Imagine India getting bilateral aid from one country, in one shot, of about $370 billion. That is the equivalent of Chinese President Xi Jinping's $46 billion package of offers to Pakistan, whose economy is one-eighth of India's and whose government budget is smaller than the Chinese package. The figure also exceeds by a mile the total US aid given to Pakistan in the last quarter-century. Still, it is necessary to assess the whole thing with a cool head.
The offer of eight submarines will certainly improve Pakistan's ability to practise sea denial, but will not change the military balance. Two of the submarines will be replacements for ancient boats that hark back to the 1970s, and Pakistan has just three other submarines today. India's submarine fleet, though depleted, is getting refurbished and is likely to be about twice as big at all times. The rest of Pakistan's navy consists primarily of 10 frigates, whereas India has at least 15 ships that are bigger and more capable, in a navy with 45 or 50 major combatant ships. What is politically significant is that China has now become the main supplier to Pakistan's navy, since it has also supplied its most recent frigates, and is already the main supplier of aircraft for its air force. As is well known, China has long been the key supplier for Pakistan's atomic and missile programmes as well. In many ways, Pakistan is on its way to becoming China's client state.
Much of the money mentioned during Mr Xi's visit to Pakistan is to fund electricity projects, in a country that is desperately short of power. The proposed projects, totalling 16,400 MW, will increase the country's power generation capacity by about 75 per cent - but it is less than the capacity that India has added in a year. So, despite the outsize sums involved (in relation to Pakistan's economy), these are not important in and of themselves.
The real significance of the announcements lies in China's success in roping Pakistan into its larger strategic plan for developing a naval base at Gwadar, building a multi-modal transport corridor from Xinjiang all the way to Karachi and Gwadar (through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir), and therefore breaking out of East Asia and becoming a player in West Asia. This is of course easier than it sounds, because the terrain is difficult and Baluchistan is restive; the route for the rail-road-pipeline corridor has already been changed once to avoid tribal hotspots in Pakistan's north-west. Also, as China has learnt to its cost in Myanmar, Sri Lanka and elsewhere (including parts of Africa), overweening reach-out to countries can provoke a political backlash. That may seem unlikely just now, given the "all-weather" relationship between the two countries, but Pakistan is nothing if not an unstable polity.
The lesson for India is that China's superior economic performance over the past quarter-century is the reason for this strategic outreach that is unsettling to India. If India is to deal with the new situation, then it has to start outperforming China - and not for a year or two, but on a sustained basis for the next quarter-century. For that, India needs to keep its focus on the essentials - as China has done since 1978.
The offer of eight submarines will certainly improve Pakistan's ability to practise sea denial, but will not change the military balance. Two of the submarines will be replacements for ancient boats that hark back to the 1970s, and Pakistan has just three other submarines today. India's submarine fleet, though depleted, is getting refurbished and is likely to be about twice as big at all times. The rest of Pakistan's navy consists primarily of 10 frigates, whereas India has at least 15 ships that are bigger and more capable, in a navy with 45 or 50 major combatant ships. What is politically significant is that China has now become the main supplier to Pakistan's navy, since it has also supplied its most recent frigates, and is already the main supplier of aircraft for its air force. As is well known, China has long been the key supplier for Pakistan's atomic and missile programmes as well. In many ways, Pakistan is on its way to becoming China's client state.
Much of the money mentioned during Mr Xi's visit to Pakistan is to fund electricity projects, in a country that is desperately short of power. The proposed projects, totalling 16,400 MW, will increase the country's power generation capacity by about 75 per cent - but it is less than the capacity that India has added in a year. So, despite the outsize sums involved (in relation to Pakistan's economy), these are not important in and of themselves.
The real significance of the announcements lies in China's success in roping Pakistan into its larger strategic plan for developing a naval base at Gwadar, building a multi-modal transport corridor from Xinjiang all the way to Karachi and Gwadar (through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir), and therefore breaking out of East Asia and becoming a player in West Asia. This is of course easier than it sounds, because the terrain is difficult and Baluchistan is restive; the route for the rail-road-pipeline corridor has already been changed once to avoid tribal hotspots in Pakistan's north-west. Also, as China has learnt to its cost in Myanmar, Sri Lanka and elsewhere (including parts of Africa), overweening reach-out to countries can provoke a political backlash. That may seem unlikely just now, given the "all-weather" relationship between the two countries, but Pakistan is nothing if not an unstable polity.
The lesson for India is that China's superior economic performance over the past quarter-century is the reason for this strategic outreach that is unsettling to India. If India is to deal with the new situation, then it has to start outperforming China - and not for a year or two, but on a sustained basis for the next quarter-century. For that, India needs to keep its focus on the essentials - as China has done since 1978.
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