CONTENTS

1) China after the Party’s October 2022 Congress – Pak Relations (TRIBUNE)
2) At a crossroads, again – Pak-Relation (DAWN)
3)

1) China after the Party’s October 2022 Congress – Pak Relations (TRIBUNE)
→ The 20th Chinese Party Congress was called into session on Oct 16, with 2,295 delegates in
attendance. It was in session until Oct 23.
→ Xi Jinping holds three positions: Party’s Secretary General, President of the People’s Republic
of China and the head of the armed forces.
→ Deng Xiaoping who succeeded Mao as the supreme leader made the Communist Party
change its constitution so that the president was limited to two five-year terms. Xi had the
party remove term limit.
→ The speech took 104 minutes to deliver and was distributed to the media as a 72-page
document.
→ Possible contenders post 2028 → Wang Yang, the leader of the Communist Party’s top
advisory body, and Hu Chunhua, one of the four vice premiers in the old order.
→ Guangdong province in China is a leading hub of entrepreneurship and foreign investment in
the country.
→ By shutting down Shanghai, China’s most important economic centre, Xi set back the
country’s economic progress.
→ Washington has been warned that its meddling in West Pacific would be strongly resisted.
Beijing would not be dictated on how it approaches the Taiwan question.
2) At a crossroads, again – Pak Relations (TRIBUNE)
→ The historically close relationship has been in flux following the American military
withdrawal from Afghanistan last year after its ‘longest war’.
→ The US war in Afghanistan marked only another episode in a mercurial, rollercoaster
relationship, characterized by cyclical swings between intense engagement and deep
estrangement.
→ Geopolitics has ever since defined America’s relations with Pakistan. During Cold War, for
example, Pakistan became America’s most allied ally in achieving the latter’s aim of
containing communism. This was followed by Russian invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 and
then the post 9/11 phase of war on terror.
→ Wane (verb): disappear
→ The geopolitical dynamics shifted dramatically when China engaged regional countries in its
flagship project the BRI.
→ Donald Trump’s ‘America First’ foreign policy portrayed the country as a self-absorbed and
inconsistent partner as well as a reluctant regional player.
→ However, Pakistan needs the US;
The US remains Pakistan’s largest export destination, a source of FDI and a global power
with significant influence, especially over international financial institutions like the IMF and
the WB.
→ With the US going all out in its mission to contain and encircle China, it would be an
immense challenge for Pakistan to maintain a neutral stance in US-China faceoff.
→ The revitalization of Quad, the AUKUS security partnership and its Indo-Pacific strategy are
all part of efforts to cement an anti-China coalition. Pakistan cannot be a part of this
coalition come what may.
→ The implications for Pakistan of the US-India entente are evident from Washington turning a
blind eye to India’s illegal annexation of occupied Jammu and Kashmir.
➢ While Washington continues to arm India in its counter China policy, 70 per cent of
India’s military assets — land, air and sea — remain deployed against Pakistan.
→ Fight over the waters; with the Indian Ocean now an arena of geostrategic contest this has
obliged Pakistan to increase its military presence and strengthen its capabilities there.
→ Resetting ties with the US; Islamabad seeks a new basis for relations predicated on
Pakistan’s intrinsic importance and not as a subset of ties with a third country. Its vision is of
broad-based relations that move beyond the traditional focus of security to economic, trade
and investment ties and cooperation in science, technology and education.