Roving Periscope: Has China ‘inspired’ Imran to junk the US?

Virendra Pandit

New Delhi: All political moves are rooted in a simple principle: who stands to gain the most, and who loses. Successful politicians are those who sell the illusion of winning to their confused supporters until they can.

Pakistan Army’s Lieutenant General Amir Abdullah Khan Niazi, who commanded the Eastern Command in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) during the Indo-Pakistan War of 1971, repeatedly assured his boss, President Yahya Khan, that his army was winning every single battle. But he could not pull the wool over Islamabad’s eyes for long and unilaterally surrendered himself and his 93,000 soldiers to Lieutenant General Jagjeet Singh Aurora, GOC-in-C of the Indian Army’s Eastern Command and the Bangladesh Liberation Force.

Pakistan’s leader Imran Ahmed Khan Niazi is from the same clan. That is why his irate enemies condemn him with the slogan: “Go Niazi Go.”

Until Sunday, his supporters believed in the illusion that he was winning, although the Opposition had an upper hand. But, the cricketer-turned-politician, famous as Kaptan (Captain) ever since he led Pakistan to win the World Cup in 1992, did a ‘bouncer’. As promised, he took his enemies by surprise by not facing the National Assembly and, instead, getting it dissolved and announcing fresh elections.

For now, the nonplussed opposition may have lost the game. If the Supreme Court upholds Imran’s decision, they will have to hit the streets in a mid-term poll. Imran may also return with increased numbers. For, he has, at least for now, touched a raw nerve of the Pakistani masses: America is the enemy.

But is that all about the drama in Pakistan?

Because Pakistan is an Army with a State where the boots decide the votes, the high-voltage drama enacted over the last couple of weeks may have something more than what could ‘leak’ in the public domain.

Practitioners of realpolitik know there is no free lunch in politics and no free water either in geopolitics. In the rapidly changing political acrobatics in Pakistan, the moot question is: who provoked Imran Khan to go hammer-and-tongs against Islamabad’s chief former benefactor, America, and even sacrifice his Prime Ministership, at least for now? Who scripted the entire episode?

Why did he accuse the US of masterminding his ouster? Wasn’t the same Imran Khan anxiously waiting for the first telephonic call from US President Joe Biden ever since he took office in January 2021? Biden spoke to most world leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, but not Imran Khan.

This angered the Kaptan no end. He was now vulnerable to both the Army and China.

In Pakistan, the popular phrases are Mauja hi mauja, fauza hi fauza (Make merry as the Army is everywhere), and that Allah, America, and the Army are the tripod on which Pakistan rests.

Clearly, Imran Khan, whom the Army had ‘selected’ as the PM in 2018, could not have gone against Rawalpindi’s script. The Army, with tacit support from China, might have exploited his annoyance with Biden to go hammer and tongs against the US for ‘hatching the conspiracy’ to remove him.

If so, who stands to gain the most if Pakistan junked America this way?

China!

Now, whether Imran stays or goes, or even gets re-elected, hardly matters, as Pakistan’s unstable internal politics has always been like this. Dictatorship, interspersed with the army-controlled democracy, has been the forte of this artificial nation ever since its first PM, Liaquat Ali Khan, was shot dead in Rawalpindi in 1951. When the all-powerful Pakistani Army goes for a siesta after years in power, it brings in a pliable government until the boots get back to run their business.

As of now, the Army and China are testing the waters. If Imran wins the mid-term polls with increased numbers on his anti-America plank, Islamabad may take a decisive turn against America and even emerge as the ‘second capital’ of China!

The sequence of events leading up to the Sunday denouement gives some sign.

For the first time, Islamabad hosted Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi as a “special guest” in the last week of March at the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) conference. Amid the fast-changing geopolitical scenario after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Beijing is striving to keep an uninterrupted energy flow from the Middle East, via the Gwadar port terminus of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), and Xinjiang. Before landing in India and Nepal, Wang supported Pakistan on the Jammu and Kashmir matter and even visited Afghanistan.

Importantly, Wang Yi met Pakistan Army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa in Islamabad and “discussed relations between the two neighboring countries”. Bajwa praised and expressed support for China’s foreign policy, saying Beijing has pursued a balanced and steady foreign policy, while being committed to world peace and development and fulfilled its role as a responsible major country in international hotspot areas,” according to the media reports.

Wang Yi said China appreciated the Pakistani military for its proactive effort and significant contribution over the years in consolidating and strengthening the all-weather strategic cooperative partnership between the two countries, safeguarding the security and smooth progress of the building of the CPEC and ensuring the safety of Chinese institutions and personnel in Pakistan.

Wang also said that the Pakistani military has played the role of stabilizer in building a closer China-Pakistan community with a shared future in the new era.

Instead of saying all this to his Pakistani counterpart, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, Wang Li said it to the Pakistani Army chief!

Days later, Imran Khan waved a purported ‘document, dated March 7 or 8’ and claimed the US wanted a regime change in Pakistan through a no-confidence motion from the united opposition.

For public consumption, Imran praised thrice India’s foreign policy for no apparent reason—all along he had been condemning it, especially on Jammu and Kashmir—and claimed that Washington had gone against him after his visit to Moscow in February.

For public consumption again, General Bajwa praised America’s old relationships with Pakistan and opposed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

This is how they tried to pull the wool over the eyes of everyone.

So, in the forthcoming elections, the actual losers could be the Opposition and America and winners Bajwa, Imran, and China.