CAMBRIDGE: Pakistan’s relationship with China is strategic, historic, trouble-free and pivotal to the country’s foreign policy, Ambassador Maleeha Lodhi said during a talk at Harvard University.
Speaking in a programme run by the Kennedy School titled, “Future of Diplomacy”, Pakistan’s Ambassador to the UN Dr Lodhi set out the country’s regional and global agenda and emphasised that this reflected national priorities and Islamabad’s role as a ‘critical state’ in international affairs.
She listed certain national priorities including economic revival, the defeat of terrorism and elimination of violent extremism in and around Pakistan, preservation of the country’s strategic capability and building regional peace and stability. She suggested for an end to the conflict in Afghanistan and normalisation of Pakistan and India relations on an equitable and durable basis.
Ambassador Lodhi told the audience that today Pakistan’s multiple foreign policy engagements are shaped by these national priorities.
She also named regional economic cooperation and connectivity as another key priority. She said that being pursued through various trans-regional projects, which aims to enhance prospects of growth and development.
She cited the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) as the most ambitious and potentially game changing example of regional economic cooperation.
While expounding on the Pakistan-China relationship, Ambassador Lodhi said that the strategic evolution of this relationship has given the Sino-Pak partnership adding that the significance at a time of a fundamental change in the global balance of power brought about by China’s rise as a global economic powerhouse.
She said that in recent years the bilateral ties have broadened and diversified from the traditional focus on defence and military cooperation towards a greater economic and investment orientation.
She described the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, a critical link in the “One belt, One road” initiative, as a manifestation of the direction this key relationship is taking. This project will bring greater prosperity to the people of the region and beyond.
While commenting on how Pakistan will balance its relations with China with those with the United States, she said that a recall of history would help to invalidate this flawed notion. Pakistan played a central role in one of the most dramatic episodes of the Cold War the opening to China by US former president Richard Nixon because it enjoyed good relations with both China and the United States.
Pakistan intends to play the same role in the future and maintain good relations with both even as the two engage in global competition. A close and enduring relationship between Pakistan and the US is a strategic imperative for Islamabad for achieving lasting peace and stability in our region and beyond.
Ambassador Lodhi said Pakistan seeks to normalise relations by finding political solutions to outstanding disputes while Islamabad has repeatedly urged Delhi to resume the broad based comprehensive peace process. She said India has yet to agree and has instead signaled it is only interested in talking about terrorism adding that this does not make the prospects of diplomatic progress too bright.
She responded to a question about President Ashraf Ghani’s latest statement by saying that advocating intensified military action against the insurgency seems to run counter to the firm international consensus, which is that a political solution is the only viable way to bring peace to Afghanistan.
She said that what Pakistan has urged and recommended for the past decade or more and she reminded the audience that for the past 14 years, a military solution to the conflict within Afghanistan has proved elusive.
