China is very much in the foray, in the scheme of things.
It's like Pindi is leveraging US to get closer to China, the CPEC investement and all that, and at the same time leveraging China making US perturbed and coming up with funds/aid and bailouts.
Billions of USD's poured in during WOT with Musharraf at the helm, and earlier during Zia eara when US funded the Jihad in Aghanistan, but that aid/CSD, funds didn't trickled down to the masses, only a select few got the benefits, the generals mostly.
This whole 'rentier' on the lease, pandering to others, sense of entitlement, looking for approval from others/west, analogy is flawed and not sustainable, not pluralistic, not empowering to the masses, never ever a country flourished without the sovereignty and the power to take independent decisions.
Pakistan needed a bottom up, a pluralistic, holistic development model that benefits millions upon millions of people, unlike this trickle down effect model where money flows from a few rich to the poor.