EDITORIAL: The two-day visit to Pakistan of a Russian delegation headed by Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Overchuk has ended with our guests communicating a vital message to our leadership: ‘Be bold like India and resist pressure from the West if you want to enhance economic relations with Moscow’.
Given the precarious state of Pakistan’s economy, it goes without saying that we need to explore every opportunity to bolster economic growth, exports and energy security, and in an ideal world fostering stronger economic ties with Russia would be a no-brainer as it offers abundant natural resources, technological expertise and potential markets for trade.
In the aftermath of the war in Ukraine, however, Western sanctions that target Russia’s economy and its trading relationships have greatly hampered our trade ties with that country, apart from disrupting energy projects and forcing a re-evaluation of our economic strategies.
In contrast, the threat of sanctions has only had a limited impact on India’s relationship with Moscow, as our neighbour has found ways to circumvent these and openly defy the US, arguing that it has every right to protect its economic interests.
While India’s stance may not have gone down well with Washington and other Western capitals, it is being tolerated due to the primacy of the Indian market and the strength of its economy, which remain crucial for Western strategic interests in the region.
Any similar defiance on our part, however, could provoke a much harsher response from the US, duly complimented by the European Union as is obvious, that is due to our significantly more vulnerable economic position. The flailing state of our financial account, driven by mounting external and domestic debt obligations, struggling exports and weak Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) figures, has meant that we are perennially reliant on international financial institutions – which are dominated by Western nations – to prop up our economy, much like a patient dependent on life-support to survive, with little room for independent policymaking or growth initiatives.
Consequently, a vicious cycle has developed where our economic weakness has substantially depleted our sovereignty and ability to formulate an independent foreign policy, which in turn restricts our capacity to explore economic opportunities in countries not favoured by the West, ensuring that our economy remains fragile and dependent on Western nations that end up dictating terms that may be unfavourable to our long-term growth.
This dependence has ensured that we have to repeatedly tolerate Western hypocrisy, as in the recent case of the US slapping sanctions on Chinese firms that allegedly provided Pakistan with ballistic missile technology, an action that our Foreign Office has termed “biased and politically motivated” as there have been numerous incidents of favoured nations getting away with arguably more egregious actions.
We now have a confusing situation where on the one hand President Joe Biden terms the US-Pakistan relationship to be an “enduring partnership”, while on the other, the US State Department categorically states that Washington will not hesitate in imposing sanctions on Pakistan if it is in its interests to do so.
This doublespeak highlights the complications involved in forging an independent path in our foreign policy, one that is not fraught with contradictions and uncertainties, and that allows Pakistan to maintain a relationship with its Western partners on equal terms.
And it is evident that establishing a partnership of equals with the West and pursuing an autonomous foreign policy that allows the nation to truly realise its potential will only be possible if we get our economic house in order. A long-term vision for the economy that prioritises current expenditure reduction, reform and restructuring across its various sectors, thereby reducing dependence on international financial institutions, remains key for genuinely reinforcing Pakistan’s status as a sovereign nation.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2024
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