Pakistani New Goverment’s Prospective Foreign Policy

Khurram Abbas

After a tumultuous month of political instability in Pakistan, Shahbaz Shareef, leader of Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) has been sworn in as a new Prime Minister. He gave a comprehensive roadmap for his domestic and foreign policy overtures. His first speech in the parliament after his election as Prime Minister depicts that his primary focus will be on the economic management of the country. During the tenure of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) economic situation of the country worsened due to various reasons. The COVID-19 pandemic, the warlike situation between India and Pakistan that led to lower Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) and increased expenses on military mobilization, unmanageable current account deficit, free fall of the rupee against the US dollar, unprecedented inflation, PTI’s mismanagement at micro and macro levels of government, continuous reshuffling of political and bureaucratic positions were some significant factors of the worsened economic situation in Pakistan.

▲Pakistani Prime Minister Shahbaz Shareef and former Prime Minister Imran Khan

The Coalition Government is Highly Fragile

Despite relative tranquility in the political situation of Pakistan, the uncertainty will continue to haunt Shahbaz Sharif’s government. There are various reasons for the continuity of political uncertainty. Firstly, the recently ousted Prime Minister Imran Khan has announced en-bloc resignations from the National Assembly of Pakistan. He has also announced that he will not accept Shahbaz Sharif’s government and alleged a US-backed conspiracy against PTI’s government. He has demanded fresh general elections. To achieve this objective, former Prime Minister Imran Khan will continue to pressurize the government for general elections. Hence, the political environment will continue to remain under acute stress. Moreover, the coalition government of eleven political parties will also face internal rivalries. These political parties such as PML-N, Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam Fazal (JUI-F) and Awami National Party (ANP) have competing ideologies. Therefore, the coalition government is highly fragile in nature and might not be able to continue for more than a few months.

Prospective Foreign Policy Towards Saudi Arabia, UAE, and China

Pakistan’s foreign policy is primarily guided by two principles, i.e., money and security. Without money, Islamabad cannot secure better and expansive security deals to strengthen its conventional military muscle. Therefore, the money-in terms of loans, investments, and aid- remains a pivotal discussion point during internal meetings on foreign policy. The same principle had been reflected in the first speech of Shahbaz Shareef as a Prime Minister. He had outlined his foreign policy priorities primarily focusing on Saudi Arabia, UAE, and China and intended to enhance economic and political cooperation during his tenure. The aforementioned three countries are pivotal to Pakistan’s economic stability.

Saudi Arabia and UAE

Historically, Saudi Arabia and UAE have supported Pakistan’s troubled economy through immediate relief packages, especially during the crisis through oil on deferred payments, soft loans, and parking billions of US dollars in Pakistan's foreign reserves. During the initial months of the Khan-led PTI government, Saudi Arabia and UAE parked USD 6 billion in Pakistan’s foreign reserves and signed deals of providing oil for three years on deferred payments. However, later both countries did not like some statements and decisions of Imran Khan including his decision to attend the Kuala Lumpur Summit-an attempt to create a new Islamic bloc without Saudi approval, warming relations with Iran and Turkey, etc. Resultantly, Riyadh and Abu Dhabi demanded Pakistan to repay loans, which was unprecedented in the bilateral diplomatic history of the two countries.

Shahbaz Sharif, newly elected Prime Minister has decided to visit Saudi Arabia with two objectives, i.e., to repair relationship with Saudi Arabia and request immediate financial assistance. Historically, the Sharif family has developed a cordial relationship with the Royal family of Saudi Arabia and has clearly shown their tilt towards the Kingdom on various occasions, especially when it comes to the Saudi-Iran competition in the Middle Eastern region. Hence, a healing process in the bilateral relationship is highly expected in near future.

This healing process may remain limited to improved economic relationships and enhanced political trust between Pakistan and the Gulf countries. However, it will not compel Pakistan or Gulf countries to revisit their positions on Yemen’s conflict and Jammu&Kashmir dispute, respectively. These kinds of strategic policy shifts will require a long-term strategic and comprehensive engagement by the two sides, which for the time being seems absent due to domestic political environment of Pakistan as well as the regional outlook of the Gulf.

China

As Prime Minister, Shahbaz Sharif has picked China as his second foreign destination. He is likely to visit the last week of April 2022. His visit to China will primarily be based on two objectives, i.e., to revive the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and to seek immediate financial assistance for Pakistan. It is important to note that the development of CPEC had remained dormant due to various reasons since Imran Khan came into power. The sharing of classified information about the CPEC projects and Chinese loans to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) was a major source of distrust between PTI’s government and Beijing. The mishandling of Dasu Dam terrorist incident that killed 9 Chinese was also a source of concern for Beijing.

▲China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC)

Shahbaz Sharif is hopeful to improve the bilateral relationship and trust deficit while expediting development work on various CPEC projects. Shahbaz Sharif and PML-N have a history of good working relationship with China. During the PML-N’s previous tenure, multiple CPEC projects were completed in a short span of time. Nawaz-led PML-N’s government has completed over 10,000MW electricity projects and the construction of roads and motorways on thousands of kilometers all across Pakistan. The construction of Gwadar Airport, Eastbay Expressway of Gwadar, etc was also initiated during PML-N’s previous tenure. Hence, a rejuvenation of CPEC projects is highly likely under the leadership of Shahbaz Sharif. To showcase his ability of good governance to domestic audiences, he is eying at projects that are partially completed, such as 720MW Karot Hydropower Project, 30MW HUBCO Thar Coal Power Project (Thar Energy), etc. On 13 April 2022, during his first visit to Karachi as Prime Minister, he also announced the insertion of Karachi Circular Railway (KCR) project into CPEC for its timely completion. This announcement suggests that Shahbaz Sharif intended to expand CPEC and has attached significant hopes to Beijing for cooperation during his tenure.

Perhaps the short-term focus of both countries should be on the timely organization of the Joint Coordination Committee (JCC) meetings. The JCC is the highest forum of coordination between the two countries that reviews the progress of CPEC related projects and Special Economic Zones (SEZs). The delay in the JCC meetings is highly detrimental to the coordination between China and Pakistan. Unfortunately, during the PTI’s government, the JCC meetings were not held regularly. The 9th JCC meeting was held on 5 November 2019 while the 10th JCC meeting was held almost 22 months later in September 2021. It is expected that being Prime Minister, Shahbaz Sharif will not tolerate a lackluster approach of bureaucracy on CPEC related projects and will ensure timely meetings of the JCC during his tenure.

Shahbaz Sharif as a Chief Minister of Punjab is known for curbing red-tape culture in bureaucracy. He likes to initiate mega-development projects and ensures their timely completion. Projects such as Lahore Metro Bus, Lahore Ring Road, Multan Metro Bus, and Rawalpindi-Islamabad Metro Bus were conceived, approved, and completed during his tenure as Chief Minister of Punjab. It is expected that his tenure will attract greater volume of FDI in Pakistan as compared to the past three years due to improved trust and confidence of investors in Shahbaz Sharif’s governing abilities. Perhaps, this is also a major window of opportunity for Chinese investors to invest in Pakistan and extract maximum benefits through investments.

Prospective Foreign Policy toward US and India

Intentions and goodwill gestures are considered prerequisites in international politics for setting a positive tone for prospective foreign relations. Shahbaz Sharif in his first speech as Prime Minister of Pakistan has illustrated his intentions of engaging the US and India for peace and development in the region. Washington and New Delhi have reciprocated Shahbaz Sharif’s positive intentions. Narendra Modi, the Prime Minister of India, congratulated his Pakistani counterpart and hoped for a better and prosperous region but remained fixated with his old mantra over terrorism. The US State Department is eying a broader bilateral relationship keeping in mind the peace and prosperity in the region.

Historically, the Prime Minister and his major allied political parties especially Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) have remained in favour of normalizing the relationship with the US and India. The appointment of an educated and liberal individual, Hina Rabbani Khar as State Minister for Foreign Affairs is a glaring manifestation of the incumbent regime’s intentions of steering the government to the path of peace and a friendly relationship with the West, the US and India. However, the political support of allied parties coupled with Shahbaz Sharif’s positive intentions of developing a cordial relationship with the US and India are not the only preconditions for initiating a dialogue by Pakistan with these two countries. Likely, historic baggage, trust deficit, existing domestic political environments in respective countries and upcoming general elections will restrain the Shahbaz Sharif government to initiate any substantial policy shift favouring these two countries.

The US

Pakistan and the US have a tri-dimensional bilateral relationship, i.e., people to people (P2P), military to military, and government to government. The P2P and military to military relationships are balanced and consistent. The two sides seem always eager to engage with either side through various platforms for better economic cooperation. The USAID programme is exclusively designed for positive engagements with the general public of host countries including Pakistan. Except for the Trump administration, the US historically offered generous financial and technical assistance in agriculture, climate, medicine, clean water projects and other similar kinds of initiatives for the betterment of the Pakistani public. The military to military relationship has generally remained professional. The two sides had opposing views about each other’s policies especially on Afghanistan, the US defence cooperation with India, Pakistan’s strategic partnership with China, etc. Despite the aforementioned differences, the military to military cooperation continued in arms deals, training, and military aid and maintained various communications channels.

The government to government relationship between the two countries varied depending upon the nature of government in Pakistan and the security environment of South Asia. The US seems favourable to working with military dictators of Pakistan. In the past various US governments had an extraordinary level of cooperation with dictators of the country including Field Marshal Ayub Khan, General Zia-ul-Haq, and General Pervez Musharraf. These dictators cooperated and protected American interests in the South Asian region. Field Marshal Ayub Khan provided air bases to the US for spying on the former Soviet Union, while General Zia-ul-Haq played a pivotal role in Afghan Jihad against the former Soviet Union. General Musharraf’s cooperation on Afghanistan helped the US to consolidate power in Afghanistan in the early years of the 2000s. Unlike military dictators, civilian governments faced isolation, serious sanctions and limited access to various American administrations. The most recent example is the lack of communication between the Biden administration and PTI’s government. The two sides could not engage in high-level government talks since President Biden came into power. The former government’s outright support for the Afghan Taliban and Imran Khan’s statement that “Taliban have broken the shackles of slavery” further deteriorated the bilateral relationship.

While keeping in view the historic baggage, the domestic political environment will also play a significant role in shaping the Shahbaz-led coalition government’s approach to the US. The recently ousted Prime Minister Imran Khan has been developing an ultra-nationalist narrative based on anti-Americanism. The incumbent government has concerns that Imran Khan being the opposition leader will use the improved relationship between Pakistan and the US as a reference to strengthen his ultra-nationalist narrative of ‘foreign conspiracy’ against PTI’s government. Contrary to PTI’s narrative, the two major political parties PML-N and PPP are convinced that the broader and cordial relationship with the US and the West is indispensable for the economic, political and strategic interests of Pakistan. The military too remains favourable in expanding and deepening cooperation with the US. This is evident based on the recent statement by the Chief of Army Staff General Qamar Javed Bajwa at the Islamabad Security Dialogue on the 2nd of April 2022.

This means the US-Pakistan relationship will witness an upward trajectory during the incumbent regime due to civil-military consensus. Further, Shahbaz Sharif has shared the burden of ‘foreign conspiracy’ by appointing PPP’s stalwart as State Minister to minimize the political drawbacks due to his foreign engagements, especially with the US and India. However, keeping in view these limitations in mind and limited time in power, Shahbaz Sharif will not seek extraordinary engagement with the US and might prefer only a good working relationship. The government will likely remain cautious while improving relations with the US. For Washington, Pakistan’s cooperation on Afghanistan and its relationship with New Delhi will likely determine the future bilateral relationship of Pakistan and the US. The incumbent regime will attempt to repair Pakistan’s relationship with the West, especially the US, which has been severely damaged due to Imran Khan’s decisions such as allegations at the US for regime change and the ill-timed visit of Russia.

India

The Indo-Pak bilateral relationship has always remained plagued with deep mistrust and simmering territorial conflicts especially, the Jammu&Kashmir dispute. As far as the Indo-Pak relationship is concerned, the PTI’s tenure of nearly four years proved to be tumultuous. The two countries virtually skipped a major armed conflict in 2019. The suicide attack of a Kashmiri on Indian forces in Pulwama killed almost 40 Indian soldiers. The Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government accused Pakistan for the attack and violated its sovereignty. In response, Pakistan shot down India’s MiG-21 and arrested Indian pilot Abhinandan Varthaman. The BJP’s decision to abrogate Article 370 and 35-A further witnessed a dip in the bilateral relationship. The PTI government’s series of actions including severing diplomatic relations, equating Modi with Adolf Hitler, etc further reduced channels of communication between the two countries and ruined hopes for a normal bilateral relationship. The PTI government maintained a persistent stance over the normalization of bilateral relations that Pakistan is willing to normalize relations with India if Modi withdraws his 5 August 2019 decisions.

While following PTI’s stance, Shahbaz Sharif-led coalition government is likely to engage India, especially Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to persuade him to reverse the 5 August decision. Moreover, a continuation of a ceasefire on the Line of Control (LOC) between India and Pakistan will be adhered to according to the 2003 ceasefire understanding by both sides as a goodwill gesture. Historically, Shahbaz Sharif’s elder brother and former Prime Minister of Pakistan Nawaz Sharif had a cordial relationship with BJP’s leadership. In 1999, Nawaz Sharif successfully inked a historic Lahore Declaration with the then Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. In 2014, Nawaz Sharif defied military advisories and attended the sworn-in ceremony of Narendra Modi. Later, both leaders had developed a cordial relationship which led to Modi’s visit to Lahore in 2015. Hence, the Sharif family maintains a cordial working relationship with Narendra Modi, which may help Shahbaz Sharif to initiate a normalization process with New Delhi. However, keeping in view the domestic political environment of India it is highly unlikely that Modi-led BJP may undo its 5 August 2019 decision. Hence, a cordial and normal relationship between the two countries seems a distant dream in near future.

Conclusion

The Shahbaz Sharif-led coalition government will likely remain fixated on domestic challenges including political and economic. The political challenges will likely exacerbate with the passage of time that may lead to early general elections. On the economic front, Shahbaz Sharif-led coalition government has calculated that the economic support from Saudi Arabia, UAE and China will likely improve the existing economic situation in Pakistan resulting in better economic dividends for the masses leading to better election results in favour of PML-N in the upcoming general elections. Therefore, responses from these three countries-either positive or negative - will likely determine the future political developments of Pakistan.

Historically, Pakistan’s general elections are contested on the domestic economic situation and government performances. However, the political history of Pakistan is changing its course. It seems the next general elections will be held largely on the foreign policy approaches of various political parties. The ousted Prime Minister Imran Khan’s slogans of American involvement that led to regime change of PTI will have a long term political and strategic impact on Pakistani society and its foreign policy. Internationally, Imran Khan’s ultra-nationalist narrative will compel the incumbent government to limit its endeavours of engagement with the US and India. Domestically, the upcoming general elections will revolve around Pakistan’s foreign policy debate.

The foremost challenge to the incumbent regime is to repair Islamabad’s relationship with the US and European Union (EU), which was damaged due to PTI’s ultra-nationalist narrative and Imran Khan’s populist statements in recent rallies. The additional challenge for the Shahbaz-led coalition government is to not only repair the relationship with the US and EU but also maintain a safe distance from the US and EU so that the government may not succumb to Imran Khan’s anti-American narrative. The ultra-nationalist narrative of Imran Khan has polarized the entire Pakistani society and in a polarized society peace initiatives and positive engagements carry unexpected political risks and the incumbent coalition government does not seem willing to carry such unexpected political risks for the time being. 

Khurram Abbas is Non-resident Fellow at Research Centre for Asian Studies(RCAS), China, as well as Research Fellow at Islamabad Policy Research Institute, Pakistan.

RCAS Report-Pakistani New Government's Prospective Foreign Policy.pdf