- China raises…
I am talking of the Great Wall of China, one of the wonders of the world. What happens on either side is not static. It keeps changing. Before the economic downturn caused by the coronavirus, the world order or the status quo was on the other side outside China and the USA was the undisputed hegemon or sole superpower. Now after the coronavirus, which first started on that side of the Wall, things are changing and rather more rapidly than one had imagined. Our job as no superpower, but as a minion of the USA, is still very difficult. We have to watch and wait and be patient to see what kind of new status quo emerges and what our place should be in it. Patience is one of the most important Chinese virtues and they think and plan generations in advance, not expecting to see the end result for many years. Former Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai caught the essence of this thinking when asked what he thought of the French Revolution and replied, “It’s too early to tell.”
Do not for a second imagine that a hegemon will lose its primacy easily. The USA is very powerful financially and militarily and it has got global institutions dancing to the tune of the dollar, which leads to the world dancing to the tune of the dollar. The dollar will not go down without kicking and screaming and its kicks can be very hard and screams very loud. But back to Pakistan. We have to be careful that whilst not upsetting the USA to the point where it retaliates against us, we should slowly and imperceptibly try and become a part of the new status quo, the new world order with “Chinese characteristics.” So caution and care should be the order of the day because we have to remember how much our external debt is and if they decide to squeeze our lemon so to speak, very little juice will come out and Pakistan will just become a squeezed lemon.
But we are also already very heavily beholden to China as well as heavily indebted to it. Don’t forget that while the USA and its agencies have given us a great deal of loans, China has only given us money for infrastructure. Now with the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, what China is giving us is loans mostly from private Chinese banks, which will add to our debt stock. But now there could be a way around it with China now pushing the Yuan to the detriment of the US dollar. Lets’ see what happens. As Zhou Enlai said, “It is too early to tell.”
A lady friend of mine wrote from France after reading my last article, that Pakistan has already sold its soul to China. She said, “While I agree that Pakistanis certainly have the knowhow and should have pride in ‘Made in Pakistan,’ the country sold its soul to China decades ago. China owns Pakistan– its ports, dams, roads etc. And China has flooded Pakistan with cheap merchandise… Pakistan is not the only victim here; many poorer countries have suffered the same fate and sacrificed their national dignity for ‘Made in China.’ Africa is another example they exploit, offer to build infrastructure etc and governments think so many foreigners will energize economies. But the Chinese soon bring in their families who open shops, undercut the local merchants by offering cheap ‘Made in China’ goods, destroying the national fabric of society. The well thought out plan to world domination.”
I wrote back that I didn’t totally disagree with her but I don’t totally agree either. The West seems to have a phobia about China’s advance and spread. We have had a large Chinese diaspora in Pakistan since 1949. Many were cobblers, dentists and restaurateurs and later a few beauty salons. “And shop owners…” she replied. “And in Paris and NYC they own the manicure/pedicure trade.”
There is nothing alarming about this. It is natural to ply your trade. That doesn’t mean that these countries have sold their soul to China. It is just that we find it peculiar that there are so many Chinese shops and restaurants all over the place. We have been to many Western cities and found South Asian restaurants everywhere (and not very good ones, by the way.) London and America’s hospitals are very dependent on Pakistani and Indian doctors and Filipina nurses but they haven’t sold their soul to these countries.
My worry is that the new hegemon will eventually expect us to change our behaviour according to their way of doing things just as the British did. We have to prevent China from creating Pakistanis who are Chinese in every respect except for the colour of their skins. In that, for example, the China-Pakistan trade corridor will play a very important role. In fact, it is this belt-road initiative of China’s that is going to be one of the pivots of the new world order and Chinese hegemony. But it does not need to be a bad or harmful element of the new world order. If Pakistan’s goods and the goods of other countries can be exported east and west via Pakistan along the old Silk Road and thereafter even beyond, what could the problem possibly be? If Pakistanis switch to chicken corn soup instead of tea, we would actually save a lot of money because our chicken and corn are indigenous while our tea is imported. You see you have to think out of the box.
Coincidentally, as I had written last week, there has been a fillip to the ‘Made in Pakistan’ concept where Pakistan is one of five countries that has been asked to make a vaccine out of remdesivir. There is nothing innovative here because remdesivir has been around for a long time, but at least it has been recognised that Pakistani pharmaceutical companies have the ability and wherewithal to make an anti coronavirus vaccine by the millions. If nothing else, we could make more than enough money out of this which could defray our costs and losses fighting this virus. This is just a start and you don’t know where it will lead. The point is, always try and find the silver lining in the darkest of clouds.
