Anwar ul-Haq Kakar became temporary leader of the government in Islamabad in August. His main mission is to help ensure that Pakistan holds new elections, which have been tentatively scheduled for January. (This being Pakistan, the military is always suspected to have the final say.) Kakar was in New York last week to address the U.N. General Assembly. In an interview, he told me that Pakistan is charting a path designed to avoid getting caught up in the competition between the West and Russia and China.
Pakistan intends to stay “neutral” on Russia’s war with Ukraine and sees China as its “all-weather friend” and “strategic partner,” he said. To Washington ears, that sounds an awful lot like choosing sides, especially since Pakistan is technically a major non-NATO U.S. ally and has been America’s military partner dating back decades. But Pakistan has no intention of committing to either camp in the growing U.S.-China rivalry, he said.
“Every nation for itself,” said Kakar. “Why should we be worried about this competition? It’s between two great powers, two great civilizations, and the implications [affect] 150-plus countries. And Pakistan is just one of them.”
On the U.S. side, there is certainly some bipartisan criticism in Congress for Pakistan’s growing closeness to China, which includes deepening economic, military and diplomatic ties. But Kakar said countries such as Pakistan have no reason to apologize for resisting the West’s efforts to contain China.
“It’s not a Cold War. There is no Iron Curtain here. It’s not that opaque. Everybody sees what is happening,” the prime minister said. He says that the West is “over-obsessed” with efforts to contain China.
Similarly, Pakistan’s “neutral” stance on Ukraine (at least in public) reflects the country’s overall desire to keep its options open, he said. For example, Pakistan is taking advantage of Europe’s move away from Russian gas and oil to import cheaper energy. These new trading relations with Russia will last long after the current crisis is over.
“So this crisis is creating challenges and at the same time it is creating opportunities also within the region, and we are looking at it both ways,” he said.
Meanwhile, there is frustration in Washington that Pakistan appears to be moving backward democratically. The Biden administration has mostly remained silent while the Pakistani military has cracked down on political opposition, the media and public dissent after the removal and jailing of Imran Khan, the former prime minister. Human rights groups have criticized Pakistan’s use of military courts for civilians, escalating violence against minority groups and the disappearing of journalists.
Kakar defended the arrests and denied the alleged abuses. He compared Pakistan’s actions to the arrests in the United States of those who attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
“Arrests are being made for unlawful actions, somebody who’s involved in arson or vandalism,” he said. “This is not the kind of behavior which is promoted or vindicated by any liberal democracy. So why is it being even expected of Pakistan that we should condone such behaviors?”
He said there is no bar on any political party exercising free speech or criticizing the government or military. But Human Rights Watch reported that Pakistani police arrested more than 4,000 protesters over the summer and detained several members of the political opposition. One American citizen, Khadijah Shah, has been held in prison for more than 100 days without bail. The prime minister said she and all the others would receive due process.
Some speculate that the U.S. government is looking the other way because Pakistan is alleged to be covertly supplying badly needed munitions to the Ukrainian army. The Intercept, for example, claims to have documents proving that the Biden administration pushed a recent six-month loan for Islamabad from the International Monetary Fund after the Pakistani military secretly agreed to move large amounts of munitions to Ukraine. Other outlets have reported that Britain has facilitated transfers to Ukraine of Pakistani arms sold to third countries.
Kakar flatly denied these allegations. The fact that Pakistani munitions have been found on the battlefield in Ukraine was attributable to the black market, he told me.
“We have not gone for any sale which was directly intended for the Ukraine, not any sort of transactions,” even through a third party, he said.
Of course, if the arms arrangement were a secret, that’s exactly what Kakar would say. It certainly wouldn’t be the first secret U.S.-Pakistan arms deal. And other countries (see South Korea) are also playing coy while increasing their indirect munitions exports to Ukraine.
In Islamabad, there is frustration that Pakistan is always viewed in the United States as a subordinate factor in more urgent foreign policy issues. By siding with the West against the Soviets and again after 9/11, Pakistan paid a high price and didn’t get proper credit, Kakar said. “Pakistan in the last 30 years has been treated unfairly by the West,” he told me.
Unfortunately, this dysfunctional dynamic between the United States and Pakistan, in which each nation blames the other for the downturn in ties, seems more entrenched than ever. Policymakers in Washington should redouble their efforts to engage Pakistan’s leaders and make good on old promises to care more about Pakistan’s democratic and economic development.
Absent such outreach, Pakistan will see no choice but to edge closer to Beijing’s authoritarian model. But such an outcome is not entirely inevitable. In the end, leaders in Islamabad know that being wholly dependent on China is not in Pakistan’s interest, either.
Given “the kind of challenges on a global scale we are facing, I do not see any single power or group of powers who would be able to respond to those challenges on their own,” Kakar said.
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