Andrew Small, a policy researcher at the German Marshall Fund of the United States in Washington, explores China’s ties with Pakistan in a new book that delves into the relationship’s history, the Chinese origins of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons, extremism in the two countries and how the future might develop as the United States recedes from Pakistan and Afghanistan.
In his book, “The China-Pakistan Axis: Asia’s New Geopolitics,” Mr. Small argues that although China has long been close to Pakistan — thanks in part to shared mistrust of India — there have always been irritants below the surface. The presence in remote areas of Pakistan of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, founded by separatists from the Uighur ethnic minority native to the western Chinese region of Xinjiang, is especially troubling to Beijing. China is suspicious, he says, that elements in the Pakistani Army harbor sympathies for the Uighurs.
The book is especially timely as President Xi Jinping is expected to visit Pakistan soon, perhaps for Pakistan Day celebrations at the end of March. Chinese presidents do not visit Pakistan often, only about once a decade. If, as expected, Mr. Xi goes to Pakistan and bypasses India, the trip could open a new chapter in the relationship. Following are excerpts from an interview with Mr. Small:
Q.
What prompted you to write about Pakistan and China, an important relationship but rarely written about in full?
I was frustrated with the lack of authoritative material on a friendship that I believe is so important to the understanding of Chinese foreign policy, the future of Pakistan and Afghanistan, and the prospects for the U.S.-China relationship. The Pakistani Army’s assault on Islamabad’s Red Mosque in 2007, the incident that opens the book, pulled many of these strands together. While the United States had been pushing Pakistan for years to mount a crackdown on various extremist groups, it was pressure from Beijing that ultimately played the decisive role, following the kidnapping of Chinese “massage workers” by Red Mosque militants. For all the tensions between Washington and Beijing in East Asia, the region to China’s west is an area where the two sides have important interests in common and where Chinese assertiveness, especially in dealing with its Pakistani friends, is generally very welcome. But in practice it has been extremely difficult to draw China out on these issues, not least because of Beijing’s close, secretive and carefully protected relationship with Pakistan.
I wanted to figure out how the rising threat of Islamic militancy was reshaping China’s approach in this region, and to try to get to the facts behind the most mythologized stories — China’s nuclear relationship with the Pakistanis and the Saudis, China’s dealings with the Taliban, China’s plans for naval bases in the Indian Ocean, and so on — that affect calculations about so many different global security concerns, but where definitive answers have been so hard to come by.
Q.
China is quite worried about the terror threat from Pakistan, and particularly dislikes the fact that the East Turkestan Islamic Movement operates in Pakistan’s tribal areas. Why does China not exert more pressure on the Pakistanis about harboring the ETIM? Was the recent Pakistani offensive into North Waziristan inspired in part by the Chinese?
A.
The ETIM issue has been the biggest source of tension between China and Pakistan in recent years, and behind closed doors the pressure from Beijing at a number of different junctures has been pretty strong. Among the examples are the run-up to the 2008 Olympics, the run-up to the 60th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China and after various incidents in Xinjiang that appeared to have cross-border involvement.
Nevertheless, there are plenty of officials on the Chinese side who bought the argument from the Pakistanis that an operation in North Waziristan was difficult to mount and potentially ill-advised. There were also doubts about whether a rather small number of ETIM fighters could really do very much harm sitting out there in the tribal areas. As the terrorist violence in and beyond Xinjiang has worsened though, especially after the attacks in Beijing and Kunming over the last 18 months, patience has worn thin. While the direct involvement of ETIM in the attacks on the Chinese mainland remains in doubt, North Waziristan had become a propaganda hub. And, although there were many reasons for the launch of the offensive there, it was certainly encouraged by China. There are even recent stories that Beijing has suggested conducting joint military operations with the Pakistanis. China is suspicious that, in the lower ranks of the Pakistani Army, there are sympathies with the Uighurs, and has complained in recent years about warnings being given before operations are conducted, a phenomenon that is quite familiar to the U.S. side.
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