ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Senator Mushahid Hussain Sayed was all praise for the government’s decision to skip US President Joe Biden’s Summit on Democracy, saying it was the right decision at the right time.
Talking to Business Recorder, he said that “the so-called Summit on Democracy hosted by the US in Washington, was using the banner of democracy but actually the agenda was an ideological Cold War perspective to promote an anti-China conclave.”
He further contended that the US attitude under the Biden administration towards Pakistan has been cold, hostile and even demeaning, citing US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman’s statement on Indian soil, on the eve of her arrival in Pakistan in October, rudely dismissed any notion of any serious or forward looking positive ties with Pakistan.
“Given this overall negative context, without even the courtesy of a thank you to Pakistan for all we did for the US in Afghanistan, Washington arrogantly assumed that they just had to snap their fingers and we’ll come running,” he lamented.
Referring to a recent article, published by the TIME magazine, he said that the magazine rightly stated that “the Democracy Summit is the ‘height of hypocrisy’ and ‘the gathering is really about creating a coalition against China and Russia’.”
“So, why should Pakistan join such a bandwagon contrary to our core interests? In any case, US has taken two strategic decisions in our region that are against our core interests: first, they want to build India as their strategic partner and regional best friend to counter China despite Modi’s undemocratic bigotry and bias against Muslims, and secondly, they want to contain and encircle China by weaponising democracy,” he added.
He regretted that the Biden team’s worldview is a holdover from the Obama years who was the most pro-Indian American President and who laid the basis for the new Cold War with his ‘pivot to Asia’ in 2011.
“With ‘Democrats’ like Modi attending, the Democracy Summit was a farce, good that Pakistan wasn’t part of this charade,” he maintained.
One third of the countries invited were termed by the US own ‘Freedom House’ think tank as ‘partly free’ including Modi’s India and Bolsonaro’s Brazil, while Turkey and Sri Lanka, both democracies, were penalized for their independent foreign policies, he added.
Senior analyst, Lt Gen Talat Masood said that Pakistan was caught in a situation where it had no option but to decline the invitation to attend the Summit, as China and Russia had not been invited.
Given the close strategic partnership with China and economic reliance, he added, it was quite obvious that Pakistan would side with China as the Americans did not invite the Chinese to attend the Summit.
“It was not only for China that Pakistan declined to attend but for Russia too as our relations have improved to a great extent with Russia,” he added.
On December 9-10, 2021, President Biden hosted the Summit on Democracy in which four South Asian countries were also invited including Pakistan, India, Maldives and Nepal. However, on December 8, Pakistan decided to skip the Summit which was also lauded by China.
“Pakistan declined to attend democracy summit. A real iron brother!” said Lijian Zhao, spokesperson for Chinese foreign ministers in a tweet and posted the statement issued by the Foreign Office of Pakistan.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2021
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