OUR prime minister is back in form, emerging from the dark days of dharnas, starting to feel victorious. He has swatted away the gas and electricity tariff hikes, and given his cabinet a stern talking to. Demonstrating rhetorical courage, he described the murder of the Christian couple in Kot Radha Kishan as a crime, and declared war against polio. And last week he jetted off to Beijing to sign 19 MoUs with China, primarily focused on major power projects and industrial development.

The trip to China is in some ways the most obvious salve to the wounds inflicted by PTI and PAT protests. After all, the Chinese president’s visit to Pakistan in September was cancelled because the capital was under siege (leading to the humiliating scenario whereby Xi Jinping made it to Delhi but not Islamabad). Moreover, what better way is there for the Pakistan government to signal to its people and the world that all is well than attracting more Chinese investment?

Pakistan’s ties with China have long been an easy ego boost: in one fell swoop they offer the promise of economic prosperity, counter fears of dependence on the West, and provide a counterweight to India. It is also a rare bilateral relationship that has not been muddied by Pakistan’s Islamic identity issues — few are troubled by the Chinese state’s atheism or ill-treatment of its Muslim minority.

Pakistan’s ties with China have long been an easy ego boost.

But the days of the Chinese panacea seem numbered. Firstly, Pakistan is no longer the only regional recipient of Beijing’s largesse. The Chinese president in September announced that China would invest $20bn over the next five years in India’s railways, industrial parks, and nuclear power projects —- not the figure Delhi was hoping for, but by no means shabby. China has also offered to revamp India’s power sector.

Afghanistan’s new president Ashraf Ghani also took home the good news from Beijing in October that China will provide grants worth $300m to Afghanistan over the next three years. That is more than the total economic assistance Beijing has offered Kabul since 2001.

Pakistan’s civil society is also more savvy and empowered, and willing to question the merits of Chinese investment. The Sindh High Court last month stayed the construction of Chinese-funded nuclear power plants on Karachi’s outskirts, citing environmental concerns. The ruling was based on a petition filed by academics, a journalist and an architect and followed a sustained media campaign by leading physicists who pointed out that the APC-1000 design for the proposed nuclear reactors had not been trialled or built elsewhere, certainly not in China.

The latest round of MoUs signed between Pakistan and China include coal mining, another issue that is increasingly likely to be taken up by concerned citizens (particularly those empowered by the World Bank’s decision to withdraw financial support for Thar projects owing to concerns about the environmental fallout of coal-fired power plants).

China’s investments in Gwadar Port have been stalled owing to the province’s security situation and Baloch resentment. Our state’s attitude has been to try and crush the Baloch insurgency and plough through with Chinese projects. But more sophisticated civil society interventions — particularly legal appeals — and public resistance to Chinese investment could well prove harder to quash.

China’s growing apprehensions about investing in Pakistan are also worth noting. Just as one example, consider delays to the Thar power project owing to Chinese banks’ reluctance to accept sovereign guarantees and take on the bulk of financial risk.

Pakistan can also expect increasing pressure from China to tackle the Uighur militancy. Our country is ground zero for militants from across the region to train, network and plan financing, and as Chinese oppression of the Uighurs escalates, more are likely to be radicalised — in our backyard. China has already warned Pakistan about this issue on several occasions, and further militant attacks in China could lead to bilateral tensions.

Kabul has also cleverly picked up on the Uighur issue as a way to cement ties with Beijing and undermine Sino-Pak ties. Over the past year, Afghan intelligence agencies have detained dozens of Uighur militants and meticulously reported back to China, providing evidence that the militants were trained in camps in Pakistan. Not surprisingly, Ghani committed to help China tackle the threats from Uighur militancy while he was in Beijing.

Increased circumspection with regard to our relationship with China is not a bad thing. Pakistan deserves to be an independent, economically viable state, and should not exchange reliance on Western aid for an uncritical dependency on Chinese mega-projects. Hopefully the slight fraying of bilateral ties will help Pakistan’s economic and foreign policies to mature.

The writer is a freelance journalist.

huma.yusuf@gmail.com

Twitter: @humayusuf

Published in Dawn, November 10th, 2014