Why Pakistan can do without China?

On 05 May, 2009, Ambassador of (Pakistan’s Vice friend) China (which is reluctant to join the Friends of Democratic Pakistan (FoDP) group) said that “We think that we should help out Islamabad directly without setting any conditions, instead of channeling our financial assistance through the Friends of Pakistan.” Dawn (a Pakistani daily) wrote “According to sources, the ambassador complained that Chinese businessmen were not being given facilities similar to those offered to businessmen from other countries.” Nice time to leverage Mr. Chinese ambassador. You can’t see Pakistan as a democracy, do you? By the way how many billion dollars are you providing to Pakistan?

The second point the Chinese envoy said the ‘outside influence’ was growing in the region. ‘These are issues of serious concern for China,’ he said. He said that US strategies needed some ‘corrective measures’ to contain terrorism. He did not spell out the Chinese measure to help Pakistan against the Taliban.

‘We are cooperating with the US and Pakistan in the fight against terror,’ Mr Lou Zhaohui said, adding that separatists belonging to Muslim majority areas of western China had got training in Fata and Afghanistan during the 1980s. Yes Mr. Chinese ambassador, you kill even peaceful Buddhists in Tibet and sign an agreement with Pakistan’s main Islamic party, Jamaat-e-Islami.

The Chinese ambassador then said ‘Counter-terrorism is needed with Pakistan and we are in close liaison with the interior ministry for the security of over 10,000 Chinese engineers and technical experts in Pakistan.’ Chinese ambassador is very focused on Chinese version of how Pakistan should employ its security forces.

China is very wise to achieve its goals, objectives and leverages. It’s time Pakistanis take off their blinkers and see through Chinese.