Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: China has claimed it is a “democracy” but its ally Pakistan, despite its dictatorships interspersed with democracy, insists it is a “large, functional democracy”; the former has not been invited to a global summit on democracy, and the latter has rejected invitation!
After an angry China went hammer-and-tongs against the US for not inviting Beijing to the two-day Virtual Democratic Summit, beginning Thursday, its “all-weather” friend Islamabad, in solidarity with the Dragon, also decided to skip the meet.
Russia has also condemned America for not inviting it.
Releasing a ‘select’ list in November, the White House had invited leaders from nearly 110 countries and territories. Pakistan was among only four countries from South Asia—apart from India, Maldives, and Nepal—among the invitees. But they invited neither Bangladesh nor Myanmar.
They excluded China and Russia but invited Taiwan, drawing a sharp reaction from Beijing. Those missing from the list include Turkey, a NATO member, and traditional US allies, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Jordan, and Qatar. From the Middle East, only Israel and Iraq could make it to the list.
Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Ahmed Khan Niazi, who has been keenly awaiting a telephonic call from US President Joe Biden since January, and publicly admitted so several times, may have given a ‘clear snub’ to the White House that could entail serious implications for the already strained relations between the two countries, according to the media reports.
In Islamabad, the Foreign Office announced on Wednesday, after days of in-house confabulations, that Pakistan will skip the Summit. But it cited no reason in the official press statement.
Initially, Pakistan had reportedly decided to participate in the event at the scaled-down ministerial level but later avoided the Summit altogether, chiefly because of the exclusion of China. Reports said Islamabad consulted Beijing on the matter before deciding to skip the Summit. The US-Pakistan relations have been tense in recent months.
President Biden has been ignoring Imran Khan altogether, a reason which also made it difficult for Islamabad to attend the Summit. The invitation for the Summit was seen as an ‘ice-breaker’ between Washington and Islamabad.
Pakistan also fears that the US may resort to some punitive action as the Treasury Department announced ahead of the Summit that Washington would impose sanctions on those undermining democracy and also penalize countries having poor human rights records.
To avert it, as Pakistan is sand-witched between China and America, Islamabad tried to use sugar-coated words to reject the invitation.
“We are thankful to the US for inviting Pakistan for participation in the Summit for Democracy, being held virtually on 9-10 December 2021. Pakistan is a large functional democracy with an independent judiciary, a vibrant civil society, and free media. We remain deeply committed to further deepening democracy, fighting corruption, and protecting and promoting the human rights of all citizens. In recent years, Pakistan has instituted wide-ranging reforms aimed at advancing these goals. These reforms have yielded positive results,” the statement said.
It emphasized that Pakistan values its partnership with the US, which it wishes to expand both bilaterally and in terms of regional and international cooperation.
“We remain in contact with the US on a range of issues and believe that we can engage on this subject at an opportune time in the future,” it said while politely rejecting the US invitation.
“Pakistan will, meanwhile, continue to support all efforts aimed towards strengthening dialogue, constructive engagement, and international cooperation for the advancement of our shared goals.”