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Afghanistan war
This Week in AsiaOpinion

Asian AngleFirst Trump, then China: as Pakistan loses support, it should lose the pretence on cross-border terror, too

Beijing used BRICS summit to send its all-weather ally a message: it’s time for Islamabad to rethink its self-defeating narrative on Afghanistan and India

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Pakistani soldiers in South Waziristan, on the border with Afghanistan. Photo: AFP
Tom Hussain

In 1992, when Pakistan first came under international diplomatic pressure to halt terrorist attacks on India emanating from its territory, Islamabad’s chief diplomat and the architect of its modern-day strategic alliance with China, Akram Zaki, told me: “Pakistan’s foreign policy is in a minefield without a map”. It still is.

By naming Pakistan-based terrorist groups in the declaration issued at the end of the BRICS leaders meeting in Xiamen on Monday, China has publicly reminded its all-weather ally that the time has come for it to put an end to its relationships with non-state actors.
Coming two weeks after US President Donald Trump issued a humiliating ultimatum to Islamabad, and ahead of a diplomatic support-seeking tour of Beijing, Moscow, Ankara and Tehran by Pakistani Foreign Minister Khawaja Mohammed Asif, the timing and multilateral context of the message is definitive.

Is Trump driving Pakistan deeper into China’s orbit?

China may be working overtime to help Pakistan negotiate a way out of a diplomatic dead end, in part to protect its multibillion-dollar “Belt and Road” investments, but the onus is on Islamabad to come to terms with the changing realities of Asian geopolitics.
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US President Donald Trump uses a speech at the Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall in Arlington, Virginia, to warn Pakistan that Washington will no longer tolerate Pakistan offering safe havens to extremists. Photo: AFP
US President Donald Trump uses a speech at the Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall in Arlington, Virginia, to warn Pakistan that Washington will no longer tolerate Pakistan offering safe havens to extremists. Photo: AFP

The most daunting challenge for Pakistan is to come to terms with the folly of a self-defeating narrative which paints Afghanistan and India as bigger sponsors of cross-border terror than itself.

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While there is considerable truth to the Pakistani assertion that dirty wars are being waged against each other by most states with a stake in the “Great Game” in Afghanistan, two wrongs do not make a right. Besides, China has stayed above the fray, making its growing role as a neutral arbiter acceptable to all.

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