Among the giants

Even a cursory look at the world map highlights the uniqueness of Pakistan's geopolitical situation. It is one of three countries that sits on the borders of two giants - China and India. What makes these two countries giants is a combination of their large populations - both have more than a billion people each and both have experienced rapid growth of their economies. The other two countries that also border on China and India are small and as such both - Bhutan and Nepal - are of little consequence for the future of the global economic and political systems.

But Pakistan is different. It is a relatively large country with a population of close to 150 million. The current size of the population ranks it among the seven largest countries in the world. Given that the population continues to increase at a relatively large rate, in twenty years time - in the year 2025 - Pakistan will be the world's fifth largest country behind China, India, the United States and Indonesia.

The size of the population is not the only thing that enhances Pakistan's geopolitical importance. China, India and Pakistan are all recognized nuclear powers. Each country has two nuclear armed nations sitting on its borders. China borders with India and Pakistan; India with Pakistan and China; and Pakistan with China and India. This is not the case with other nations armed with nuclear weapons. The United States, Russia and Israel don't have nuclear-armed neighbours looking down at them from just across the border.

It is only Britain and France that exist in close proximity but even in their case a water channel separates them. At the hottest point in the cold war - the Cuban Missile crisis in 1961 - both Washington and Moscow operated with some comfort knowing that the two countries, no matter which side of the border you looked, were separated by the vast expanse of two oceans. Such a luxury of time between the firing of a missile armed with nuclear weapons and its arrival at the designated site is not available to Pakistan and its neighbours. Given the speeds at which missiles travel, these two events - the firing and the landing - occur almost simultaneously.

Not only does Pakistan have a couple of billion plus people countries as its neighbours, both China and India also aspire to superpower status. Both realize that that status won't be achieved suddenly or that the United States, currently the only superpower, will be eager to allow rivals to emerge. In the National Security Strategy issued by Washington in September 2002, it was stated clearly that America would not like to accommodate other countries at the pinnacle of global power it now occupies. But even if it does not suit the American purpose to have company, it may not be easy for it to stop some countries form trying to get there. China, India, the European Union, Russia - perhaps even Brazil and Japan - would want to scale those heights.

China is close to achieving the near-superpower status given the size of its economy and the breakneck speed at which it is growing. Chinese authorities have plans to double the size of the country's GDP between 2005 and 2015. But India is also going through a period of economic expansion and a profound restructuring of its economy. In the financial year 2004 that will end on March 31, Indian GDP is likely to grow by 7 per cent, one of the highest rates ever.

The rate of growth will be a bit lower than that of China's, but is high enough to provide space within which to restructure and modernize the economy. This is required in order to place the country on the path of high levels of growth rates that can be sustained well into the future. Sometime in the not too distant future India could become a serious player in the global economy.

In its quest for quasi superpower status, China has seriously revised its world view. It no longer sees itself as the champion of the developing world as it did during the period of Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai. Instead, it is now focused much more on pursuing its own strategic interests and on creating relations with other large powers - the United States in particular but also Russia, Japan, the European Union, India, and Brazil.

As a Chinese scholar of foreign affairs wrote recently, his country has begun to distinguish between "hegemonic power" and "hegemonic behaviour." It is prepared to accept the former but will resist the latter. The hegemon in question is obviously the United States and China has been prepared to check Washington's hegemonic behaviour.

Three recent examples of foreign policy conduct and foreign economic relations from this perspective are the Chinese stance on the North Korean nuclear issue, the WTO trade negotiations under the Doha round, and its approach towards Taiwan. Although China was uncomfortable at the US insistence on not having bilateral discussions with the North Koreans, it played host to the six party discussions last August.

Nonetheless, it distanced itself from the US position when it saw that the line being followed was not in its own long-term strategic interests. In the trade talks, China withstood the American pressure and joined with three other regional powers - Brazil, India and South Africa - to go against the positions taken on agricultural trade by the US and the European Union.

On Taiwan, Beijing has shown a remarkable amount of pragmatism. Its recent responses to Taiwan's provocation are not as bellicose as they were a decade or so ago. In 1995 and 1996 China conducted aggressive missile tests in the hope of cowing Taiwanese and American leaders. Instead, it evoked the opposite results from those intended by Beijing. Rather than let Beijing handle relations with Taiwan on its own terms, the US sent two aircraft carriers to the Taiwan Strait.

The Chinese got the message. Since then they have been much more accommodating to Taiwan, looking at the long term aspects of the relationship, quite prepared not to ruffle too many feathers in Washington, not even in Taipei. China believes time is on its side. It is convinced that ultimately the island of Taiwan will become a part of China, much as Hong Kong and Macao did over the last decade.

Watching carefully and obviously with some envy at China's rise to a near great power status, India is also marking some significant adjustments in its foreign policy stance. The beginning of the process of rapprochement with Pakistan - a process launched by Delhi in April 2003 when Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee extended his hand of friendship to Pakistan in a speech given in Srinagar, the capital of the disputed state of Kashmir - should be seen in this context. In agreeing to talk about Kashmir after recognizing that that dispute was central to its uneasy relations with Pakistan, India was beginning to move along the path of pragmatism pursued with such success by China.

For Pakistan, it is important to fashion its foreign policy not only by taking full cognizance of the two emerging near-superpowers in its immediate neighbourhood. It has also to factor in the interests of the only real superpower, the United States.

Islamabad, for the third time in its 57-year history, has close relations with Washington. Each time Pakistan responded to America's strategic interests and not to its own national interests. The first occasion Pakistan was drawn close to America was in the 1950s and early 1960s when it did the American bidding in the cold war.

A slight display of independence on Pakistan's part irked Washington. That happened when President Ayub Khan and his foreign minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, sought to get close to China. The fact that the warm relations between Beijing and Islamabad helped President Richard Nixon to open a window to China in 1970-71 went more or less unrecognized by Washington.

The second time Islamabad was pulled into America's orbit was in the 1980s when it fought alongside Washington to force the Soviet Union out of Afghanistan. The benefits to the US of the help given by Pakistan were enormous. The Soviet defeat in Afghanistan would not have been possible without Pakistan's assistance. Moscow's defeat in Afghanistan contributed to the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and the break up of the Soviet Union. However, Pakistan gained little - if anything at all - from partnering with America in its first foray into Afghanistan.

Now with America's war against international terrorism, Pakistan is once again back in the US orbit as a valued ally. This time, however, it is in Pakistan's strategic interest to pursue some of the goals the US is following. It is vital for Islamabad to curb the rise of Islamic extremism - a goal to which President Pervez Musharraf has committed himself with renewed vigour following the two attempts on his life in December of last year. But American preoccupation with curbing terrorism has unleashed a number of forces that will have profound implications for Pakistan. Let us look at some of them.

Washington's single-minded preoccupation with the war on terrorism has created tremendous opportunities for other near great powers such as China, India, Japan, Brazil and Russia. With America so distracted, these countries have begun to carve out their own spheres of influence. China is now a predominant player in East Asia but its national interests are bound to come into conflict with those of Japan. Russia is aggressively pursuing its interests in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. These could clash with those of the Eastern Europe and China. Brazil would want to be a dominant player in South America.

Its pursuit of that strategy has already brought it into conflict with the United States on matters relating to trade and Washington's relations with Cuba and Venezuela. And, finally, India has interests in South Asia. Its recent overtures towards Islamabad should be viewed in that context. As India and Pakistan draw closer, China will have to satisfy itself that this burgeoning relationship will not hurt Beijing's strategic interests.

There is one common force present explicitly or implicitly in all these spheres of influence - the United States. As Henry Kissinger pointed out in his recent book, Does America Need a Foreign Policy, "at the dawn of the new millennium, the United States is enjoying a pre-eminence unrivalled by even the greatest of empires of the past. From weaponry to entrepreneurship, from science to technology, from higher education to popular culture, America exercises an unparalleled ascendancy around the globe.

During the last decade of the twentieth century, America's preponderant position rendered it in the indispensable component of international stability." What this means is that the US will not want any of the near-superpowers to carve out their sphere of influence that did not incorporate the US's strategic interests.

For the moment, the United States is totally concentrated on achieving three objectives: defeating international terrorism, curbing the spread of weapons of mass destruction, and bringing democracy to the world of Islam. Pakistan has become a central player in helping Washington move towards these goals. If it falters in any of these, it will invite the wrath of Washington which has shown that it can be, at least under the present leadership, totally unforgiving if it determines that nations, people or leaders are getting in its way. Living among giants has many advantages. But it also can be perilous - Pakistan must be aware of the pitfalls.

Not a day of discord

Now that an ambience of understanding between India and Pakistan has been created, will it be desirable to rake up old grudges while observing the Kashmir Solidarity Day on February 5? The government has declared it a public holiday and some programmes have been announced for the occasion. One will have to keep one's fingers crossed and pray that some foolish blustering will not vitiate the atmosphere at a time when the two countries have just begun to emerge from the dark shadows of war and conflict.

For 43 years, until 1990, Pakistan did not deem it necessary to observe a day to proclaim its commitment to the rights of the people of Kashmir. How the practice of observing February 5 as Kashmir Day started is quite intriguing. As such, the day has no particular significance in Kashmir's history. No landmark event occurred on this date.

In 1990, the IJI, which was in the opposition at that time, gave a call for a hartal to express solidarity with the people of Kashmir. In a newspaper advertisement, Nawaz Sharif, who was then the chief minister of Punjab, appealed for a nation-wide strike to enable the people "to pray for God's help for the success of jihad in Kashmir".

Even then it was not clear what purpose the solidarity day was intended to serve. The People's Party government which was in office was caught on the defensive. It had already declared a Kashmir solidarity week from February 2 to 9 that looked very tame by comparison.

Seeking to pre-empt its embarrassment, the PPP government declared February 5, 1990 which was a Monday, a public holiday in support of the Kashmiris. Thus was established the tradition of observing February 5 as Kashmir solidarity day.

Thereafter February 5 became an issue for the various parties to politically upstage themselves vis-a-vis their rivals. Each has tried to outdo the other to show how far it can go in upholding Pakistan's stance on the question--and thus challenge India.

The Kashmir dispute has been totally politicized and has been manipulated by the parties in Pakistan to serve their own narrow interests. The first solidarity day came just a few months after the uprising in the Indian-held Kashmir when the mujahideen from Afghanistan crossed the LoC to establish a new theatre of conflict.

They had been constrained to move out of Afghanistan in the wake of the Geneva accords which led to the withdrawal of the Soviet troops from Kabul in 1989. The mujahideen signalled the start of their uprising in Kashmir by kidnapping the daughter of Mufti Muhammad Sayeed, at that time the home minister of India and today the chief minister of the state.

Subsequently, the manner in which February 5 was observed was determined by the political condition in Pakistan in a given year. When a government felt weak, February 5 would be ushered in with a full blast of rhetorics. In some years, a formal notification was issued declaring the day to be a gazetted holiday. In other years there was no announcement but only a call for a strike which led to a shutdown.

The pattern of India-Pakistan relations also determined the official fervour in observing Kashmir solidarity day. In 1998 came the nuclear tests at Pokhran and Chaghai. Kargil came in 1999 and it was deemed appropriate to observe a holiday on February 5.

Moreover, February 5 has come to be identified as the day of support for those waging an armed struggle. That excludes the Kashmiris who are working for a peaceful settlement of the dispute, notably the Hurriyat Conference (the mainstream moderate group of Maulana Abbas Ansari) in the Valley and the political groups in Azad Kashmir which are not tied to Islamabad's apron strings.

In fact, many of the Kashmiri leaders such as Yasin Malik of the Srinagar-based Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front, Sajjad Lone of the People's Conference and academics like Prof Rekha Choudhry and mediaperson Ved Bhasin, who spoke at the World Social Forum in Mumbai last month, adopted a stance which was quite contrary to Pakistan's conventional position. They emphasized the secular identity of the Kashmiris and criticized the excesses committed against the Kashmiri Pundits.

What has emerged clearly is that the Kashmiris favour a negotiated settlement. While they find the violence unleashed by the Indian security forces in the Valley unacceptable, they are also irked by the militancy which, they feel, is harming the cause of Kashmir. Now that the APHC has entered into a formal dialogue with the Indian government, the Kashmiris want the militancy to be halted. Thus Dr Nusrat Andrabi, who retired as principal of the Government College for Women in Srinagar recently, told me quite unequivocally that militancy had destroyed family structure in the Valley and contributed to the high drop-out rate of boys in their teens from schools.

Shazia Maqbool, until recently the secretary-general of the National Liberation Front in Azad Kashmir, and the daughter-in- law of Maqbool Butt, the Kashmiri leader executed by the Indians for treason, also spoke out against the use of force and was vehement in demanding a soft border so that the Kashmiris from the Valley and across the LoC could meet freely. There is a general apprehension among the Kashmiris that India and Pakistan are more concerned about their own geopolitical interests and the concerns of the Kashmiris are being overlooked in the process.

At a time when the Kashmiris have entered the peace process, wisdom demands that Islamabad should step back discreetly and give them the centrestage, We have supported the right of self- determination of the Kashmiris for five decades. But that does not mean that we should advise them on what is good for them and what is not. They must be allowed to decide that themselves.

President Pervez Musharraf must be commended for showing flexibility on the issue and even offering to move beyond his stated position. The congenial climate created by the opening of a dialogue between the APHC and Indian leaders and the forthcoming talks between Islamabad and New Delhi must be preserved at all costs.

The key question

South Asia, endowed with human and natural resources, continues to suffer from self-inflicted wounds. Instead of using history as a guide, the peoples and governments of this region have carried history as a burden on their shoulders, severely restricting their manoeuvrability and freedom of movement.

The founding fathers of Pakistan visualized the partition not as a prelude to a standing confrontation between the successor states but as a precursor to the gradual development of a modus vivendi and normal neighbourly relations. This hope was shattered firstly by the partition massacres and subsequently by the bitter running sore of the conflict over Kashmir.

The Pakistan-India joint statement of January 6 has been welcomed by the world community and has received a positive response from many quarters. The main frame in which the new canvas for peace and development is sought to be enshrined is the understanding expressed in the joint statement on the steps to counter violence and terrorism and to initiate "a composite dialogue with a view to resolving all bilateral issues, including Jammu and Kashmir to the satisfaction of both the parties."

While both parties have made adjustments in their postures, the more significant shift has been made by Pakistan, understandably owing to its security and economic compulsions weightier than the pressures on India. Pakistan has, in effect, given up its traditional stand of making progress on Kashmir issue (not merely a willingness to negotiate) a pre-requisite for any meaningful cooperation in trade and economic and cultural exchanges and other fields.

Pakistan has declared a unilateral cease-fire on the LoC, without tying this with the "mutual lessening of violence" in Indian-held Kashmir, which it had earlier proposed. The president has also offered to set aside Pakistan's insistence on the UN resolutions.

On the Indian side, the main relaxation came in their expressed readiness to resume a composite dialogue on Kashmir, recognizing Pakistan as a party to the dispute.

It does not appear to have been generally noted that the normalization now under way is not a return merely to the situation existing before the December 13 attack on the Indian parliament, when India snapped communication links, downgraded diplomatic ties and massed the Indian army on Pakistan's borders.

The normalization now under way involving large-scale exchanges in every field (and the willingness even to countenance references to economic union, common currency and open borders) reflects the changing atmospherics and ground situation in a way which has not happened since independence.

The above situation leads to an important difference in the consequential position of the two parties following the recent CBMs and the joint statement of January 6. India, on its part, is merely committed to negotiating on Jammu and Kashmir, maintaining at the same time that its stand on Kashmir had not changed, as declared by Prime Minister Vajpayee in a PTV interview on the eve of his arrival in Pakistan.

In the case of Pakistan, however, the present or a future government will find it impracticable or inadvisable to roll back the new facts of life, irrespective of what happens over Kashmir, in view of the likely creation of strong vested interests and the significant change in atmospherics.

Presumably mindful of this possibility the president has spoken in his briefings of a linkage between the confidence building measures, proposed composite negotiations and other elements in the detente process. However, the desired linkage between the progress on Kashmir and on diverse other elements of the detente process, is likely to be overtaken by the pace of the present developments in different areas of cooperation on the one hand and India's likely foot-dragging on Kashmir, on the other, already evidenced by India's preference for initiating composite negotiations at the joint secretary level.

The question arises whether the process of detente involving significant policy shift by Pakistan rests on any discreet understanding between the two governments on the broad perimeters of a settlement on Kashmir which the two sides could accept and also sell to their people and to the Kashmiris, the people most directly concerned, once the negotiating process reaches that stage. If it has been possible to reach such an understanding helped perhaps by the good offices of the US this would be a hopeful augury.

It is evident that in commencing any arduous process of detente, it is neither possible nor advisable to attempt a leap to the end-point. However, a step-by-step peace process in the sub-continent has stalled in the past even before it had started, owing to the apprehension by both sides of the process being pushed in a direction, opposed to the interests of one or the other side.

If the current process of detente, involving far-reaching steps, has been set in motion without a prior narrowing of the wide gap which exists on Kashmir even between the "informal" positions of the two sides, the chances of an acceptable solution, emerging in the foreseeable future are not very bright.

If, however, behind the scene consultations have narrowed the gap between the bottom-lines of the respective positions of the two sides on Kashmir, to a manageable extent, this would accounts to a great extent, for the recent, significant shift in Pakistan's posture vis-a-vis India. In that case one could more readily see light at the end of the tunnel. Only the government would know the answer to this question.

The writer is a former ambassador of Pakistan.

Ethics in politics

Even if you've already got a job, it's prudent to stay open to new possibilities. But Rep. W. J. "Billy" Tauzin (R-La.), who heads the House Energy and Commerce Committee, is taking the idea to new heights.

Only weeks after he helped engineer the Medicare prescription drug benefit that greatly profits the pharmaceutical industry, he is mulling a multimillion-dollar offer to become the drug companies' chief lobbyist.

Tauzin isn't the only member of Congress with such ethical issues. As The Times' Richard T. Cooper and Chuck Neubauer reported last month, Congress is rife with conflicts that violate the spirit but not the letter of ethics laws.

Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) has enriched himself and associates with questionable partnerships involving companies in line for government contracts or other benefits. At least 17 current senators and 11 representatives have had close family members engaged in lobbying or governmental relations.

Even so, Tauzin breaks new ground by conducting what amounts to a public auction for his services in the private sector. Tauzin just rejected a deal worth in excess of $1million a year to replace Jack Valenti as head of the Motion Picture Assn. of America. And why not? The drug industry is apparently offering him an even more lucrative deal.

The industry is understandably eager to land Tauzin. It could show that it rewards those who back it in Congress, and Tauzin could help derail vital future reforms in the deeply flawed drug benefit law. What the industry most fears is an end to the ban on direct price negotiations by Medicare with drug companies, and allowing Americans to legally import cheaper drugs from Canada.

The current rules say ex-lawmakers may not directly lobby their former colleagues for one year. But Tauzin's subordinates in his new job could carry unambiguous messages.

A good start on reform would ban lawmakers from direct lobbying for three years and from negotiating a new job while they're still in office.- The Washington Post