Pakistan has always been in a position that can only be termed as
enviable.
If India had been blessed with the same set of factors that Pakistan had been bestowed with then India could easily have become a far more economcally progressive and advanced nation than it is right now
Pakistan is an example of a girl being wooed by two suitors
However unlike most girls who are adept at keeping multiple suitors on their feet, dancing to her tunes,
to get work done her way, Pakistan has unfortunately done no such thing and has ended up fritting away the adavantage of such an oppurtunity presented to it
Suitor no.1 -
United States of America
You, Pakistan, were the reason capitalist USA was able to thwart back Communism from Afghanistan. If Pakistan were to refuse acting as the conduit to supply military hardware to the Afghan resistance forces, then there could be no way in hell that the Afghans could have driven the Soviets out of Afganistan, let alone in such a comprehensive manner.
A loss of Capitalism to Communism during the Cold War would have resulted in the American having to commmit sometihng akin to a western version of honor killing, to esape the shame brough about by its loss to Communism.
Pakistan prevented this from happening to the US
No other country surrounding Afghanistan at that time would have agreed to playing the role you played [Iran - Ayatollah and all other countries were part of USSR]
Had it not been for you, children in Afghnistan would have grown up reading Pushkin, Gorky and Tolstoy as opposed to whatever it is that they grow up reading today.
Being such a critical cog in the wheel of things at that time you could have the Americans hopping and dancing to your tunes. Hell you could have them walking on their knees to act according to your desires
Its fine [for you] to have asked for & recieved their cutting edge [at that time] military hadware like the Falcons and Cobra Attack Helicopter. It is also possibly true true that you diverted a lot of the hadware destined for Afghanistan for yourself, which, given the stakes involved, the Americans would even have overlooked and supplied more hadware for the Afghans.
The unfortunate part of it was that Pakistan stopped just at that. If you were to call up their Govt official and say
We are planning to start a World-class Engineering College in [enter a Pakistani city]. Please see to it that our students are able to start attending that college in two years time
What right thinking American President would refuse to comply with your desire to have an Engineering Collge set up by them for you in Pakistan. Hell, they'd probably have requested the best of professors from Stanford and M.I.T to take classes for the first few years in that collges as Pakistani professors would be trained in America to to impart the same level of knowledge as the Americans impart
If you'd got them to open up at least 2-3 such institutes with comparable infrastructure and facilities as their American counterparts, 15 years later these very institutes would have acted as parent institiute for other other Pakistani educational institutions of the same caliber. This would have spawned a whole series of Educational institutes and a system of education that would have been the envy of the regional countries
You could easily have got them also to set up industries for you, impart training to opearate and manage the factories - all by Pakistani citizens that would then go on to play greater role for your economy
The Americans would have been in no position to refuse these demands from you given the stakes involved. The above mentioned things, though only a small example, would have added value to Pakistan, paid for itself and enable further growth, this time carried out by Pakistan itslef.
Instead of leaveraging this advantageouse position, you kept asking just for military hardware and financial aid a great deal of which was squandered away due to mismangament and the military hardwares are becoming obsolete as time passes
What a collosal waste of an oppurtunity by Pakistan. and you blame the US for abandoning you after Afghanistan. If you had extracted those dals from america, America's abandonement would have become irrelevant as you would have been in a position to suppport yourself
The effective of using this leaverage now is suspect, as you had been threatened of being bombed back to the Stone Ages in case of non-compliance
If the present circumstances prevail,
as far as the U.S is concerned it will not allow you to fail and disintegrate - the catastrophy that might be unleashed in the eventuality of nuclear devices falling in the hands of terrorists is a nightmare americans won't let happen
It will do just that much what is enough to mantain the working of a Democratic institute in Pakistan - financially and diplomatically
however Ameircan efforts would in no way help make Pakistan an independant vibrant economy that it could become if it had played its cards right in the 70s-80s
Suitor no.2 -
People's Republic of China
Of all the countries in the string of pearls being deveoped by China aound India, the only country that is any serious casue of concern for India is Pakistan - boy you surely perfected the art of causing concern and trouble for India
Without the co-operation of Pakistan, China's string of pearls ambitions remains merely a symbolic gesture. Pakistan provides the
sting in
string of pearls [the
"r" being provided by all the other nations put together and
"of perals" being China's own Military might]
Yet Pakistan has never capitalised on China's vulnerabilities and has instead has shown eternal gratitude for actions and measures that favored the Chinese exponentially more than it favors the Pakistanis
The forum is replete with examples of Pakistani members exhibiting unrestrained glee and outpouring of gratitue when a Chinese company invests in setting up a Chinese company in Pakistan to cater to the sole needs of Pakistan
The other day in a thread that offered similar oppurtunity for Chinese flag waving by Pakistanis, Omar1984 was seen delirious with joy and happiness when the news of China investing $500 million dollar in Pakistan's telecom industry was posted [BTW Omar1984, if 1984 happens to be the year of your birth, then I need to start calling you
Omar bhaiya 
(joke)].
Yet no Pakistani budged in to ask why is it that these
Chinese companies who set shop in Pakistan
never take on a Pakistani partner as one of the investors.
One could counter this possibility by arguing that a sinlge Pakistani company may lack the desired muscle to generate adequate capital for such an investment. Agreed - valid argument. But at no point of time is anybody asking you to allow only one Pakistani company to become a co-investor.
Make China take on board 3-4 Pakistani companies onboard as partners/investor and let them together become 10-15% stakeholders by allowing them to together pool in 10-15% of the investment money. By this method, you not only recieve the technology and services that the Chinese would be brining in, you will also be allowing Pakistani companies to become an integral part of that investment instead of mere employees in a foreign company, giving a boost to these Pakistani compnies the confidence and more importantly the capability to make independent ventures in Pakistan in the future.
At the same time you also ensure that 10% of the revenue generated in that investment stays within Pakistan in addition to the taxes they'd be paying
Pakistanis here are shown expressign joy when informed that the F-7s, fantans and all the other military hardware are recieved pretty much free of cost from he Chinese and use this exmaple to demonstrate China's genuine interest in ensurig the protection of Pakistan's interest
If only naivity had guided China's policy, this belief would have held true. The simple underlying fact is that China needs a moderately well-equipped Pakistani Armed Force to keep up the pressure on India from both sides and it ensures that. If India's relation with China had been the opposite of what it is now, then China would not have shown the scantest of interest in ensuring Pakistan's [
insert any term in this space].
Also to be noted is the fact that not only is
Pakistan not recieving these hardware for free, it actually ends up paying a lot more for them from the Chinese.
These partnerless Chinese companies setting up operations in Pakistan is how Pakistan ends up overpaying for Chinese assistance.
A moderate-sized Chinese company allowed to invest in a moderate-sized operation in Pakistan would need say around 5-6 years to recover its industrial invesment. so in the next 5-6 years the revenue generated will go towards recovering the money spent by China while giving away free military hardware to Pakistan. so at the end of 10-11 years of operation that company has hepled the recovery of all Chinese investment in Pakistan [military and industrial]. after that all the revenue the company generates will simply go to the Chinese coffers increasing its size at Pakistan's cost
I talked only about 1 Chinese company. now multiply it with the numerous partnerless Chinese companies operating in Pakistan and yo should get a picture of how much Pakistani money flows back to CChina and how much Pakistan gains out of this arangement and the quantum of gains made by China out of Pakistan.
Quicker recovery of money China invests in Pakistan is another reason why Chinese companies do not take on any Pakistan group of companies even as
sub-atomic stake holders
They also realise that a Pakistani company after having recieved enough exposure and confidence from such a venture will in the future be able to threaten this Chines revenue stream when it decides to go alone and operate its independant venture in Pakistan.
China does not gain anything from letting Pakistan grow in confidence & capability where it is in a position to question China's moves in Pakistan [or at least Pakistan feels that it is in a postion to question China, which it actually can even now, but does not]
At the cost of sounidng offensive and risking a permanent ban,
Pakistan is China's Alaska, with policies that appease China even at the cost of hurting itself [your FTA with China inspite of having such lopsided direction of trade] and an assuared captive market for Chinese goods and products
People took offense to my earlier assertion that China's industrial colonization started with Pakistan. Do point out a country where a Chinese company set up operation before it first did in Pakistan. Fact remains that
the first foreign country where China set up its industry was Pakistan
Pakistanis gloating over their Chinese company cars would do well to learn that
Chinese automobiles had failed to pass the safety regulations of the European Union and deemed hazardous - an ignominy never suffered by any of the Indian automobiles exported
Pakistan's India obsession outweigh's Every other concerns [you only have to look at the social development programmes in Pakistan which the UN is forced to conduct. As opposed to UN's role in India, where it is advisorial to Indian organisation, its role in Pakistan is totally hands-on job where the UN provides resources and material to Pakistan]
It has also guided this myopic approach towards governance
The americans and Chinese have always toyed with Pakistan's vulnerabilities and obsessions and taken adavtange of you. Yet no instances exist in the past or present that show Pakistan standing up to China and questioning its actions inside Pakistan. As for Pak Govt's opposition to the American -
you have perfected the art of symbolism
As for the future of Pakistan - In context of the thing written above, if Pakistan is unable to leaverage he concerns of Chinese and American vulnerabilities and play it to its own adavantage, it shall continue as a
"verge" nation
On the verge of implosion and disintegration, but never quite reaching the final step, thanks in no small measures due to the aid and assistance provided by the world and China
No country gains from pumping in any more aid, than the bare minimum, which would actually enable genuine organic growth of a self-reliantPakistani society/economy and quite frankly the resources needed to make this happen is far too large and the riss far too much for the world to pump into your country. They'd rather spend it on their own countrymen who have their own set of genuine concerns
Just the bare minimum that is need to prevent Pakistan from taking the final step towards disintegration would be all that would be contributed. Rest of it has to be extracted by subtle arm-twiting of the US and Chinese
One of the reasons Pakistan support to terrorists operating Kashmir is failing miserably is because Kashmiris see the state Paksitan is in and are wise to decide that their continued existance as a state of India is infinitely better than becoming part of a country created to provide residence to all the Muslims of the sub-continent. there are other infinite reasons, but this reson fits the context of the thread
post 9/11, in 2001 the U.S govt got all of Pakistan's debt and loans written off.
Cut back to February 2009 - Pakistan is back swimming in this same cesspool of debt and loan and that too from the IMF [God help you with the IMF's grip]
All that Pakistan is doing is act like a daily wage earner - doing only what will benefit your country for the nex couple of years and then going back to the donors once it runs out instead of making the aid pay for itself. In the current scenarion, any growth/recovery that Pakistan experiances as long as the aid pours in will all evaporate into thin air once the aid stops flowing
Wheww an hour passed by - it surely flew fast
Cheerio
