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Analysis: Pakistan's All Weather Ally

Council on Foreign Relations

September 18, 2008
Author: Jayshree Bajoria

As the controversial nuclear deal between India and the United States moves toward a final review in the U.S. Congress, Pakistan appears to be pushing for a similar deal (IANS) with China. The Bush administration won approval for the India arrangement before the Nuclear Suppliers Group earlier this month, and both Bush and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh have been actively lobbying for it at home and abroad. But Washington has ruled out any possibility (PTI) of cutting a similar deal with Pakistan. Many now expect China to step into the void.

Critics of the Indian nuclear deal worry that it may spark a nuclear arms race in South Asia. Michael Krepon of the Stimson Center says international proliferation experts already view past proliferation problems in Pakistan with concern. The country formed the center of the most notorious of all proliferation rings, led by the founder of Pakistan's nuclear program, A.Q. Khan. Some experts also express concerns about the China's proliferation record, though it's a signatory to the NPT and the Chinese government says it opposes proliferation. Patricia McNerney, the State Department's top official on nonproliferaton policy told Congress in May that "a number of Chinese entities continue to supply items and technologies useful in weapons of mass destruction" to regimes of concern. Chinese state-owned corporations have been accused of proliferating technology to Pakistan, Iran, North Korea, and Libya in the past.

Now closer relations between the United States and India, and particularly the potential nuclear deal, may force Islamabad to seek a counterbalance in Beijing. Souring relations between Washington and Islamabad over unilateral U.S. military action inside Pakistan's tribal areas seems to have reaffirmed Pakistan's longheld belief that the United States is an unreliable ally.

Read the rest of this article on the cfr.org website.

Copyright 2008 by the Council on Foreign Relations. This material is republished on GlobalSecurity.org with specific permission from the cfr.org. Reprint and republication queries for this article should be directed to cfr.org.