Rethinking Pakistan and China

Rethinking the Pakistan Plan

by Amitai Etzioni

The National Interest

The most promising route seems to be the one that appears the most difficult—helping settle the India-Pakistan conflict. Such a settlement would free Pakistan to focus its forces on the insurgency, reduce its sense that it must control the course of events in Afghanistan, possibly scale back its military nuclear program and better secure its nuclear arms. It would also reduce the importance of the military. Detailed and rather widely shared ideas have been put forth on how this conflict might be settled, and various tension-reduction moves and negotiations between the two nations have already taken place. That indicates this road can be navigated.

For the West to influence the conflict settlement, it will need to show Pakistan that the United States and its allies are no longer tilting toward India. Doing so will require a geopolitical reassessment, one which acknowledges that China is best treated as a regional power (although not a regional hegemon) with few, if any, global ambitions and a power with which the West can deal on many international matters. This reassessment, moreover, would recognize that balancing is a concept that applies poorly to the twenty-first-century age of weapons of mass destruction, cyberwarfare, long-range missiles, unconventional forces and terrorism. Thus there is no reason to try to cast India in the role of a China balancer.

In short, both the links between Afghanistan and Pakistan and Pakistan’s internal dynamics are affected by the India-Pakistan entanglement. This entanglement, in turn, is affected by the India-China-West relationship. Although at first it may seem far-fetched to argue that a promising way to break the persistent morass in Afghanistan and Pakistan is to reexamine Western assumptions about China’s course, this avenue might well be worth exploring in its own right and for the sake of all the parties involved.

Amitai Etzioni is a professor of international affairs at The George Washington University. He is the author of Security First (Yale University Press, 2007). He is indebted to Julia Milton and Marissa Cramer for research assistance on this article.

"China: Making an Adversary"

Abstract:



Commentators in the Western media, the United States Congress and academia are increasingly contending that China is on its way to becoming a threatening global force, an adversary, if not an enemy. This article examines whether those views are justified, after first establishing the importance of critically assessing all claims that a nation is turning into an adversary. The examination proceeds by summarizing the arguments of those who consider China an adversary in the making – the 'adversarians' – and the responses of those who hold China is leaning toward a peaceful development and should be engaged – the 'engagers'. The discussion is organized into three segments, each analyzing the debate with regard to the different sectors of power: military/geopolitical, economic and ideational. The concluding sections explore alternative American responses to China's rising power in each of the three sectors.



Find the article in International Politics Volume 48, Issue 6 (November 2011).