Dt: 14/10/16
Book Review
The China Pakistan Axis (Asia’s New Geo-politics)
by Andrew Small
Published by: Random House, India
Pages: 210 of text and 143 pages of notes and bibliography
Price: 399
Review by Dr T.H.Chowdary*
That Pakistan is a client state of China and that China could get anything done even by Pakistan army , is illustrated by the siege and armed action by Pakistani Army at the bidding of China on the famous Lal Masjid. Red Mosque or Lal Masjid is the prestigious first mosque that was built in Pakistan‘s capital Islamabad in 1965. Here hundreds of women and men are indoctrinated to be terrorist jihadis . Eight Chinese girls were running a massage parlour in Islamabad. They were also alleged to be indulging in prostitution. Fundamentalist Muslims took them as captives. China felt it was an insult to that mighty state by its client, Pakistan . Hu Jintao, the President of China demanded of Musharaff, the dictator ruler, that the militants in the Lal Masjid must be flushed out and the Chinese freed. The Khateeb and mullahs in this masjid were sheltering Muslim terrorists of Xing Xiang, the secessionist Muslim majority province in China. On Chinas’ insistence, Pak army laid siege to and gunned their way ( 4-10 July 2007) into the masjid, 108 persons including 12 vighurs taking shelter in the Lal Masjid were killed after a 24 hr operation. Pakistan was told that the Talibans and scores of terrorist organisations that Pakistan was nurturing could take action in India and Afghanistan but none should support the Xinxiang Muslim separatists and terrorists ( This assault of the Pak Army on the Lal Masjid and the death of more than 100 terrorists ensconced within the masjid, is an exact parallel to Indian army’s assault on India’s Amritsar’s Golden Temple where Bhindranwale and his Sikh terrorist separatists took refuse and India was forced to assault the golden temple and kill a few hundred and put an end to the temple becoming the refugee for terrorists).
2. In 1960, at the UN General Assembly meet, Nikita Khrushchev the Soviet Dictator Prime Minister confronted Zulfikar Ali Bhutto of the Pakistan delegation to the UNGA abused Bhutto and told him that if Pakistan looked towards India or Afghanistan, the Soviet Union would take out its eyes . Bhutto requested Khrushchev not to get angry. Pakistan was ready to quit all the western pacts ( CENTO and SEATO ).
3. The Soviet Union vetoed scores of resolutions critical of India in the Security Council. Soviet Union ( and later Russia ) has been a steadfast supporter of India and much of our military equipment has for all these decades been supplied by USSR /Russia. That such an ally of India conducted joint exercises with Pakistan army in September 2016 bodes ill for India. May be , Russia is sending a signal that “if you (India) draw too close to USA, my adversary, Russia has the option of bolstering your enemy, Pakistan just as China has been doing since the 1950s”.
4. In the 1960s & 70s both Mao Tse Tung and Chou End Lai advised the Pakistani rulers that they should create fifth columns in the enemy territory; that is, India ( a number of Congress leaders and AAP anarchists are doubting and demanding that India give evidence that a surgical strike has indeed taken place. We can easily guess who would be willing to be the fifth columns of Pakistan . ( Qasim Razvi, the supremo of goonda Razakars in Nizam’s Hyderabad state had bragged in 1948 that if Hindu India dared to wage war with Muslims of Hyderabad, (and a half crore of Muslims in India will march against that country with sword in one hand and Koran in the other unfortunately )
· Pakistan was the first Muslim state to recognise Communist China.
· China vetoed Bangladesh ‘s admission to UN
· Afghanistan voted against admission of Pakistan to the UN
5. China and Pakistan, India’s two most powerful neighbours and antagonists share an all weather relationship that is, as buried in depth as it is layered in secrecy. Andrew Small has put together the story of China and Pakistan’s growing and in parts, troubled friendship.
6. Pakistan is simply a client state of either America or China is evident from another fact - China routinely kills East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM)’s terrorists based in Pakistan without Pakistan’s ever objecting . Similarly American drones kill targeted jihadis in Pakistan without the later protesting . Pakistan’s terrorists are all anti-India assets.
7. China urged USA repeatedly to give advanced weapons to Pakistan; weapons that it itself could not give. It shows that China-Pakistan axis is buttressed by the USA so far.
8. Here is a fable: When Brahma created this planet and people, he endowed the African continent with all the mineral, wealth like coal, oil, gas, diamonds and so on. He endowed Europe with scientists and intellectual capabilities . He endowed America with excellent entrepreneurial abilities so that they can take the wealth from every country and indulge in world trade and global domination. He endowed India with all the three things which he gave to Africa, Europe and America. Narada asked Braham, “why are you partial to India by giving everything to that country? “Brahma said, “don’t worry I have also given to India two neighbours, Pakistan and China who can take care of India. That this alliance between Pakistan & China is the greatest threat to India is obvious. China gave nuclear materials and knowhow to Pakistan over a period of 30 years. It has equipped Pakistan with submarines , warships fighter planes, tanks and so on. Once Pakistan was a client state of America. But now it is Chinese client. Pakistan has given a part of occupied Kashmir to China. That is a great gift. China blocked the entry of India into the Nuclear Supplier Group (NSG), although every other country in that group was for India’s membership. It is vetoing all UN resolutions against the terrorist group rising in and nurtured by Pakistan.
9. Andrew Small has done a 30 year long study of Pakistani’s policy, its client ship sometimes of America and now China. In this book he has given in great detail how the relations between China and Pakistan developed and how China has declared itself to be “the all weather” friend of Pakistan . Andrew Small is a senior transatlantic Fellow with the Asia program at the German Marshall Fund of the USA. His research focuses among others on Chinese Policy in South West Asia and its role in “problem” and fragile states. He writes in the prestigious journals like Foreign Affairs, the New York Times, Foreign Policy and the Washington Quarterly.
10. Indian intellectuals and policy makers and party leaders (what a hope ) should read this book to know how deep and unbreakable is the relationship between Pakistan and China. Whether there would be a war between India and Pakistan and whether Pakistan would use its nuclear weapons when its defeat is imminent depends entirely upon China and to a diminishing extent, on USA.
11. What is surprising is that no analyst has explored the fundamental, congenital and everlasting enmity of Pakistan for India. Pakistani leaders have said that Kashmir is not the only and the last issue with India. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto talked of a 1000 year war (eating grass and leaves to make nuclear weapons and Gen.Zia-ul-Haq vowed to inflict a thousand cuts). The unstated, psychic issue is the torment that political Islamists have; namely that India is the only country and Hindus are the only people whom they conquered and ruled for hundreds of years but could not convert them all and wipe out their faith, dharma, and culture; they reckon it I s Islam’s unfinished agenda to reconquer and rule India and convert as they did to Egypt, Iran and the Christian lands of North Africa, Levant and Babylon. How one wishes some scholars explore this aspect as the cause of the undying enmity of Pakistan ‘s leaders for India.
Books that could be read for further important information and insights are:
· Pakistan or The Partition of India - Dr B R Ambedkar
· Where Border Bleed - Rajiv Dogra
· Avoiding Armageddon – Bruce Riedel
(America, India and Pakistan to the Brink & Back)
· Nehru. A Troubled Legacy – RNP Singh
· Kashmir: The Vajpayee Years – A S Dulat
· A Life in Diplomacy - Maharaj Krishna Rasgotra
· Sir Syed Ahmed’s Meerut Speech 1888
· Mohammed Ali Jinnah’s Speech in March 1940 on the Pakistan Resolution in Lahore
· The Pakistanis love China for what it can do for them, while the Chinese love Pakistanis despite what they do to themselves – Aijazuddin, E.S: From A Head, Through A head, To a Head: The Secret Channel Between the US and China through Pakistan (P.20) O.U.P, Karachi: 2000 .
· China does not advocate nuclear proliferation at all but we even more strongly oppose nuclear monopolies – Deng Xiaoping 1975
· So long as the Indian government oppresses the Kashmiri people, China will not cease to support the Kashmiri people in their struggle for self determination. So long as the Government of India persists in its unbridled aggression towards Pakistan , China will not cease supporting Pakistan in her just struggle against aggression. This stand of our will never change, however, many helpers you (India) may have such as the US, the Modern Revisionists (Soviet Union) and the US controlled United Nations. (Source: Chinese note to India 1965)
· Personally I must have said on no less than ten occasions to my American friends that the US should aid Pakistan - Deng Xiaoping 1979
· Our friend (Pakistan ) is in trouble and we need to provide as much help as possible – Yang Jiechi to Richard Holbrooke, 2009.
(1,523 words)
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