PAKISTAN and China celebrate their 75th anniversary of diplomatic relations, indicating the strategic value of their true friendship, fraternity of relations and futuristic orientations of iron-clad brotherhood, which are based on immense love and mutual respect and which have remained unconditional, uncompromised and untidy. Despite this reality, self-styled experts, retired bureaucrats, sponsored pseudo-intellectuals and, notably, former FBR Chairman Mr Akram Naeem Bharoka and many other paid agents try to undermine China’s role and misrepresent CPEC’s agreements, loans, projects and policies as harmful to Pakistan’s national interests.
According to Keohane & Nye (1977), experts of liberal institutionalism, international cooperation flourishes when states create institutions that reduce transaction costs, enhance information flows and create reciprocal obligations. CPEC represents precisely such an institutional framework, a bilateral mechanism that has operationalized the complex interdependence between Pakistan and China through multiple channels: trade, investment, infrastructure and people-to-people contacts.
Moreover, Keohane (1984) demonstrated that sustained cooperation builds reliability and reciprocity, characteristics evident in Pak-China relations since 1951. Haas (1958), through “Neo-functionalism”, highlighted how integration in one sector creates spillover effects into others. CPEC exemplifies this, expanding cooperation from infrastructure into energy, telecommunications, industrial parks, agriculture, maritime security, defence production, naval cooperation and space. Stephen Walt’s Balance of Threat theory (1987) similarly suggests that states form alliances to counter perceived threats. Pakistan’s strategic partnership with China therefore reflects its response to regional security concerns and India’s perceived hegemonic ambitions, including policies attributed to RAW Chief Ravi Sinha, NSA Ajit Doval and their associates. Operation Bunyan Marsoos further demonstrated Pakistan’s resolve, supported by Chinese-origin capabilities, to counter such threats.
It is pertinent to mention that the so-called “debt trap diplomacy” thesis, schemed by Brahma Chellaney (2017) and propagated by Western media, has been comprehensively refuted by empirical scholarship. Deborah Brautigam (Johns Hopkins SAIS), SBP, SECP, Pakistan Planning Commission and the economic and finance ministries have confirmed that Chinese lending constitutes a small fraction of Pakistan’s external debt, approximately 20–25 per cent, with the majority owed to multilateral institutions (IMF, World Bank, ADB) and Paris Club creditors. Ironically, Mr Bharoka’s and many other pseudo-intellectuals’ selective citation of Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) reports reveals their intellectual dishonesty and profound ignorance of defence economics. SIPRI data only tracks arms transfers, not economic dependence.
Surely, the Heckscher-Ohlin Factor Endowments Theory explains the complementary nature of Pak-China economic relations: China provides capital, technology and manufacturing expertise, while Pakistan offers strategic location, labour and natural resources. CPEC operationalizes this complementarity through energy projects addressing power shortages, infrastructure corridors reducing logistics costs and enhancing connectivity, and special economic zones (SEZs) promoting technology transfer and industrialization. Krugman’s (1991) New Economic Geography framework further explains how infrastructure investment creates agglomeration economies, attracts investment and generates positive externalities. Gwadar Port exemplifies this potential, positioning Pakistan as a transshipment hub connecting Central Asia, South Asia and the Middle East.
Keynesian multiplier theory demonstrates that infrastructure investment generates cascading economic benefits. Chinese investment in CPEC, exceeding 62 billion in planned investments, has created direct employment for over 75,000 Pakistani workers, indirect employment in supply chains, services and ancillary industries, enhanced productive capacity through energy and transport infrastructure and fiscal space through increased tax revenues and reduced subsidies. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) estimates that CPEC could add 2–2.5 percentage points to Pakistan’s GDP, a transformative impact for a country facing structural economic challenges.
Surely, structural realism (Waltz, 1979) acknowledges that states operate in an anarchic system, necessitating self-help strategies. Pakistan’s defence cooperation with China represents a rational response to regional power asymmetries and the security dilemma exacerbated by India’s military modernization (Rafale acquisition, S-400 systems and nuclear triad development). Many other scholars, like Mearsheimer’s Offensive Realism (2001), would also interpret India’s hegemonic aspirations in South Asia as inherently threatening, justifying Pakistan’s counterbalancing strategy. The China-Pakistan axis serves as a balancing coalition against Indian regional dominance, a classic application of balance of power theory.
Hedley Bull’s English School emphasizes the role of shared norms, institutions and values in shaping international order and Pak-China relations exemplify sustained strategic cooperation. Interestingly, China maintains sovereign equality and mutual respect and has never interfered in Pakistan’s internal affairs. It has always observed non-aggression and peaceful resolution of disputes, reciprocity in economic and security cooperation and, last but not least, a community of interests in regional stability and development.
The China-Pakistan Community with a Shared Future concept, endorsed at the highest levels, represents the institutionalization of these sustained strategic principles, a stark contrast to the transactional, conditional relationships Pakistan has experienced with Western powers. On the other hand, Constructivist Theory (Wendt, 1992) emphasizes how shared identities and norms shape state behaviour. The “ironclad friendship” between Pakistan and China is not merely a strategic convenience but a socially constructed reality rooted in historical solidarity (China’s support during the 1965 and 1971 wars), mutual respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, shared developmental aspirations and, last but not least, people-to-people bonds cultivated over 75 years.
Sandler & Hartley (1995), dealing with defence economics, recognize that military cooperation operates on principles distinct from commercial transactions because it provides non-excludable, non-rivalrous security benefits, joint production achieves economies of scale and scope, enhances indigenous capabilities, reduces dependence and demonstrates resolve and credibility to adversaries.
—The writer is President, the Centre for Knowledge and Public Policy, Regional Expert: China, CPEC, BRI & World Affairs.
