Worthington: China

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Peter Worthington: Pakistan seeks a new BFF in China. The U.S. should let it

Peter Worthington | Jun 3, 2011 11:31 AM ET | Last Updated: Jun 3, 2011
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PETER PARKS/AFP/Getty Images) Beijing poured troops into the restive city of Urumqi in a massive show of force when Muslim Uighurs protested their treatment by the Chinese

“Both regimes are devious, tricky, suspicious. Both are dangerous, neither is capable of trust.”
Thinking “outside-the-box” (as they say) is one of the more difficult – and valuable – functions of those in charge of countries, armies or businesses.
A great example of thinking outside the box is one cited by retired Maj. Gen. Lew MacKenzie (who, coincidentally, specializes is such thinking). In WWII, when bomber command was suffering horrendous losses, scientists and exerts were summoned to determine how better to protect bombers from enemy fire.
All returning bombers from raids over Germany were examined as to where they’d been hit by anti-aircraft fire. Onionskin overlays showed massive hits common to all returning aircraft. Overlays also showed great white spaces on the aircraft where no hits had been registered.
Air Force types immediately urged reinforcing the parts of bombers that had received heavy fire, while “outside-the-box” thinkers urged reinforcing those areas of returning bombers that received no hits.
The thinking was that bombers that had been hit in the common areas had returned anyway; the bombers that didn’t return must have been hit in the other areas. When those areas were reinforced, the casualty rate of aircraft dropped accordingly.
But for this outside-the-box thinking, bombers would have been reinforced on areas that showed considerable damage when they returned.
Thinking outside the box was prevalent in the U.S. Civil War, when non-military people became soldiers and were not conditioned to think along conventional lines. Instead they devised tactics that were not necessarily according to the book.
For example, John Mosby’s irregular cavalry raided at night and disbanded by day, and were never caught by Union soldiers. Also, Mosby (and Nathan Bedford Forrest) rejected the sword or sabre as a cavalry weapons, and adopted the newly invented revolver as more effective.
Right now, in the post-Osama bin Laden days, the United States is in a quandary about what to do about Pakistan – always viewed as a necessary but unreliable and unstable ally.
This reality was intensified after the assassination of bin Laden, and the U.S. learned that for at least five years he had been living in relative comfort in Abbottabad, near a military camp and not in a Himalayan mountain cave.
This reinforced America’s concerns that its “ally” was playing a double-game, and that an alarming segment of Pakistan’s politicians, army and intelligence service was in cahoots with al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
Again, the question arose for the U.S. of how it should deal with Pakistan, other than its conventional mixture of warnings, threats, pandering and financing to persuade it to crack down on al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
Pakistan, embarrassed by the bin Laden escapade, suddenly has become more open to China helping it, probably to make the U.S. more compliant and generous.
Pakistan has “invited” China to build a naval base at Gwadar, on the Indian Ocean, near the mouth of the Persian Gulf. China had already invested close to $300 million in the port. In making the announcement, Pakistani PM Yousuf Gilani called China Pakistan’s “best friend.”
As well, Gilani has visited Beijing to close a deal for 50 multi-role JF-17 Thunder jets to augment its aging fleet of some 40 F-16 fighter jets acquired from the U.S. in the 1980s.
All this cozying up to China, has the U.S. uneasy, as well as India.
The concern is how to match or deflect China’s interest in Pakistan, and vice-versa. Conventional thinkers in the State Department and Pentagon, as well as in the White House, worry at the effect. Tenuous as relations are, how can they placate Pakistan as an unreliable ally yet offset China’s growing influence – and how much will it cost?
That’s the dilemma facing conventional thinking in foreign affairs.
“Outside-the-box” thinking might say: Don’t do anything. Let China and Pakistan do what they will. Each, inevitably, will be a pain in the neck for the other. Both regimes are devious, tricky, suspicious. Both are dangerous, neither is capable of trust.
From an American point of view, Pakistan has nothing the U.S. wants or needs: No oil, no resources, mostly mountains and 300 million Muslims, half of whom are potential jihadists.
If China thinks it is stealing a march on the Americans by expanding its influence in Pakistan — let it. One thing can be guaranteed – China doesn’t like Muslims. Look how it treats its Uighurs, who are Muslims but not jihadists, and there are only 8.5 million of them.
If China has trouble dealing with its Uighurs, imagine the potential problems dealing with the interests of some 200 million Pakistani Muslims.
And look at the potential problems Pakistan faces dealing with China, with no America as a counter-balance. Pakistan is a nuclear power. So is China. So is India. China is unlikely to be happy with a nuclear Pakistan threatening India, and vice-versa.
As far as Afghanistan is concerned, when the U.S. and NATO withdraw troops this year, Taliban infiltration from Pakistan is inevitable. The only unknown is how effective the Afghan National Army and security forces will be – the National Army and police force. Hopes are higher than expectations.
If the Taliban and al-Qaeda surge in Pakistan, let it become a problem for the Pakistani PM’s newest “best friend” – China.
China’s economic well-being and future is so interlocked with the U.S. and Western developed countries, that the last thing it wants is destabilization. China wants to win, it plans ahead, thinks long term gain rather than short profit. And it has patience.
Pakistan is nothing but trouble for whoever depends on it.
So let the Chinese have a go.
This sort of thinking is anathema to those who guide our foreign affairs at the moment. But it shifts some of our problems to the Chinese, and would save unknown billions that the U.S. now invests in Pakistan with very little return.
National Post
Peter Worthington is the founding editor of the Toronto Sun and a regular contributor to FrumForum.com, where this originally appeared