ISLAMABAD: The foreign policy experts on Tuesday stressed that Pakistan should follow a balanced foreign policy instead of hyphenating its global status either with US or China.
The experts made the remarks during a round table conference to discuss the Sino-American competition and its impact in South Asia which was organized by Islamabad Policy Research Institute (IPRI).
It was underscored that Pakistan needed to detach emotions from state-to-state relations, and think rationally and added that Sino-American investors had a different politico-economic context, as businesses in China were owned by the state while in the US many were privately owned.
“Hence, state-to-state relations should be pragmatic and broad in scope and extent. States are money-savvy entities that ought to be business-minded, ” it was stressed.
It was suggested that Pakistan should focus on geo-economics and not geopolitics. China overproduces commodities and it needs to shore up its consumer base, while Pakistan needs to move from a consumption-based society to a production-based society.
It was noted that debt was not a very bad thing because being a global player, one is bound to borrow in the long run and the outcomes largely depend on how effectively the debt had been utilised.
The participants of the roundtable conference observed that the trajectory of events had shown that China stood by Pakistan through thick and thin, unlike its other allies.
The participants underlined that Pakistan’s strong focus should be on economic and political cohesion internally. “Strategically, Pakistan’s relations with China have been much strong than the US but economically it is the other way round. In order to save itself, Pakistan needs to withdraw its tentacles from abroad and start consolidating internally, ” it was resolved.