disputes over security issues in the Asia-Pacific region.
Another positive development is the streamlining of the Strategic and Economic Dialogue between Beijing and Washington, which has been restructured into four sections, namely Diplomatic and Security Dialogue, Comprehensive Economic Dialogue, Law Enforcement and Cyber Dialogue, and Social and Cultural Dialogue. These talks and the policies of restraint in the Asia-Pacific region have helped to prevent a direct military conflict between the two countries. Both sides, however, have been pursing their own balancing strategies. On August 4, 2018, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo expressed his “concerns about Chinese militarization of the South China Sea” and the “importance of maintaining” a rules-based order in the region, and announced that the US intends to provide nearly $300 million of security assistance to nations in the Indo-Pacific area.
The Americans have been helping India to modernize its armed forces. The defense bill recently passed by the US Congress forced the Trump administration to “strengthen and enhance its major defense partnership with India” to counter China’s growing influence in the region. Whether India will check the ambitions of China, which is one of its major trade partners, remains to be seen. The Indian military buildup does, however, undermine Pakistan’s national security, especially the struggle to overcome its economic challenges.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been opposing CPEC since 2015. Indian intelligence agencies apparently have been involved in clandestine activities to thwart its development. In March 2016, Pakistan’s security forces arrested Indian spy Kulbhushan Yadav, a serving officer in the Indian Navy who was working for the Indian intelligence agency Research and Analysis Wing. Yadav confessed that he was involved in various acts of terrorism and other subversive activities in Balochistan. In summary, the Trump administration has adopted a strategy of maximum pressure plus engagement towards Pakistan, and is uncomfortable with CPEC. Perhaps Pompeo’s position on an IMF package is an effort to exploit Pakistan’s financial vulnerability to impede the completion of the CPEC project.
– Dr. Zafar Nawaz Jaspal is an Islamabad-based analyst and professor at the School of Politics and International Relations, Quaid-i-Azam University.
