Aboard The Democracy Train

FAISALABAD, Dec 11: The industrial phase of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is going to kick off soon under which Chinese investors would be allowed to set up only high tech industries, which would not have any negative impact on Pakistan’s existing industry, said CPEC Acting Project Director Hasan Dawood.

Speaking to a delegation of the Faisalabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (FCCI), he said that CPEC has three major perspectives including geo strategic, regional integration and industrial cooperation, adding that Chinese investors cannot afford any clash at any stage with Pakistani industrialists; hence, they prefer to concentrate on Gwadar Port.

The delegation, which was headed by FCCI Vice President Ahmed Hasan, met with the director and apprised him about the reservations of the local industrialists.

Three routes have been proposed to link China with Gwadar Port including eastern, western and central routes, which are expected to be completed by the year 2018, informed Dawood.

Talking about the industrial cooperation under CPEC, he said that working groups are being established to determine the needs of both countries. Four meetings between National Development and Reforms Commission of China and Planning Commission of Pakistan have already been held, said the director.

He said that working groups will have representation of all provinces and encouraged FCCI to present its proposal through their related province for discussion in the working group.

He further told that 36 economic zones would be established under CPEC which would not only create thousands of jobs but also gear up the pace of progress and prosperity.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 11th, 2016.

ONE of Pakistan’s greatest diplomatic achievements during the Cold War was to simultaneously enjoy strong ties with the United States and China. With the end of the Cold War and the retreat of Soviet forces from Afghanistan, this triangular relationship has changed. Pakistan’s ties to Beijing have never been stronger, while ties to Washington are once again troubled. Nothing symbolises this shift more than CPEC.

China has offered Pakistan over $50 billion in investments for critical infrastructure projects as prospects for greater financial and military assistance from Washington dim. Washington has good reasons to be supportive — or at least not negative — about CPEC. If Pakistan can raise its game and make the most of this opportunity, CPEC will not just be one more external lending stream, it can help Pakistan achieve sustainable economic growth, one predicate for national, if not regional stability.

There are, however, challenges to be overcome before extravagant visions of CPEC can be realised. Thriving port cities depend on location and historic patterns of commerce. Habitual Pakistani frictions between provinces and civil-military relations are complicating the takeoff stage. Beijing does not have a track record of philanthropy with respect to foreign investments. CPEC is not a gift; it’s a mutual opportunity, accompanied with interest rates. And Pakistan is in no position to drive hard bargains.

The US may not compete with China for influence in Pakistan.

The upswing in China-Pakistan relations extends well beyond CPEC. Beijing is also helping Pakistan by placing road blocks before India’s entry into the Nuclear Suppliers Group and preventing the UN from adding Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Masood Azhar to its listing of terrorists. In contrast, the US Defence Authorisation Act passed by the Congress conditions half of the assistance given to Pakistan on demonstrable steps against terror groups.

Not that long ago, in 2009, Washington decided to make a major effort to improve relations with Pakistan and to bolster a newly elected civilian government. Now it is very hard to envision another major initiative by Washington, which is sceptical of Islamabad’s promissory notes, or by Pakistan, which is accustomed to being on the receiving end of Washington’s initiatives, not the other way around. Absent a source of new propulsion, bilateral ties will continue to lose altitude.

Islamabad, Washington, and even Beijing have something to lose from these dynamics. No matter how generous Chinese infrastructure and military support turn out to be for Pakistan, having one major power benefactor is half as good as having two. Washington will have less influence to change Pakistani choices for the better, and will now need more of Beijing’s help with crisis management. And while Beijing’s gains are likely to be real, so, too, will the responsibilities of being Pakistan’s top benefactor.

Washington is not inclined to compete with China for influence in Pakistan. Nor is the prospect of more Russian engagement with Pakistan likely to alter US calculations. Washington’s current mood is to continue offering assistance to support common interests — while conditioning a growing portion of aid to demonstrable steps that confirm long-promised changes in Pakistan’s national security policies. All this can be upended with another major act of terrorism that can be traced back to Pakistan.

A legitimate question is whether Washington is capable of acknowledging changes for the better in Pakistan’s national security policies after such a long period of complaint. There has been clear acknowledgement of Pakistan’s counterterrorism campaign against the Pakistan Taliban, and the sacrifices this has entailed. But there is deep scepticism that the scope of this campaign will be widened.

Some in the incoming Trump administration might be inclined to pursue the ‘nuclear option’ — declaring Pakistan a state sponsor of terrorism. This would be a grave mistake, not just for Pakistan and the United States, but also for India. Severing ties will not improve Pakistan’s choices, nor help the United States to encourage nuclear-armed neighbors to improve ties or defuse tensions. Washington does more of the latter than the former because, when New Delhi occasionally seeks to turn the page, an attack on India by cadres of groups based in Pakistan typically follows.

One challenge for Washington during the Trump administration will be to keep the door open and to recognise changes in policies that have weakened Pakistan’s well-being. A second challenge will be to not fly off the handle in ways that badly affect ties. The challenge for Pakistan is to keep moving forward rather than to fall back on bad habits. And to recognize that standard talking points will fall flat without changes in national security policy. Even in the absence of changes in Pakistani policies, the US continues to have important reasons to remain fully engaged on common interests. That sounds easy enough, but sensible steps cannot be taken for granted in the Trump administration.

The writer is co-founder of the Stimson Centre.

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has determined that Russia did in fact try to help Donald Trump win the US presidency rather than work to simply interfere with the election, according to a secret report conducted by the agency.

US intelligence officials from multiple agencies have found connections between the Kremlin and Wikileaks. The former provided the latter with countless hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee, Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman John Podesta, and many others, the Washington Post reported.

The spectre of an ongoing email controversy lurked over Ms Clinton’s campaign from the onset of her candidacy. But in the final months, the massive leak of thousands of emails closed the gap between the former Secretary of State and Mr Trump by double digits. Cybersecurity experts, as well as intelligence officials, had found evidence that linked the hacks to Russia.

“It is the assessment of the intelligence community that Russia’s goal here was to favour one candidate over the other, to help Trump get elected,” a senior US intelligence official briefed on information shared with US senators told the Post. “That’s the consensus view.”
Still, there is some disagreement among some of the officials from all 17 intelligence agencies. They lacked evidence that showed a direct connection between Russia and Wikileaks.The actors they found were “one step” removed from the Russian government, the officials said. 

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange had said Russia was not the source of the leaks in an interview published on the state-owned broadcaster Russia Today.

“The Clinton camp has been able to project a neo-McCarthyist hysteria that Russia is responsible for everything,” he said. “Hillary Clinton has stated multiple times, falsely, that 17 US intelligence agencies had assessed that Russia was the source of our publications.
“That’s false – we can say that the Russian government is not the source.”

President Trump protests
Earlier in the day, the Obama administration ordered a “full review” of election-related hacking. 

The President’s counterterrorism and homeland security adviser, Lisa Monaco, made the announcement to reporters at an event hosted by the Christian Science Monitor. 

“We may have crossed into a new threshold and it is incumbent up on us to take stock of that, to review, to conduct some after-action, to understand what has happened and to impart some lessons learned,” she said. 

Mr Obama expects a full report before he leaves office on 20 January.

US officials from the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence officially accused Russia of hacking the DNC and other organisations “to interfere with the US election process”.
 
The reiterated their accusations earlier this week.

“The US Intelligence Community is confident that the Russian government directed the recent compromises of e-mails from US persons and institutions, including from US political organisations,” officials said in a statement.

“We believe, based on the scope and sensitivity of these efforts, that only Russia’s senior-most officials could have authorised these activities.”

In a perplexing response, the Trump transition team outright dismissed the validity of the report and the intelligence committee they will soon be running.

“These are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction,” the team incorrectly said in a statement. “The election ended a long time ago in one of the biggest Electoral College victories in history. It’s now time to move on and ‘Make America Great Again’.”

Officials held a secret briefing with congressional leaders in September, but House Majority Leader Mitch McConnell doubted the legitimacy of the assessment.

Additionally, the Post says Mr McConnell made his opposition to such intelligence clear, and if the White House spoke publicly about the Russians’ role in the hacks, he would simply consider it a partisan political stunt.