General elections are just around the corner and it now appears that the next elected government will again be a coalition government of a few parties because no single party will have the required strength in the National Assembly to form a government at the federal level. The new government will be faced with numerous challenges of economy, terrorism, unemployment, energy, price spiral and structural development. Apart from many challenges one tricky challenge will be foreign policy.
Some of the main areas that will be the focus of foreign policy will be the balancing act between China and the USA, Dealing with the thorny issue of Afghanistan and managing the toxic and thorny relationship with India and, of course, navigating the ties between all-time friend Saudi Arabia and Iran. Parameters of Foreign Policy will have to be defined and marked in a very tricky global and regional environment that will include tensions between the East and West, trade and technology disputes, the competition between China and the USA and, of course, the domestic worries and challenges, es-pecially the rising spectre of the terror machine of the TTP and the Islamic State. Goals of foreign policy will depend on diplomatic resources and economic strength. No policy is effective without a strong economic back up. Pakistan’s relations with our all-weather friend, the People’s Republic of China, should remain the number one priority of the foreign policy. CPEC lies at the core of our relations for the future and all impediments in its future development must be re-moved immediately. Chinese investors must be given all possible facilities and cum-bersome bureaucratic procedures must be simplified and more business friendly poli-cies implemented. The concerns of the Chinese Government about the safety and se-curity of their nationals in Pakistan must be attended immediately to the entire satis-faction of the Chinese Government. CPEC is the most important part of the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative and it is the most expensive and ambitious Chinese initiative in this century and the progress of CPEC is vital for the future economic progress of Pakistan.
The ongoing confrontation between the USA and China is a thorny and dif-ficult situation to deal with but Pakistan must do everything in its power to avoid tak-ing sides or to become sucked into this political and economic rivalry between these two giants of world politics. Pakistan must make every effort to maintain a respect-able balance in its relationship with the USA in spite of the power struggle between the two giants. Pakistan is also in need of mending fences with its arch rival India. The need of the times is to increase trade, tourism and people-to-people contact with our eastern neighbour. The state of ‘no war no peace’ has to end for the benefit of both countries. The US has now increased its strategic and economic relations with India and India is now the strategic partner of the US as a counterweight to the rapidly rising influence of China in the region and closer ties between them is likely to result in a strategic imbalance in this part of the world posing new security challenges for Pakistan. On our western front, the Taliban has once again been in power in Kabul since mid-2021 and this does not augur well for Pakistan faced with a resurgence of terrorism by the TTP safely embedded in the border areas with Afghanistan. After the disastrous Tali-ban friendly policies of the PTI Government, the Afghan policy will have to be re-vised to end the horror of the cross-border attacks by the TTP and the Islamic State.
Another neighbour on our western border is Iran and this was the first country to rec-ognize Pakistan back in 1947 followed by the first visit of the Iranian Monarch Raza Shah Pehalvi in March 1950. Pakistan has never had any territorial or ideological dis-pute with Iran and Iran supported Pakistan in the 1965 and the 1971 wars with India. The recent strike by Iran against a militant group in Balochistan resulted in strong armed retaliation from Pakistan resulting in increased tensions between the two tradi-tionally friendly neighbours. Relations with Afghanistan and India are already abys-mally low so we cannot allow the presence of armed militant groups on both sides of the border to destroy the fraternal relations with Iran. Pakistan should also play the role of an arbitrator between Iran and Saudi Arabia to ease tensions between these two leading powers of the Islamic Bloc. The Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad Bin Salman is very eager to use economic power to increase his country’s diplomatic cloud by overseas investments. This is a very good chance for Pakistan to attract Saudi invest-ment and encourage Iran to do the same in Pakistan. Foreign policy of Pakistan has confronted many grim challenges in the past but the challenges that will be faced now by the new elected govt. are serious grim and a grave threat to the state of Pakistan. The world has entered into21st century and the challenges of the new century are both gruel and intractable. For a fragile state like Pakistan that faced immediate hostility from it much larger neighbour the security concern is inevitable; and it should become the leadership’s primary responsibility.
The changing geo-strategic, geo-political and geo-economic environment of the South Asian region has posed new kinds of security, economic challenges to the foreign pol-icy of Pakistan. The changing geo-strategic, geo-political and geo-economic environment of the South Asian region has posed new kinds of security, economic challenges to the foreign pol-icy of Pakistan. Only politically stable, technologically advanced and economically sound countries can compete in the prevalent world of globalization.
—The writer is Professor of History, based in Islamabad.
Email: tariq.aqil@headstart.edu.pk
views expressed are writer’s own.
