EDITORIAL: Ordinarily, turning down an invitation to a democracy summit arranged by the US government, especially when bilateral ties are strained and need to be improved more for our sake than theirs, ought to be the last thing Pakistan should do. But when it’s crystal clear that the whole thing is just another exercise in using democracy and human rights as a cover to advance the superpower’s geopolitical interests, which in this case is its obsession with containing China, Islamabad’s participation would have served only one purpose; and that is to drive a wedge between itself and Beijing. That is why the government’s response, that it would rather engage with the US on the issue of democracy “at an opportune time in the future”, which is diplomatic jargon for ‘no, thank you’, makes a lot of sense.
When Washington invited Taiwan to represent China instead of Beijing, it practically slammed the door in the face of all if not most countries that are China’s allies and also part of its ambitious BRI (Belt and Road Initiative) project, of which CPEC (China Pakistan Economic Corridor) is a very essential part. Surely, it didn’t expect Pakistan to play along and annoy China because the latter is not just our strongest ally, but also the biggest foreign investor in the country and often of invaluable help at the UN Security Council. This relationship has been cultivated over a very long period of time, of course, and there’s no reason Pakistan would, or should, jeopardise it just to feed America’s hegemonic appetite.
It tells a lot that Washington chose to leave Russia out of its democracy summit as well. President Biden was vice president when the Obama administration initiated the policy to pivot away from the mess in the Middle East and concentrate on China and Russia as the principal threats of the new century. Therefore, it’s not really surprising to see his administration going down the same road. But that doesn’t change the fact that Russia is still a major world power, nor that Pakistan has been trying to warm up to it in the aftermath of the so-called war against terrorism. Besides, the Russia-China alliance, which has also roped in Iran to a large extent, forms an arc of influence across the region which Pakistan would do well to try and become a part of. India got on board for a while, but then opted out when Washington placed it at the centre of its Pivot to Asia policy and since then it’s been America’s number-one ally in the Asian region.
Perhaps this is also a good time to lift the veil over some western powers’ old habit of using democracy as an excuse to advance their agendas wherever and whenever they wish to. The war against Iraq, for example, was only partly about its mythical WMDs (Weapons of Mass Destruction) and predominantly about supposedly ending Saddam’s tyranny and making way for democracy and human rights and all that. So was the ‘leading from behind’ campaign that was somehow meant to bring representative government to Libya so everybody could live happily ever after in one of the world’s largest producers of light sweet crude; the most precious type of oil. Look how all that turned out.
And if that wasn’t enough, now we’re expected to believe that the west is so upset about China’s alleged mistreatment of minority Uighurs that it is willing to shake the whole region because of it. Since Pakistan got a very close and clear view of what such things did in Afghanistan, and also paid a very heavy price for it, it would do best to stay well away from all such campaigns. It is unfortunate that while the world is changing, its more advanced and influential countries are not changing with it. Instead, they are letting their own democratic institutions and credentials corrode instead of improving them. The Capitol riot earlier in the year and now the excruciating paralysis in American politics do little justice to the title of ‘world’s greatest democracy’. Across the pond, the great lie of Brexit in what was sold ahead of the referendum and what was eventually delivered, and the greater lie to the Scottish people and the refusal to grant them another chance to break away only scratch the surface of how politics in the many bastions of democracy has become more exploitative than representative.
Instead of once again trying to rally client states around hollow slogans that are well past their sell by date, global leaders would do the whole world a big favour by turning their attention to putting their own house in order. Till then, Pakistan is better served by protecting its alliances with old allies and crafting new, beneficial ones as opportunities present themselves.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2021