 Welcome everybody and good evening and thank you for joining us here for a National Security College public lecture. We're very pleased to welcome Andrew Small this evening to speak to you. Andrew is a transatlantic fellow of the German Marshal Fund in Washington DC. Andrew works on a variety of issues particularly China's security posture in a variety of different regions. He's most noted for his recent book, The China-Pakistan Access, Asia's New Geopolitics to which he'll broadly speak to this evening. Andrew is also going to speak a little bit more about some recent developments in the China-Pakistan relationship, in particular related to the China-Pakistan economic corridor that has been part of Xi Jinping's One Belt, One Road strategy. Andrew is widely published in a variety of reputable sources. Washington Quarterly, Foreign Policy and his journalistic writings appeared in the New York Times as well. So without further ado I'd like you to welcome Andrew to the podium for what will hopefully be a very interesting and illuminating talk on an issue that is not often discussed particularly in the Australian setting. So Andrew. Thanks Michael and Michael has also been hosting me here for an excellent conference so grateful to ANU for having me in town for all of this. I'm going to talk as Michael suggested and partly about some of the things that I cover in the book which is a lot more on the history of the relationship going through to present day but also to try to talk through a bit about what's been going on in the last couple of years just to bring all of that up to date. So the China-Pakistan relationship in general is a very unusual case in Chinese foreign policy. It's not just China's closest friend Pakistan but some would argue that it's China's only real friend. So many of Beijing's other relationships are dependent on a particular government or regime staying in power and Pakistan is the very clear exception to this and where support for the relationship with China extends across all of the major political parties, the army and the Pakistani public. Whenever you look around at opinion polls on China around the world there's always this striking outlier case Pakistan where you always have positive views of China at 80%, 90% even at points and that's been consistently true for some time. It has other kind of peculiarities and it's probably the only relationship on the Chinese side that's run by the army, by the PLA and for some time particularly until recently I think you could argue that it's been one of China's most secretive relationships as well. I'm not going to do too much on the history but I think it's quite difficult to talk about the present relationship and what's going on there without digging into some of the mythologies and pathologies from the historical relationship through some of its early phases as well. So the relationship was really forged around the mutual advantage that could be derived from coordination vis-a-vis a shared opponent, India. It's impossible to imagine the relationship as it looks now without the wars of 1962 between China and India and 1965 between India and Pakistan. At the same time you had two very different military cultures on the two sides. You have all of these stories from the early days of the relationship of Pakistani generals asking PLA, Lieutenant Generals, to fetch their luggage for them because they assumed from their shabby dress and lack of insignia that they must be servants come to help them. But you also had two very different conceptions of warfare, risk and strategy that has meant that despite this being this incredibly close security relationship, despite this kind of shared opponent in India, there actually haven't really been any wars where the two sides have really seen entirely eye-to-eye. Whether you look at 71, whether you look at Cargill in 99, etc. And one of the interesting cases of this does go back to 1965 where it does look from some of the archives that have come out that in fact China was willing to intervene on Pakistan's behalf in this war. But you have this visit from Ayub Khan to Beijing, the peak of the crisis, a secret trip that he pays and he goes to see Joanne Lai and others to talk about what Chinese intervention would look like. And Joanne Lai says, we'll be with you all the way. You just have to be ready to retreat to the hills, allow a few cities to fall and we'll continue to give you our backing right to the end. And Ayub Khan goes home and very unhappy with the visit and the idea that Lahore could fall absolutely unconscionable and soothes for peace. And that degree of India occupying this central space, but in so many ways, the practical elements of coordination during wartime never really fully coming off. But you have nonetheless had this conception of the two front war and it's still a sort of standing concern in India's doctrine. But in practical terms, and probably since 71, you haven't really had a scenario where it was likely that China would intervene on Pakistan's behalf. Instead, what you've got was something that looks like almost a giant procurement relationship. Even if the two sides aren't entirely joined up in their thinking about India, what is there is China providing Pakistan with the capabilities that it needs to play the balancing role that Beijing wants it to play. And that's a role that Pakistan wants to play itself for its own reasons anyway. So what you have really from 71 on for several decades is China providing the arms, being the most consistent arms supplier to Pakistan and the arms supplier that is willing to supply whatever else is going on in Pakistan's relations. And this is the all-weather friendship as it's described is distinguished from the fair weather friend, the United States that cuts off arms supplies in 1965 and is seen, of course, as having this oscillating relationship. China is there throughout. But in practice for the Pakistani army, I think for a long time the best equipment is seen to have come from the Americans. The Chinese provide tanks and they provide kind of lower grade equipment and higher grade stuff Pakistan continues to want to get from from from the United States. And even Deng Xiaoping at a certain juncture goes and tells the Americans back in the early 80s, you really have to you really have to improve your supplies to the Pakistanis. The stuff we give them is no good. But there's one really big exception to that, of course, which is the nuclear ties between the two sides, where Pakistan, we're trying to place this critical role, not only in developing Pakistan's nuclear program at certain critical junctures, but also Pakistan did have substantial indigenous capacities there, the missile program, the ballistic missile program China effectively gives to Pakistan. And throughout this period, whether on the conventional or the nonconventional side, China isn't just looking to sell arms to Pakistan. It's also looking to help Pakistan develop its own indigenous capabilities to be able to be self sufficient in the means of production of these things. And I think cooperation between the two sides, particularly on this extremely sensitive areas has really built a high level of trust between them. And it's been a very resilient relationship. And even during a period of time in which Chinese foreign policy more broadly was rebalancing towards other economically orientated goals, particularly, for instance, through the 90s when China's relationship with India was being normalized. The relationship with Pakistan, despite some real pressures through that stretch, persisted. And it's through that period that you get this famous quote from Xiangguang Kai, the head of China's military intelligence at the time that Pakistan is China's Israel. And it's a quote that comes after continued pressure from from the US about transfers of missiles, transfers of nuclear equipment and various other things. And the PLA really, I think plays an important role through this stretch in in holding the relationship together, despite some of the external pressures, and despite some of the other elements of rebalancing of Chinese policy. But for a long time, the relationship never really fully transcends this very security centric framework. It has its moments, there are many other facets to the relationship as well, I won't spend so much time on them. But you know, Pakistan does play an important bridging role for for for China, certain junctures, most famously, Kissinger passing through Pakistan and the secret messages convert conveyed by the Pakistanis to enable the Sino-US relationship to be established. It plays a similar role in establishing China's relationship with Saudi Arabia and some other cases as well. But despite the fact that it has been a relationship of some weight and standing in trust, it's been one that in some respects, China's been somewhat sheepish about reputational issues around the relationship and the very nature of it, such as security and intelligence centric relationship and some of the sensitive transfers that are taking place. The fact that it does complicate China's relationship with with India, of course, and some on the Chinese side have argued at certain junctures for more balanced approach in South Asia. It also never really takes on any economic weight. You can see this even when you're looking at the kind of most recent round of big promised in investments. You have a period from 2001 to 2011 where if you tot up all the things that China promised to provide to Pakistan, you get to about $66 billion, of which about only 6% actually come off. Of the sort of strategic mega projects that have been talked about, Guadal, the pipelines, the previous plans for a transport and energy corridor, these in the end have had not proved to be successful. And I think you had some doubts creeping in China about certain elements of the relationship. In particular, the cooperation on managing militancy inside the country becomes more and more problematic, particularly as Pakistan loses control over some of the groups that it had previously controlled more completely. And you even get some elements of concern in China about the willingness of the Pakistani army to take action over some of the elements that they do control and about what the long term trajectory of the relationship looks like as a result. But it's been hard to avoid the fact that despite some of these kind of negative seeming developments for the last stretch, some of the senses of missed opportunity elements that never fully come off, it's been quite clear that in the last year or so there's been a real shift. Xi Jinping's very high profile visit the other year, the launch of the China Pakistan economic corridor most clearly. But it's been in evidence in various other ways as well. You start hearing this somewhat newer language used to refer to Pakistan among some of the strategic thinkers on the Chinese side, language that Pakistan is China's one real ally and the relationship is a model to follow. And you've seen over the last few years some relaxation of the inhibitions that have previously been there over things like cooperation on nuclear power plants, investments in Gilgit-Baltistan, even about the development of God-Arport itself. What explains this change? I think to make sense of what's been going on, I think we probably have to look more at what's going on in China and on the Chinese side then Pakistan itself. But there have been a few Pakistan related developments that were of relevance and have fed into this. China is always willing to work with whatever government is in power or whatever army chief is in power in Pakistan. But they have had some preferences within that. I think there's no doubt that Nawaz Sharif taking power in the last Pakistani elections. They certainly, at least initially, preferred working him over his predecessor Asif Sardari. You also had a period of time in which there was actually, despite a stretch of time had been Pakistan for a few years, was probably the most dangerous country in the world to be a Chinese worker. There were a number of successful attacks by the Pakistani Taliban in particular, some of the Baluchi groups before that. You then have a number of years in which there is actually a lack of successful attacks on Chinese workers and security threats in Pakistan generally the situation has improved very notably in the last couple of years. And you also have the removal of what was really a standing irritant in the relationship, which was that the one terrorist group that explicitly targeted China had its base in Pakistan, China's closest friend for the better part of a decade in North Waziristan. And a couple of years ago, you have the Pakistani army's operations of Ayazab, which displaces pretty decisively the Pakistani Islamic party from Pakistan. But the more important drivers in the relationship in the last couple of years have really been on the Chinese end and Pakistan has been partly a beneficiary by chance. I think the first general trend is friends count for more. As strategic competition with the US in particular has been intensifying China's relatively, I think inadequate approach to sustaining friendships, let alone alliances is increasingly understood as a disadvantage. And you only need to look at a few of the recent cases, whether it's Burma, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and a few other cases to see that in some respects the developments for China in that sphere for the last few years have moved in an adverse direction. But also as China looks to develop more out of area capacities, whether it's naval facilities or even partners on the new proposed counter terrorism operations, these kinds of security partnerships that still fall short of a formal alliance have become an increasing focus. And when you look around the world, countries that fall into this category, Pakistan's really in a tier of its own, one of the only countries where you have a relationship of sufficient trust on the military and intelligence side. The second trend has been, which is one of the subjects of the conference that we've been discussing, growing concerns, particularly since 2009 about stability in Xinjiang itself. And I think you can see the very difficult early phase for Xi Jinping's presidency in this respect, whether it was the attack in Tiananmen Square, the attack in Orumqi, just as his flight is taking off, and a couple of these other cases, which also plays into a kind of a longer term trend about the concerns about the impact of developments in the neighborhood, not necessarily just in the short term on Xinjiang, but over over the longer term, particularly Afghanistan in the context of the US drawdown. And the sense has been, I think, that achieving some level of stability in Xinjiang over time will require also achieving some degree of stability in China's Western periphery and the risks in China's Western periphery for Xinjiang are very significant. And that includes doing so through these kind of martial plan style efforts through Chinese investment and financing. The third trend, I think, has been the shift in the Chinese economic model. The domestic downturn and longer term economic transition that's underway there has necessitated this push to address the problems of over capacity, low returns on investment at home, through building new markets abroad, finding new growth drivers in the Chinese interior, and moving away from what had really been the previous pattern of large scale outbound natural resource investments towards increasingly industrial and infrastructure projects. And of course, all of these factors have converged in many respects in the Belt and Road Initiative and in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, which has ended up becoming the flagship project for this entire initiative, as described on the Chinese site. And I don't think this is because CPEC is and Pakistan is necessarily believed to be the ideal place to showcase the Belt and Road. When you hear about some of the internal assessments on the Chinese side conducted by its security services by MAFCOM and others, they've been relatively pessimistic, I think, about CPEC's prospects. But Pakistan has a few traits that are important. First of all, it's one of the only places that China's been able to find where you have a country that is willing and receptive to investments on such a large scale and in a manner that China wants to see them happen. Including, for instance, privileged position for Chinese companies and bidding processes and some of these sorts of things. So when you look around at all of the other Belt and Road cases, there are no other instances, I think, where you get this kind of multiple tens of billions of dollars of planned investment on quite such an ambitious scale. And it's also one of the locations where the potential political and strategic benefits of pushing ahead with some of these investments are really seen to be worth the costs. There's a couple of elements behind that. And first of all, a stronger and more normally functioning Pakistani economy is seen by China as reducing the risks of extremism in various different ways and some of the traditional elements to the relationship to. I think China believes that Pakistan can't sustain its balancing role entirely effectively if its economy continues to go on its previous trajectory. The thing I do not include among the primary strategic benefits as seen on the Chinese side in this to such a degree is this big question of the connectivity from Xinjiang to Guadal, which I don't actually think is as important to China, even though it's clearly an important part of the mythology and symbolism around CPEC and we can talk about in the discussion afterwards about why that's the case. What does some of this translate into? First of all, it means that the Chinese commitment to a political energy to the relationship is much greater than it was to take the most obvious case. Unlike the previous dynamic on economic projects in which essentially if a project wasn't going well or was running into problems, was running into security concerns, it would be used as an excuse to stop the project altogether or slow it down. At the moment, CPEC, whatever some of its challenges are, is being pushed ahead and it's being pushed at despite some of the problems it faces and rather than stopped because of them. It has effectively turned into a test case, really, for the entire Belt and Road scheme and therefore in some respects for Xi Jinping personally given that this entire initiative is his pet project and what you continue to hear from everyone on the Chinese side who's engaged in these things every time they're running into the headaches that undoubtedly exist around it is still the political need to do this is strong. And if you look at the history of the China-Pakistan relationship, the economic projects that have actually come off, whether it was the construction of the Karakoram Highway, Guadalaporte's development in the first place, the nuclear power plants, when there's been a strong enough political and strategic rationale for these projects, they have been the ones that have succeeded. It's been the projects that have lacked that or have had only economic underpinnings behind them that haven't actually ended up coming off. I think what you also see at the moment is that there's a somewhat greater willingness on China's part to demonstrate that being a friend of China brings benefits, which has ramifications that go well beyond the China-Pakistan relationship itself. You see it in subtle ways in the UN Security Council, the nuclear supplies group and a few of these other cases recently. But I think the scheme as a whole is also intended, CPEC as a whole itself is also intended as a demonstration that being a close security partner of China's does translate as well into some of these broader, large-scale economic benefits. In all of these senses, I think Pakistan is really a clear beneficiary of some of the new calculations that are underpinning a few of these elements in Chinese foreign policy. But it also brings with it a number of pressures for both sides. The narrow pretty secretive security relationship that used to exist between the two sides was also something that could be very carefully managed by pretty small bunch of people in China and in Pakistan at the political level and most importantly through the militaries on the two sides. Now with CPEC, China's far more exposed to Pakistani politics, to security threats, to public opinion and to all of the ramifications of being seen more as a patron than China has ever been seen, I think, before in the relationship. And I think China has in this early phase been somewhat taken aback actually by the level of political infighting that CPEC unleashed. But some of it is infighting that is China being inserted into all of the previous fights that existed in Pakistani politics anyway just with a Chinese lair to them. But it's a very different status for China at the moment, although I think there's significant levels of support in Pakistan across the political spectrum in principle for the entire project. In practice, the sheer scale and nature of what's being attempted gets into an inherently political set of fights. And it's not something that China has really been exposed to there before. And it's also pushed China as a result to have to take a more active role in certain respects on areas of Pakistani politics that it had not meaningfully played a role before, whether that's questions about the status of particular provinces. But even when we've seen that particularly in the last few months, questions of civil military relations in Pakistan where there has been this huge question about the role of the Pakistani army or otherwise in running this project. So this is a new set of issues for China to manage. And it's certainly also true that the expectations for Pakistan have gone up as a result. China wants a stable Pakistan and a stable neighborhood for its investments. And it's meant that China started weighing in on various issues, like Afghanistan in particular, where it used to give Pakistan a pretty free hand, virtually outsourcing its own policy in Afghanistan to the Pakistanis. The last couple of years, that's no longer been the case, whether it's in the bilateral relationship with Pakistan, or in the brutal role that China is playing in Afghanistan. And there's been a far greater willingness for China's part to weigh in on broader strategic questions in Afghanistan, in a way that is in some respects quite testing for the relationship. The traditional very India-centric framework of the relationship saw the kind of structure of the two sides' interests pretty well aligned, even if it wasn't always aligned on tactics. On Afghanistan and looking west, I think there's considerably greater scope for differences between the two sides on their outlook. And we've already seen that in a few modest ways already, but I think it could really be put to the test of the situation in Afghanistan to worsen more significantly. And what all of this means is, and just to wrap up, the focus of the relationship which had through its, really through its first few decades, been essentially focused on India whether it was explicitly stated that way or not, is relatively less so now. It doesn't mean that the traditional basis of the relationship has changed, but it does mean that the relative weight of a number of these other issues has really grown. The relationship increasingly looks beyond even South Asia itself to the Middle East, to Afghanistan, to regional stability questions. And, of course, it looks even more seriously than China, the relationship ever did before inside Pakistan. There's a quote that some colleagues here have been fed up with hearing at the conference in the last couple of days. There's, when Lika Chiang meets Narendra Modi in one of his meetings, he talks about the purpose of the China-Pakistan economic corridor being designed to wean the populace from fundamentalism. From some Chinese experts have also had the quote to the effect that the goal of CPEC is to transform the social and economic structure of Pakistan. These may be very noble objectives, but they're certainly for those who are used to following Chinese foreign policy over a long time, ones that sound a very, very long way away from non-interference. Thank you. Thank you so much, Andrew. I think Andrew has presented a fantastic snapshot of the evolution of the Sino-Pakistan relationship, one that was very much could be seen as a transactional one in some senses, from that era of being a procurement relationship through the 70s and 80s to now we have a range of new dilemmas, particularly for Beijing. In that context there are a range of, no doubt, many controversial questions, hopefully from the floor, enough to stimulate debate. So I invite questions from the floor and I please ask just to state your name and affiliation and we'll get the microphone to you. We're in about 35 years of service in military and I'm very pleased to see your analysis. First of all, you understand that China and Pakistan friendship is not new. It starts from 1951. It has stood all the tests of the history. I mean, we have been living with the western world, Ceto-Cento, war against the Soviet Union and also keeping a balance with China. That is our strategic compulsion, maintaining a strategic balance in the region and this is every state does it. That is the legitimate rise, right? Secondly, where you, I think you need to have more research is that 90% of equipment of Pakistan army air force navies from United States, not from China. That is interesting for you. I'm familiar to you. That's good. CPAC should be seen as a game changer, not for Pakistan also from Africa, Middle East, New Zealand and Australia. One day people realize that one of the benefits of CPAC for the entire world is not only regional focused. Lastly, I will mention that our relationship with China is on mutual interest and we respect, we have strategic interest with each other and China has been a good friend of Pakistan and Pakistan has been a good friend of China. So this alliance is not against anyone. We are maintaining a strategic balance with the United States as well in the western world and we are the front leading country in war and terror. So I believe that whatever Pakistan and China are doing, that should be seen as handshake for regional stability and security rather than access of you. Thank you much. Okay, I'll kind of send you for the interesting comments on these things, some of which I think are fair. I think it's still, if you're looking from the Indian side, difficult to see the relationship purely as a handshake of friendship. But on some of the and, of course, as I was arguing in the piece, it's a relationship that was certainly because if you go through from 1951 through the early phase of the relationship, there was a period of course in which China's relationships with India was much closer. And it's still hard to see how the relationship translates into what it ends up translating into without some of the regional dynamics moving in the way that they do, including in the first instance, the China-India war. And that's obviously the juncture as well, at which suddenly the border agreement with Pakistan is wrapped up purely coincidentally in the immediate aftermath of the war. And I think although the relationship now certainly looks beyond some of these regional considerations, Pakistan as one of your former chiefs of army staff described, Stockton has still had an India-centric framework for its own strategy for some time, and China has provided a balance for that in very important respects. And that's been one of the principal reasons that China has been so willing to do so. I think whether one goes into the nuclear questions or not, I think China, the degree of integration that China's had and coordination with Pakistan, which it also saw as a two-way street for some time. I think China also saw itself benefiting from the process of cooperation on nuclear issues with Pakistan itself, including centrifuge technology and other things. This wasn't just intended as a sort of a one-way street at all. But why was this willingness to cooperate and coordinate on some of these issues? It's the only instance I think you have in the world of a nuclear weapon state providing highly enriched uranium to what was at the time a non-nuclear state. I think the regional strategic framework has still been central to that. And the questions about the two sides' relations with India. But as I think the presentation teased out, CPEC and some of these other facets of the relationship really look quite far beyond some of these traditional questions. And if successful, I completely agree that would have ramifications that could be potentially beneficial within the region and beyond as well. And certainly, including when I'm talking on this subject in India as well, that I think India should also see some potential benefits from the success of CPEC if it does succeed. On the proportional military sales, we can debate the statistics, but that's not. I completely agree with what India is about. I would hope further down the line that you could have a branch of CPEC that actually goes to. And I actually think the economic success of CPEC can only be fully realised over time if it ultimately involves trade with India and Pakistan as well. But that's another question. David Murphy from the Australian Centre for China in the world here at ANU. I'd like you, if you could just elaborate a little bit more on your comment about the connectivity between the question of connectivity between Guadagwara Port and Xinjiang, especially given it's not just a matter of port development, there's a special economic zone development there. And also related to that, whether you could talk to it all, whether there's a serious energy security element of the relationship given that elements of CPEC, or as I understand other elements of Chinese investment in Pakistan concern, the pipelines between Iran and connecting on natural gas and oil. And also just the question of transporting an alternative transport of Middle East oil from the Guadagwara Port through into China that way is perhaps an alternative to transport through the Malacca Straits. Yes, interesting question. There's quite a few facets to it, so I'll try and stitch a few of the different pieces together. The transit dimensions of the corridor, of the China-Pakistan economic corridor, I still do not see as kind of a central, a really central part of the objective on the Chinese side for various reasons. One of the reasons that the Karakoram Highway and all of these things are so difficult to use commercially are purely kind of practical considerations about the high mountain passes, landslides, the viability of the route and this sort of thing. So you can build some of these things, but will they actually be put into full use? I think it's still questionable. One of Noa's first things that he talked about when he was talking about CPEC was about building a railway, for instance. I think there are still none of the questions about the viability of that route for north as being the bulk of commercial traffic or even a significant increase in commercial traffic have really gone away and there's better protection from landslides from some of the tunnels that have been built and things, but the road is still closed down now routinely by purely by natural disasters and things. So purely for that reason, even more importantly than questions about Balochistan and security issues and these things, I think there's still a lot of difficulties in having this route really come off as a regular thoroughfare. CETRA is still the preference. Now I think you do have a kind of the same sort of slightly neurologic factors that even played into the building of the Caraperam Highway in the first place which was done during the period in which Mao was kind of doing the western push and pulling all of the industry into the interior fearing U.S. and all of these sorts of things. I still think what you're raising about the Malacca Straits and all of these questions, I think it is there in broad terms in the minds of some of the people who are thinking about the entire construction of the Silk Road Economic Belt, Maritime Silk Road, how these things connect and I think some of these kinds of drawing lines on the map and alternative energy routes and things like that. I don't think that they are absent from the sort of some of the broad thinking about it, the practical thinking about it though, I still find that to be much more distant from what's going on. It was actually quite hard to get the Chinese companies to take Guadalong again actually. Of course the Singaporeans were running it for a while, took a very significant lobbying effort to get the port taken on by Chinese companies. It was one of Sadari's kind of actually his big achievement in the relationship before he left office. And if you look at the breakdown of the projects, of course, the larger proportion of them by far are still energy projects inside Pakistan. They're not connectivity energy projects. The proportion of it is still 70, 75 percent of the projects are projects to help the Pakistan energy sector. The next phase of it will probably be infrastructure, more infrastructure in turn. I mean, Guadar has already appeased, some of the road building thing. A lot of the next phase, I think, will be more rail links and things inside Pakistan. I'm discussing some of this at the moment. But the proportion of it that is cross-border, new, major commercial linkages, I think, is still not going to be a very significant component of it. And when it comes to the energy piece, so the Iran pipeline, for instance, I mean, I think the Iran-Pakistan pipeline China may help finance that as they will finance some of these other things. But I think the purpose for that will be gas for Pakistan. If Iran wants to connect up, its energy supplies with China. And if you talk to people on the Iranian side, I don't think Pakistan and Balochistan seem as the most natural conduit. You've got Central Asia, you've got sea links. You run into the same questions that you did before. And the line that you get from some people on the Chinese side is, all of Pakistan is a corridor. So all of these questions are, where is the route going? And this is something that, I mean, it's there in the debate very clearly on the Pakistani side. And there are provinces that want to get more of their share of the proceeds and things. I think on the Chinese side, the balance of interest has still been in broad-based projects for the Pakistani economy and the language. Some people have even said you shouldn't call it a corridor at all. It's a broad-based investment package. People keep thinking of it as a transit corridor. It's good for the stories, but I'm still not sure it's the central part of it. And it doesn't, you know, China wants to use Pakistani ports for certain purposes. None of that, that's not absent either. But I think the central thrust of what's being done is not essentially this kind of draw the line from Kashgar to Guarana, you know. Hi, thank you. My name's Natalie. I'm from the Strategic Studies Department doing my masters here. I wanted to know what you thought the strategic and security questions that Australia should be asking about this emerging dynamic, particularly with the shift in the past year. Some might be forecasting strategic and security challenges for Australia. I just wanted to know what your thoughts were for that. I'm actually from New Zealand as well, so if you can allude to anything on that, that would be really great. OK. I'll try and answer it in kind of general terms, and then there'll be kind of specific application. But I think some of these are questions that apply to a number of countries. I mean, there are some frontline countries where there are a different set of questions, but for anyone that isn't in the immediate periphery, I think there's some kind of broader issues in place. I mean, of the developments in the last stretch of time, you, of the new pieces on the security side, on the direct military relationship, I think sort of interesting new phase is probably more on the naval piece, which I didn't really talk about. But I think there is, I mean, you just saw first nuclear submarine making its call in Karachi. You saw one of the biggest arms sales in Chinese history of the submarines to Pakistan as well. And you're not looking at that just in the conventional side. Pakistan has been quite explicit about its plans to develop a naval nuclear capability, the third leg of its nuclear triad. And as it has been throughout, I think China would be, would play a helpful facilitating role for certain specifically technical elements of it, but also in terms of the, I mean, the submarines that themselves as we've seen. So, I mean, there are some interesting developments there that I think have ramifications in the Indian Ocean for nuclear security questions in the region that I think are kind of worth paying attention to. Some of the other stuff that I talked about, I mean, I think these, I think these geo-economic schemes, CPEC, so we're at economic balance, some of these, are a significant shift factor in terms of some of the security questions in the region. I think they, across a few different elements, I mean, there is, of course, a long-term question of whether development equals stability and these sorts of pieces. I think they are intended as incentivizing in the short term. I mean, I think there's a sense that the region has lacked an economically integrating core that the security dynamics, the security divisions in the region have tended to predominate. And if you have some kind of attractive economic force on the sort of scale that's being proposed, that it might help to recondition some of these calculations, whether that's accurate or not. I think you can see at least an attempt to put these into the mix. And I think you have seen around some efforts on China's part to nudge Pakistan in a certain direction on some questions, at least some efforts on Pakistan's part for its own interests as well. And this is not just Chinese pressure on Pakistan or something, but I think Afghanistan is one of the central cases for this, where there has been an expectation on China's part that Pakistan will do more to deliver a reconciliation process with the Taliban. Obviously, this hasn't succeeded yet, but it's a very some of the economic incentives that are being put in place, not just the economic corridor, but some of the promises for Afghanistan as well, are really one of some of the only new factors that are coming into play on these on these questions. So and I think I mean, this is one of the things we were looking at in the conference in general. There is just a question that is shifting about how China thinks generally about capitalism issues. China has not been a close partner in really in trying to address some of the systemic questions around militancy in this region or anywhere else. I think there are reasons to think that that might be changing now as a result of some of the developments that are underway, not just in Pakistan case and Afghanistan and some of the developments there, but Syria as well and some of these other cases. So I think there are a few facets where it's some of these don't necessarily have total immediacy for Australia or New Zealand. But I think that their long term developments in the region is still really quite critical across a number of traditional and non-traditional security threats that everyone is facing. My name is Yogesh. Sorry, my throat is very bad. I have been at the last particular question. You know, you all cover up what I wanted to ask you, but beyond that, you have not mentioned in the entire presentation the Americans, what's the role of Americans? And I know that you would not like to digress from CPAC, but you did mention about Indian interest and Indian long-term perspective. Probably the Americans also have a short-term and strategic interest in how that interest would help or oppose that success of CPAC. Yeah. So, I mean, the Americans are relatively sympathetic towards a lot of what CPAC is trying to do. I mean, there was a period of time when Richard Holbrook would go and have these meetings in Beijing and basically say, we can't get through the level of economic support that would be needed to help the Pakistani economy in various critical sectors. Can't you guys do it? And so for a lot of what's actually being done in the context of these projects, they're things that the U.S. has been keen to see China do for some time. I think the sense of China taking on somewhat greater responsibility for trying to push some of these economic projects in the right direction and really coming in to look at what's going on in the Pakistani economy and say, you know, developments here constitute, if not successfully addressed, constitute a strategic risk that we should also be worried about. And so in that, there's various facets of that for the U.S. is quite pleased to see China taking on a heightened role, whether it's CPAC, but also more broadly in the region where I think they've been quite, certainly been very positive disposed towards seeing China weigh in much more actively on Afghanistan than it was, and that's really been quite a close area of coordination between the two sides, even with all the other strategic differences between them. You almost got when Nawaz Sharif was in in the U.S. for a visit earlier this year. I think it would have been earlier this year and a joint statement actually supporting CPAC or something to that effect. The objections to it were the gas-fired power stations that were environmental caveats and things. So it didn't end up going into the statement, but they're not going into a joint statement because of some kind of profound objection to it. Even in the last strategic economic dialogue, the big kind of conclave between the Americans and the Chinese, Pakistan was one of the areas that was being looked at as well as, you know, other areas of complementarity here. Now, going to the previous question, questions about Qwadar, your U.S. ports, China's naval role, these sorts of things, I still think there are parts of the Indian Ocean where you don't have yet the level of strategic concern and the view that says that the two sides are entering into pure strategic competition that you do in the Asia-Pacific. And so I think some of the views when it comes to that, I mean, there are sensitivities. I don't think there is so much I think Jewelry Sports are one of the sort of other question marks when it comes to some of these GERA economic projects that exist on the U.S. side. But I think it's still, for now, I think the balance of considerations when it comes to Pakistan and in another context, Afghanistan is the threats from instability, militancy, terrorism, or of highest aliens for the United States and that therefore, role women in developing some of this in the context of some of the other areas of strategic competition in East Asia. This is actually his own where a greater level of Chinese assertiveness is actually seen as being relatively helpful. Thank you very much. My name is Nishank. I'm from the Asia-Pacific College of Diplomacy. Andrew, you described in your presentation Chinese generals, I quote, Pakistan is China's Israel. And in another instance, you said Pakistan is China's one and only real ally. I'm interested to know to what extent is China willing to make good of its alliance or stick its neck out for Pakistan in its relations with say India, the United States or any other actor? Is there substance in this alliance beyond the procurement side of the relationship, beyond the security side where both countries gain from each other, but more so, but to what extent is it willing to stick out its neck for Pakistan? Yeah. So I mean, I think the, this is where the use of the fuzzy use of ally can be quite unhelpful, I think, because that quote was from Yan Shui Tong, I think. In fact, I'm just seeing some of the work of Yan Shui Tong's friend. But I think, I mean, of course, China only has one formal alliance commitment, which is to North Korea. And non-alignment has been a central part of its policy for so long. And Pakistan has, at a few junctures, asked to upgrade the defense relationship into something that is a treaty alliance, or something that incorporates treaty commitments on China's part. There are some kind of protocols to a defense agreement that was reached that are non-public that may have some elements of this, but they're not treaty commitments of a certain nature. And when Pakistan has asked China to do this, it said no, and it said no at certain different junctures. What you're talking about still is, and I think the model element of the relationship is a close and a high level of trust and coordination, but that doesn't involve putting China on the hook in any of these situations. And that's partly, of course, as well because of the barely substantial number of occasions in which if there had been any of these commitments, China would have been in a difficult spot. But I mean, there are other more important considerations that were overriding. I think there are a number of these occasions as well where if you look at the last couple of decades and you look at questions of culpability, if you're looking at 99, if you're looking at Mumbai, if you're looking at these cases, 2001, 2002, Twin Peaks, I mean, a number of these instances, I think you've seen the role that China's played in these cases, in the case of Carl Gil, they encouraged Pakistan to pull its forces back. And so this has been this kind of parallel thing for all of the, it is an extremely close partnership, but the sense has been we will help to provide the capabilities, but in a number of these crisis situations, we don't necessarily agree with what you're doing. Now, if you flip that and you say there's a situation in which there are actions taken, say, by India, or the US, that China, but I think the Indian case is the interesting one. There's an action taken by India that China sees as disproportionate, China sees as homing Pakistan in some fundamental way. And kind of if you debate this out with certain people on the Chinese side, I think there may be a willingness to swing in in a way that hasn't been seen in the last stretch because of the particular dynamics of how these situations have played out. And that even comes down to some of the, you can even talk about that in terms of, in some of the nuclear conflicts, how some of those eventualities might play out. Might China engage in signalling or something during a crisis that has seemed to be largely of India's making? For instance, there are some questions there. And I think diplomatically, China does back Pakistan up on some of these things. The most obvious case is China does provide protection to various individuals on the sanctions committee of the UN Security Council. I think you can see some of what went on at the NSG in the last stretch, not just as an India related question, but also as China wanting to ensure parity for the two sides and looking out for Pakistan's interests in this respect. And some of these things come at a cost. I mean, it does come at a cost in the relationship with India diplomatically, not in sort of security stakes that would be involved in a wartime scenario. But I mean, these things do come at a cost. And I think now you do have a broader base. I mean, this is, I think, the big development now. You have a much broader base commitment on China's part to the relationship as a result of the depth of these intended economic ties. And I think that will change the standing. It also means there are lots more Chinese workers and individuals in Pakistan. There are certain forms of naval cooperation that could involve Chinese assets being based in Pakistan, which does complicate and raise additional questions if you were, again, talking about a wartime scenario or something like that. Last thing, I mean, on the US, one, another test instance of this, though, is on the US-Pakistan relationship. China still wants Pakistan to have a good relationship with the United States. And this comes back to this role that China sees Pakistan playing. China wants Pakistan to continue to be an effective, play this effective balancing role, have healthy relations with all sides, et cetera, et cetera. And it sees that the US-Pakistan relationship helps to facilitate that. It wants Pakistan to get US weapons. It wants Pakistan to get US financial support when necessary. And so when, for instance, after Bin Laden raid in Abbottabad, some on the Pakistani side were sort of looking to China at that juncture to kind of swing in in a certain fashion, China was quite clear. No, you have to fix your relationship with the United States. We'll back you up on some critical areas we'll protect, including if they attempt to bring sanctions against some members of the Pakistani army, we'll block whatever we need to block, but you need to fix your relationship with the US. So it's kind of, there are nuanced elements to this. And I think it does involve important commitments on China's part, but it doesn't and won't, I think, involve some of the kind of actual treaty commitments of the sort that would be a part of what would be a real alliance. You sort of touched upon the issue with the Bin Laden episode, but how does China view that force order between Afghanistan and Pakistan and the Pakistani Taliban and what sorts of things in, right on the source, and basically, the wrong issues with Muslim separatists? So, I mean, there's a couple of elements to it. First of all, there's the direct border elements. And I think there's still not, I mean, the borders are locked down. I mean, there's no, there's very little movement in or out when it comes to that. So in terms of kind of what are seen as direct spillover effects, despite the proximity, I think it's seen as less a kind of immediate spillover risks and more about some of the ties that exist between various groups, the inspirational effect. But you, of course, had a period of time through the 90s, through the late 90s, in which you had training camps for certain militant groups. In Afghanistan, the group that China calls ETIM, and then they were in North Waziristan for some time. So this was the location in which the one group that does explicitly target China, they were located in this fuzzy border space. I think they're basically back in, probably in Badakshan at the moment, seems to be the assessment at the moment of the headquarters of the group. But so some of the specific groups have been caused for concern. The broad cause for concern has been the kind of macro implications for stability in the region if some of these groups are able to either achieve some problematic level of success in Afghanistan that would repeat the kind of 90s scenario or if they destabilize Pakistan itself. So that's been a kind of macro concern. But the very direct question has been the other repeat of the 90s question, which is could you have a safe space established again for some of these militant groups to have their base? And that has been why you've seen China weigh in quite as actively on Afghanistan policy as they have. At the same time, they're still very cautious about the handling of a number of these groups and about Pakistan's role in doing so. The Pakistani Taliban problem is, of course, partly a problem of precisely the kind of scenario, a worst case scenario that you might see on China's part if there were to be a more definitive split between Pakistani government and the Afghan Taliban and what that might amount to, for instance. So if it comes down to questions of how much pressure, for instance, China might put on Pakistan on some of these issues, there are very precise parameters to it. And China's still been very reliant on Pakistan for its intelligence, for navigating some of these relationships, even for kind of judgment calls on these things. China's familiarity with a number of these groups, although it's had contacts with them and things, it's not comfortable at ease in dealing with this entire space. And the one country it trusts up to a point on these things has been Pakistan. So it's still dependent to a significant extent on the Pakistani staying on the ISI and others to sort of make calls that are also attuned to China's interests, but of course have other purposes as well. But what you have seen over the last year or two in particular has been a much more serious attempt to build up relationships with other entities in the region as well. So you've seen the first package of military aid to Afghanistan. You've seen this big rotation of Chinese military and intelligence officials going through Afghanistan. So there's a much more independent relationship being built up with Kabul as well. But the Pakistan relationship and Pakistani armies kind of proclivities around this are still going to dominate and there are limits to what China is going to do to try to push that in another direction.