EDITORIAL: Months after sanctioning three Chinese companies, including a research institute, accusing them of supplying missile applicant items to Pakistan’s National Development Complex (NDC), the US has slapped new sanctions on NDC, along with three commercial entities, purportedly for developing long-range ballistic missiles.
Speaking at think-tank in Washington a day after the action, Deputy National Security Adviser Jon Finer said Pakistan has developed increasingly sophisticated missile technology, from long-range ballistic missile systems to equipment, and went on to make the bizarre claim that if this trend continues “Pakistan will have the capability to strike targets beyond South Asia, including the United States.”
The State Department’s Principal Deputy Spokesperson Vedant Patel rubbed it in again at a media briefing, saying that the designations were “based on our concerns about Pakistan’s long-range ballistic missiles”, adding the rhetorical assertion that the US is committed to maintaining the global non-proliferation regime. The message being conveyed to Pakistan is that staying on good terms with both the US and China is incompatible.
Any impartial observer of the scene knows that this country’s conventional and unconventional capabilities are defensive in nature, aimed at countering India with which it has fought two full-scale wars and third a limited one over the unresolved Kashmir issue. It maintains minimal nuclear deterrence capability and missiles programme to prevent its adversary from starting a major conflict in the future.
Predictably, the Foreign Office in Islamabad has reacted sharply to America’s new measures which, it said, are based on mere doubt and suspicion without any evidence, and that “such policies have dangerous implications for the strategic stability of our region and beyond.”
Rightly terming them as discriminatory and reflective of the US’ double standards, the FO cited past waivers of advanced military technology and transfers “to other countries” — an indirect reference to India.
In fact, the US has been doing a lot more to bolster India’s capabilities in a bid to pitch it as a counterweight to China’s military heft and increasing political influence.
As a press report points out, during the recent years the US permitted the transfer of high-end defence technologies, including advanced missile systems under the Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement and the Communications Capability and Security Agreement.
The two countries have also collaborated on missile development, complete with co-production of systems under the Defence Technology and Trade Initiative as well as the Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technologies.
Meanwhile, New Delhi is playing both sides against the middle, putting one foot in the US-led QUAD grouping dedicated solely to encircling China and curbing its power in the Pacific region; and the other foot in the China-Russia led Global South bloc, the BRICS, which now is challenging the Western nations’ devised international order by evolving alternative economic and diplomatic options.
Coming back to the issue at hand, Pakistan has faced sanctions before on account of its nuclear programme and stayed its ground. So it is expected to do this time around since the primary objective of its nuclear and missile programme is to deal with the threat India poses to its security.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2024
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