Cooperation with China

FRIENDSHIP between Pakistan and China has always been a positive factor in the South Asian region and has served to advance the cause of peace and stability. It is therefore in the fitness of things that the two should have decided to reinforce and deepen their strategic partnership in a year which marks the 55th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries. On Monday, the two sides signed 13 agreements covering a number of fields, including energy, infrastructure, economic cooperation and defence with a view to what President Pervez Musharraf called raising the level of economic cooperation between the two countries. China has been associated with Pakistan’s economic development now for decades. The projects completed with Chinese assistance include the Karakoram Highway, the Chashma-I nuclear power station, the machine tool factory, and many others. The projects now underway with Chinese assistance include the Chashma-II nuclear power, the second phase of the Gwadar port, the Saindak copper mines development, the Gomal Zam dam and several oil and gas exploration schemes. On the whole, China is involved in more than 100 on-going projects in Pakistan. In the defence field, they have jointly developed the JF-17, a fighter aircraft, while MiGs, tanks, artillery, frigates and other Chinese arms form a significant part of Pakistan’s armoury.

These examples of economic and defence cooperation apart, what characterizes their “all-weather relationship” is a deep and abiding understanding on all matters of geopolitical interests to them. Last year, during Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao’s visit to Pakistan, the two countries signed 22 agreements, including a friendship treaty which is unique. The two sides pledged that neither country would take any action that would infringe on the security of the other side, and that neither would enter into a similar agreement with another state. In the wake of 9/11, Pakistan and China have pledged to fight “three forces” — those of terrorism, extremism and separatism. On the question of Pakistan’s relationship with India, the Chinese leadership has welcomed the current normalization process in South Asia and believes in a negotiated settlement of the Kashmir conflict — something which President Hu Jintao repeated on Monday.

It is a matter of satisfaction that the murder of three Chinese engineers in Pakistan earlier this month has not cast a shadow on the relationship. While apologizing to his Chinese hosts for the dastardly crime, President Musharraf pointed out that “the man in the street (in Pakistan) loves China” and pledged to uncover those behind the murder. President Hu asked Pakistan to ensure the safety of the Chinese experts working in Pakistan, though observers note that the presence of Chinese specialists is likely to increase as a result of the new agreements signed on Monday. Given China’s transformation into an economic giant, nations of South Asia hope for greater Chinese interest in regional cooperation. Even though Saarc has not achieved much, it decided to expand by admitting Afghanistan as a member. China’s inclusion in Saarc as an observer should help inject balance into this South Asian grouping and perhaps goad it into making greater efforts for improving their peoples’ standard of living by quickening the pace of economic development. China has adopted unorthodox methods of economic development. The amazing success of its special economic zones has attracted foreign technology and investment in a big way. Pakistan could learn from China and remove the bottlenecks in the way of foreign investment.

New hope for Iran crisis

THE latest developments on the Iranian nuclear front give rise to some hope that the crisis may be resolved without resort to economic sanctions or military force. As the situation stands at present, the IAEA director-general will be submitting a report on Iran to the board of governors by the end of February. In early March, the UN Security Council will consider imposing sanctions against Iran, though it may not succeed, thanks to the veto. Yet a ray of hope is now emerging on the horizon. Tehran has come round to considering the Russian proposal it had earlier rejected when it was first put forward in November. This provides for an Iranian-Russian joint venture on Russian soil to produce enriched uranium — a technology Iran is not willing to surrender. Since the Iranians appear to be favourably disposed towards this proposition and are willing to open a dialogue with the European countries and China as well, the deadlock might be broken.

It is important that both sides in this dispute should work for a compromise solution. Iran should not try to push matters too far as it has been doing since August when the government of President Ahmadinejad took over. Given the instability in the Middle East — Iraq and Palestine have been in a state of turmoil as a result of American occupation and Israel’s belligerence — it would not be in the interest of world peace if a new crisis is created over Iran’s nuclear issue. As for the United States and other nuclear powers, it is time they recognized the moral, legal and political implications of confronting Iran on its nuclear programme. Until now Tehran has not violated the NPT. By adopting a hard line — the US has constantly been talking about a plan to strike at the Iranian nuclear plants — Washington has provoked Iran into suspending the monitoring of its facilities by IAEA inspectors. In the absence of safeguards, there will be no check on Iran’s nuclear programme. By involving all the nuclear powers — with the exception of the US which itself has kept away — in the negotiations, Iran would inject an element of stability and objectivity in the situation. One hopes that the IAEA will encourage this broad-based dialogue.

Missing facilities

BY all considerations, the resumption of the Thar rail link is a step forward in the peace process with India. The train station on the Pakistani side of the border, Zero Point, is said to have been built in record time. However, this should not be an excuse for the sorry state of facilities and services for the passengers. Stung by criticism on this issue, some officials say that such problems are bound to be there at the initial stage of re-opening of the link after such a long time and because the restoration of the service was by and large a hurried process. The point is that drinking water, a PCO facility, toilets and bathrooms with running water are not luxuries for travellers but are essentials and the government agencies concerned, especially the Pakistan Railway, must take the blame for not having such basics in place before the service’s inauguration.

For the whole of its return journey from Munabao in India to Karachi — a total travel time of over 16 hours — the train did not have any functioning toilets, because of lack of water. On the Zero Point platform, passengers were not able to even purchase drinking water or any beverage or eatables. Given that they were going to pass through a desert area — especially in the direction of India, where the Indian desert begins as the train leaves Munabao and heads for Jodhpur — this negligence is inexcusable. It would be good if the PR makes sure that such facilities are in place soon, both at Zero Point station and on the Thar Express itself. After all, it seems ironic that on its first-ever run across the desert, the train did not have any water on its way back from India.

Collateral damage in war on quails

AT LEAST it is out in the open. Everyone now knows what the vice-president of the United States enjoys doing for rest and recreation. He likes to shoot defenceless little birds. And sometimes, just sometimes — okay, let’s not be unfair, it’s only once in a while — he aims for elderly lawyers.

The violent pastime conforms to what is known of this inveterate hawk’s character. Unlike many other Americans of his generation, Dick Cheney has no combat experience because he had “other priorities than military service” during the period of US aggression against Vietnam. Unlike Bill Clinton, Cheney didn’t dodge the draft because he opposed the war: he was quite happy for it to be fought, as long as others did the fighting.

His philosophical position evidently remains unchanged. He is remarkably enthusiastic about young American men and women risking their lives in the Iraqi quagmire, for all the wrong reasons. He personally prefers to go after easier quarries. Ducks and quails, unlike Iraqi insurgents, don’t fight back. And hardly anyone objects to canine involvement in going after the prey.

Besides, there appears to be little skill involved in the sorts of hunts Cheney participates in. For instance, an account of a Cheney-led pheasant shoot in Pennsylvania two years ago says that when the shooting party arrived, gamekeepers released 500 pen-raised pheasants from their cages. Not long afterwards, 417 of the birds lay dead; 70 of the kills were attributed to the vice-president. After lunch, it was the turn of mallard ducks to face the wrath of the gunmen.

Frequent participation in “canned hunting” expeditions — so called because the birds or beasts in question have little chance of escape — may explain why Cheney finds it hard to understand the inability of tens of thousands of heavily-armed American troops to “pacify” Iraq. Had he spent some time in Vietnam, he may have acquired a sharper appreciation of how foreign military occupation motivates those at the receiving end to resist and retaliate.

It is extremely unlikely, of course, that either Vietnam or Iraq has lately been on Cheney’s mind, in the wake of what he eventually described as the worst day of his life thus far. In fact, some of the spin conveys the impression that it is Cheney who is the victim in this episode, rather than 78-year-old Texas lawyer Harry Whittington, who was peppered with birdshot all over his face and chest when the vice-president turned around and mistook him for a covey of quail.

First off the mark was Katharine Armstrong, whose family owns the 50,000-acre ranch where the incident occurred. She implied it was Whittington’s fault that he got shot, because he did not announce his presence as he trudged towards Cheney, who was facing the other way. It’s possible that Whittington’s only fault lay in assuming that the vice-president would not pull the trigger without a good look in the direction his barrel was pointing towards — which might suggest he simply didn’t know Cheney well enough.

If this thought crossed Armstrong’s mind, she did not share it with the press. Many American commentators have expressed their consternation over the fact that it was Armstrong — rather than Cheney’s office or the White House — who first broke the news, and that too to her local newspaper, the Corpus Christi Caller-Times. There have been contradictory statements about whether this course was chosen by the vice-president or Armstrong’s family. Chances are it was a collaborative effort.

At one point it was said that Katharine Armstrong was picked as a semi-official spokesperson because she was an eyewitness. Strictly speaking, that may be true — she was seated in a vehicle about a hundred metres away. It does not necessarily follow, however, that she clearly saw everything. By her own admission, when she saw medical assistants rushing towards the hunting party, she initially thought the vice-president, a chronic heart patient, had suffered a coronary setback.

Not a particularly reliable eyewitness, then. At any rate, Armstrong went out of her way to dismiss Whittington’s injuries and superficial and inconsequential, saying the blast “knocked him silly. But he was fine. He was talking. His eyes were open.” That contradicts Cheney’s account, according to which Whittington wasn’t immediately able to talk. Armstrong’s contention that no alcoholic beverages were served at lunch before the shooting party advanced against the quails was again contradicted by the vice-president’s admission that he’s had a beer during the feast.

There has been some conjecture in the American press that Cheney and/or Whittington may have imbibed more than that before setting out. A peep into Cheney’s past reveals two drink-driving convictions, albeit more than 40 years ago. George W. supposedly stopped hitting the bottle when he found God. There is no evidence that his supposed deputy underwent a comparable experience.

Conjecture and contradictions aside, there was little danger that anything in conflict with the vice-president’s interests would escape Armstrong’s lips, given her family’s staunch Republicanism: Katharine’s late father, Toibin, was a leading Bush fund-raiser, while her mother, Anne, has served as co-chairperson of the Republican National Committee, White House counsellor to Richard Nixon, ambassador to Britain under Gerald Ford, and co-chairperson of Ronald Reagan’s presidential campaign. What’s more, she was a member of Halliburton’s board when the controversial firm hired Cheney as its CEO.

Luckily for Cheney — or perhaps luck has nothing to do with it — Whittington too has turned out to be completely loyal. On emerging from hospital, after suffering a minor heart attack because of one of the scores of pellets embedded in his body, he said: “My family and I are deeply sorry for all that Vice-President Cheney and his family have had to go through this past week. We send our love and respect to them, as they deal with situations that are much more serious than what we’ve had to deal with.”

That doesn’t sound like the spontaneous statement of a man emerging from hospital, in an ostensibly free country, with countless bits of lead under his skin. Was he tutored? Did Karl Rove add to his woes by giving him a little speech to memorize? Would his utterance have sounded considerably more surreal had been subjected to this sort of indignity by, say, North Korea’s Kim Jong Il? It’s not hard to imagine something along the lines of: “I had the unique privilege of being chosen for target practice by our beloved president. My family and I humbly apologize if my injuries have caused the Dear Leader the slightest inconvenience. Our joy will know no bounds should my services ever be required again....”

There have, meanwhile, been reports of tensions between presidential and vice-presidential staff over the manner in which the disclosure of the incident was handled. Bush’s spokesman Scott McLellan made a fool of himself by joking about the shooting just after Whittington’s condition had temporarily deteriorated, because no one had told him about it. There have even been suggestions about efforts to replace Cheney with a more viable Bush successor: the name of Condoleezza Rice has been mentioned in this regard.

That may be too much to hope for. The president has said his deputy handled the situation “just fine”. And if that doesn’t sound too effusive, Bush also described Cheney’s explanation as “strong and powerful”. As strong and powerful, presumably, as the reasons for invading Iraq. “The vice-president was involved in a terrible accident and it profoundly affected him.” noted the president, blurring the distinction between gunman and victim.

Coaxing Cheney to make himself available for comment apparently took a bit of effort — and several days — and even then the question of a press conference did not arise. To no one’s surprise, the veep chose to air his woes on the unfair, imbalanced and unfailingly administration-friendly Fox network, moaning about how awful he felt but completely unrepentant about the delay in disclosure and the devious manner in which it was handled. This, after all, is the man who lives by the motto: “Never explain, never apologize.”

Not surprisingly, many Americans find that attitude at odds with their concept of how a democracy should function. Of course, the US falls short of the mark in many other ways, too, but perhaps none so aggravating as Dick Cheney. Hence, Scott McLellan wasn’t the only person who celebrated the veep’s discomfiture with a wisecrack: political commentators as well as TV talk-show hosts had a field day.

Their efforts ranged from a Democratic strategist’s “Bush-Quail ‘06” to David Letterman’s: “The real question now is — is this a one-time thing or will the vice-president try to kill again?” Jon Stewart produced a colour-coded threat chart. And, inevitably, someone recalled what George W. had said about his running mate back in 2000: Cheney, he had told the Houston Chronicle, is “somebody who is going to shoot straight with the American people”.

I know what some of you must be thinking at this juncture. Well, stop right now. It ain’t going to happen. There isn’t a hope in hell of Dick dragging along his understudy the next time he gets trigger-happy. Nor is his close friend and colleague Don Rumsfeld game for a turkey shoot, despite the possibility that it could offer him an opportunity to reprise his best line: “Stuff happens.”

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