The China Pakistan Axis
Authour : Andrew Small
Publisher : Random House, Rs 399
Andrew Small’s The China Pakistan Axis is a significant analysis of an oft ignored yet a most potent alliance between two nuclear equipped Asian neighbours with a cultural, social, ethnic, economic and historical disconnect, writes MANU PANDE
Sometimes the most innocuous and seemingly dry reads have a means of surprising you in the most delightful of ways. They may conform to the rudiments of the genre — of being some exhaustive in-depth analytic testament ensconced in a copiously researched subject matter entailing years of fieldwork and a wad of bibliographical references. But by toning down the subject specific jargon, they can be simplified to appeal to an average reader; by simply cutting down on all the ‘noise’ as we say. Andrew Small’s The China Pakistan Axis: Asia’s New Geopolitics comes across as one such work which goes beyond the extraordinary in its representation and analysis of an oft ignored yet a most potent alliance between two nuclear equipped Asian neighbours with a cultural, social, ethnic, economic and historical disconnect. This disconnect is so vast that to fathom an association is nothing short of an impossibility but not when juxtaposed with(in) international power play mechanics and contextualised in the present day setup whereupon it seems so very natural. The convoluted, almost contorted histories of the subcontinent as also the power shifts resulting from the rise and fall of fortunes beyond its waters have bequeathed upon this alliance an aura of indestructibility which makes it thrive even at the costs of repeated Pakistani misadventures and China’s rearguard (and at times, face-saving) actions to extract itself out of the soup its alliance with an unstable Pakistan often leads to.
The writer packs a punch right at the onset as he relates the cascading effects of a seemingly routine incident — the kidnapping of the Chinese staff of a massage parlour cum acupuncture unit in an upscale Islamabad neighbourhood by a self styled fundamentalist vigilante group owing allegiance to a prominent mosque — and how the aftermath went on to establish as well as reinforce the mutually symbiotic nature of the China-Pakistan relationship treasured (though for very divergent reasons) by both the nations. The incident relates on how even the inkling of the development of a possible fissure in that friendship led Pakistan into taking unprecedented steps in national and international spectrum. They even kicked off the longstanding faceoff with the hitherto shielded fundamentalist terror groups lodged in the country even as it had paid no heed to the repeated urgings by the United States on the same issue.
Small explains the basis of such a ‘friendship’ and how it is much more than simply a political alliance between two neighbouring nations by contextualising this time-tested all-weather friendship into the shared histories of both the countries. Small, by his accounts of the resilience of this ‘relationship’ which has survived regime changes, full scale conventional wars as also international sanctions and pressures, makes a statement on the value attached to this relationship in both Islamabad and Beijing.
In bombarding his readers by a series of anecdotes, real instances in the histories of both the countries, the writer establishes the transcendental nature of this time-tested friendship born out of necessity and circumstance and posits how and why this nexus may continue to worry India. Small desists from seeing the relationship exclusively through a South-Asian framework as also from reinforcing the popular understanding of this alliance as just having Indo-centric foundations. Therein lies his genius as he factors in China’s concerns over its internal security, stabilisation of its Xinjiang province, threats to its frontiers from its shared borders with Afghanistan and the repercussions of any possible spillovers of these problem areas into its mainland and sees it in its best interests to prevent Pakistan’s (imminentIJ) slide into a failed state situation, helping and propping Pakistan economically, militarily as also buttressing its international position as and when required. However, Small doesn’t discount the fact that the shared animosity with India has laid the foundation of this alliance and still is the overarching concern that more often than not governs its policy decisions.
After giving a general overview of the situation Small starts with discussing the three major wars fought by India, the 1962 Indo-China confrontation and the 1965 and 1971 Indo-Pak wars that laid the founding stone and later shaped the rudiments of the critical, part parasitical, part tolerant relationship between Pakistan and China. He then talks about the uneasy situation at Xinjiang and China’s struggle with the rising extremist forces near its frontiers as also its need to assert its dominance in the region. Towards the end, he charts the possible Chinese responses as also presents his views regarding the possible future prospects of this alliance.
A highly researched volume, albeit succinct in its arguments and inferences, this highly readable book contains about 140 odd pages of notes and bibliography from varied sources present and past which make it a work well entrenched in reality as also firmly establishes its author as an authority on the subject.
The writer can be reached at manupande.89@gmail.com