Everyone inPakistanknows that our relations withChinaare a major cornerstone of our foreign policy, and thatChinahas stood withPakistanthrough thick and thin as a vital strategic partner. With theUnited States, another very important bilateral partner, our relationship has had its ups and downs and continues to pose challenges to reach common understandings on some bilateral and regional issues. However, why is it that we have so many experts and academic institutions working onAmericaand so few onChina?
That was the question posed to me by one of our leading economic planners in a delegation abroad in 2004 during a break in the conference. He pointed out thatAmericais where many of our students went, had the ability to offerPakistanmuch more in sophisticated technology and trade access apart from in other areas. He agreed thatChinahad a sincere, unsurpassed and undemanding strategic interest inPakistan’s development, as an economically strong, secure and stable country and had provided diplomatic support at important moments, as well as vital funding and technology to assistPakistanto build up its industrial base and conventional defence capability. But his question remained.
The most obvious constraint is the language barrier with few opportunities inPakistanto study the Chinese language, which is almost essential to become an area specialist and to expand trade where the current $10.6 billion of annual bilateral trade is inChina’s favour withPakistanexports some $2 billion. Not an unusual situation though as theUnited States, and next doorIndiawith its $27 billion adverse balance of trade, have also found out. Apart from trade, despite the adverse global recession and foreign investment situation,Chinahas emerged as a major investor and project partner inPakistan.
Not that the Chinese language is not being taught. TheNationalUniversityfor Modern Languages was the first and its professors fromChinaare teaching larger classes each year. Chinese scholarships for Pakistani students, which began in the early 1960s, have increased significantly and also Pakistani funding for Chinese students to study inPakistan. More universities are adding Chinese language courses and, reportedly, in the Sindh province, Chinese will be introduced in schools and given equal status with English as a secondary language in 2013. In 2009, Mushahid Hussain established a Pakistan-China Institute to spark off joint bilateral research and people-to-people contacts in all fields.
As foreign services everywhere are natural incubators for area expertise, one would look for area expertise developing there. In theUnited States, with its lateral mobility, there is a revolving door to academia for senior diplomats when administrations change and for Professors, notably Kissinger, Brzezinski and Raschauer, going in the other direction.
InRussiatoo, there is this linkage. Professor Yuri V. Gankovsky of the Oriental Institute inMoscow, their main expert onPakistan, worked closely with the Soviet Foreign Office. Mikhail Kapitsa, who was Ambassador to Pakistan in 1958-62 and became Deputy Foreign Minister in 1982, was their foremost diplomatic and academic Soviet expert on China, with many books to his credit, who accurately predicted what would happen in the succession to Chairman Mao.
Of the older generation of our diplomats Agha Shahi foremost, Sajjad Hyder and Sultan Khan made key contributions to the internal policy debate in the early days on the need to shift towardsChinafaced with the constant hostility fromIndia. But they left behind some fragments of which few have been published and other parts need to be consolidated for that purpose. Of course, it was Foreign Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who had the political foresight to lay and build upon the foundation ofPakistan’s bilateral relations withChina.
In the next Pakistan Foreign Service generation as a young officer in the early 1970s, Khalid Ahmad was the language and area expert on theSoviet Unionand had he stayed, he would have become our equivalent of Professor Gankovosky. His leaving was a loss to the Foreign Office, but perhaps he has been able to contribute more in the media and scholastic fields on many subjects of national debate. The late Shahid Pervez had a similar language and area expertise potential onChinaand after he left at about the same time, his talents were recognised by the USAID.
Some other Pakistani diplomats studied Chinese inBeijing. Riaz Muhammad Khan who went on to become Ambassador inChina, then the Foreign Secretary. He wrote a well reviewed book on theAfghanistanproblem in 1991 and last year another erudite book onAfghanistanandPakistan. One hopes he will next turn his intellectual talents toChina. Masood Khan, our present Ambassador toChina, is also fluent in Chinese and when he retires some years down the road one can expect his continued contribution to academic and other linkages. Other recent Pakistani Ambassadors toChina, Inamul Haq, Riaz Khokar and Salman Bashir actively encouraged academic research, student exchanges and people-to-people contacts and initiated several books on the milestones of bilateral relations.
When it comes to the Chinese language, it is good to see that a serving Pakistani diplomat,Hasan Javed,Pakistan’s High Commissioner inSingapore, has written a book, Chinese Made Easy-Spoken Chinese in 100 lesson in Chinese, English and Urdu, which has just come out at an affordable price. Javed studied Chinese at the Beijing Languages Institute and subsequently worked in the Pakistan Embassy inBeijingfrom 1982-87, then again as Deputy Head ofMissionfrom 2001-2003.
His book was launched in his presence earlier this month at theBeijingLanguagesUniversity. The author makes it clear that it is not a substitute for a structured course in the Chinese language. The objective is a self-help kit for those wanting basic skills to use conversational Chinese for everyday use. A practical and useful objective given the need to interact with the many Chinese now working inPakistan, and for Pakistanis wishing to visit and trade withChina, and increasingly through the nearby and expanding regional hub of Urumchi-Kasghar bestriding the overland route to theKarakorumborder between the two countries.
Certainly, the layout with each lesson on one page divided into six columns giving everyday words and phrases in Chinese, Pinyin (the official Chinese system to write classical Chinese characters into Latin script), English, Urdu, Urdu transliteration of the Chinese and Roman Urdu, makes for an relatively easy to understand and to carry primer. The book is a commendable effort towards better understanding and deepening links withChina. Perhaps, for the second edition Ambassador Hasan Javed will add a CD with phonetics so that the book’s objective is even better served.
The writer is a retired diplomat. Email:ambassador.tariqosmanhyder@gmail.com
