Canberra [Australia], July 13 (ANI): Pakistan’s foreign policylink> is indisarray as no country has come to offer it extraordinary support amidrising inflation and a balance-of-payments crisis.Arif Rafiq link>, president ofVizier Consulting, LLC, a political risk advisory company focused on theMiddle East and South Asia, writing in Australian Strategic PolicyInstitute (ASPI) said that Pakistan’s relationship with long-time partnerChina is also facing a stress test.When former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khanlink>’s government fell in avote of no-confidence in April, his detractors in the power elite claimedthat the change of government would lead to improved ties with the worldand an easing of the country’s economic crisis.Khan, they said, had ruined Pakistan’s relations with the West with stepslike an ill-timed visit to Russia that coincided with the invasion ofUkraine.They also alleged that his government had harmed ties with long-time allyChina, including by levelling accusations of corruption in projects thatwere part of the Belt and Road Initiative-linked China-Pakistan EconomicCorridor, reported ASPI.But the foreign policy reset pursued by the new coalition government andthe Pakistan Army, which had backed Khan until relations soured late lastyear, has yielded few tangible dividends.
In late April, a terrorist attack took the lives of Chinese nationals inthe port city of Karachi. Beijing lost confidence in Islamabad’s ability tosecure Chinese nationals and has since requested permission to deployChinese private security contractors to Pakistan, reported ASPI.Meanwhile, Pakistani commentators tied to the ruling coalition havefostered the impression that concessions to the United States could beexchanged for economic relief measures. But Pakistan’s attemptedrebalancing to the West has done little in this regard.The International Monetary Fund continues to drive a hard bargain,insisting that Islamabad raise electricity and fuel prices, ramp up taxcollection and make sizeable budget cuts.There is simply little appetite among Pakistan’s bilateral and multilateralpartners to continue to subsidise the Pakistani elite’s recklessmacroeconomic policies.In fact, Pakistan’s economic distress and its grey-listing by the FinancialAction Task Force have proved the efficacy of economic competence, reportedASPI.Moreover, America’s deference to India reflects its perceptions of NewDelhi’s importance in its efforts to counter Beijing in the Asia-Pacificregionlink>.This imposes a ceiling on cooperation with Islamabad, limiting it to thenon-strategic domain.Also, anti-US sentiment is rife in Pakistan, and it may be a factor inPakistani electoral politics. Most Pakistanis, according to a survey byGallup Pakistan, are now ‘angry’ about the removal of Khan as primeminister, and close to a majority believe his claims that his downfall wasdue to an American ‘regime change’ campaign, reported ASPI. (ANI)
