Pakistan-China: Strategic Encirclement of India’s Core Interests

The China-Pakistan-India trilateral relations have an interesting economic and security interdependence equation. It not only reflects their bilateral misgivings but also how extra-regional states influence is keeping the regional multilateral mechanisms handicapped. China is self-reliant in its security capability but interdependent on the world economies for its economic development. China-Pakistan relations are diverse, and the Chinese have a strong investment presence in Pakistan. According to Jing Huang, senior fellow in Asia Studies at the Brookings Institution, "Pakistan would welcome investments from China more than anywhere else because Chinese are our brothers and time-tested friends". The two countries have cooperated on a variety of large-scale infrastructure projects in Pakistan, including highways, gold and copper mines, major electricity complexes and power plants, and numerous nuclear power projects. Pakistan helps China on a range of issues, including "providing intelligence, fighting terrorism, and repairing relations with the Muslim world". All the matter is just compiled and edited in nature. For China, Pakistan is essentially a surrogate army. Owing to traditional military rivalry, India has for decades maintained a Pakistan centric strategic policy which keeps its military tied up and limits its options against China. According to Husain Haqqani, of Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, "For China, Pakistan is a low-cost secondary deterrent to India". As the book addresses this crucial issue quite deftly, it is hoped that it would prove to be a source of great information for the reader.