China takes wait-and-see stance on Pakistan's political turmoil

With political uncertainty growing in Pakistan and a no-confidence motion against PM Imran Khan, Pakistani officials and experts have noted that China has adopted a wait-and-see approach in its relations with the country.

Since the beginning of March, opposition parties including PML-N had been preparing for the no-confidence motion to topple the Khan government. Now, Pakistan's national assembly -- the lower house of parliament -- is set to vote on the motion on March 27. If the motion secures at least 172 of 342 votes, Khan will have to step down from his post as prime minister.

In the buildup to the poll, the political atmosphere has become charged. Khan's ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party (PTI), has announced it will hold a mega rally in Islamabad on the day of the vote, a move seen as an attempt to sabotage the no-confidence vote. Likewise, the opposition parties have announced a long march to Islamabad on March 23 in a bid to counter the political machinations of Khan's regime.

Officials and experts believe that after the likely ouster of Khan, China will prefer a government led by PML-N, a center-right Punjab-centric political party named after former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

A senior official of the Pakistani government told Nikkei Asia on condition of anonymity that China has adopted a wait-and-see policy in the current political crisis. "China prefers a PML-N government but, in the case that Imran Khan survives the no-confidence motion, China will still work with him, albeit with less enthusiasm."

The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor -- the $50 billion Pakistan component of Beijing's Belt and Road Initiative -- has not progressed well under the incumbent government. Experts believe that a new government led by PML-N will be able to pump a new life into the CPEC.

Ishtiaq Ahmed, an associate professor at the School of Politics and International Relations at Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad, is of the view that Beijing is upset with the PTI government for slowing down the CPEC projects since 2018. "The Chinese were happy with the [leaders of PML-N] and will be excited if the political change brings them back to power," he told Nikkei.

Ahmed added that the persistent trust deficit between China and Pakistan would disappear if Khan's government falls, and that the prospect of Shahbaz Sharif, the younger brother of Nawaz Sharif and current president of PML-N, taking over as prime minister, will be please China, given his strong belief in the CPEC projects.

"Beijing had found a comfort level with the previous PML-N government [which ended in 2018], which was the administration that launched the CPEC with Beijing," Michael Kugelman, the deputy director of Asia Program at the Wilson Center in Washington, told Nikkei.

While the current government's emphasis on anti-corruption is a concern for Beijing, given its own preference for opacity regarding CPEC, "[t]here are also concerns in China that the Khan government hasn't sufficiently addressed security risks for Chinese projects and Chinese nationals in Pakistan," Kugelman said.

Fazal Rehman, the director of the Pakistan Institute of China Studies at Pakistan's Sargodha University, has a different take on this matter. He says that China's obvious choice would be to let the current government complete its routine tenure and bring a change through elections which are only a year away.

A move like a no-confidence motion "has inherent dangers of agitation and political instability at a time when the country is struggling to overcome economic woes," Rehman told Nikkei.

Kugelman agrees. "For China, the main concern is less what the next leadership looks like if there is a change in government, and more the risk of uncertainty and volatility if there is a long transition process leading to a new government," he said, adding that "China's chief hope is that the political crisis does not spiral out of control."

Courtesy: Nikkei Asia