The joint statement issued on February 6 following the four-day visit by the Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan to China has been an exceptional gesture by Beijing underscoring the highest importance attached to that country as a regional ally. Beijing feels the need to underscore that not only does it back the government in Islamabad to the hilt but is determined to boost the ties, especially by boosting the flagship of the Belt and Road Initiative known as the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).

Aside its overt emphasis on the launch of the CPEC’s Phase 2, the two highlights of the joint statement are: one, the affirmation that ’stronger’ defence and security cooperation will be ‘an important factor of peace and stability in the region,’ and, two, the joint initiative to take up with the Taliban government the holding of the China-Pakistan-Afghanistan Trilateral Foreign Ministers’ Dialogue as well as the ‘extension of CPEC to Afghanistan.’

New trends have appeared in regional security during the past 6-month period since the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan last August, which are highly consequential for regional politics. For a start, all evidence suggests that various terrorist groups continue to operate in Afghanistan. And groups like Hizb ut-Tahrir or the Islamic State affiliates have a long history of working as the West’s geopolitical tool.

The acute humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan following the abrupt ending of western assistance in August and the U.S. vengeful decision to freeze the country’s funds abroad are being turned around as pressure points by Washington to engage with the Taliban Government with a view to manipulate its attitudes and policies. With the departure of U.S. Special Representative Zalmay Khalilzad, the CIA is in direct control of Washington’s dealings with the Taliban.

The Oslo talks (January 23-25) between the Taliban and the U.S. has been a turning point. Notably, last week, the U.S. Treasury Department has unilaterally ‘tweaked’ the sanctions regime against the Haqqani Network. Funds can now be transferred to Afghanistan by international banks, and aid agencies are allowed to work with the Haqqanis. Alongside, President Biden has designated Qatar as a ‘major non-NATO ally’ even as direct flights commenced last week between Kabul and Doha (where CIA operatives dealing with Afghan affairs are based), and, furthermore, Qatar will now be operating the Afghan airports and controlling that country’s air space. Taken together, Washington is rapidly putting in place the infrastructure for conducting its operations in Afghanistan pending diplomatic recognition and the establishment of physical presence.

Meanwhile, the climate of Pakistan’s relations with the Taliban government has deteriorated. A surge of cross-border violence culminated last week in brazen attacks on Pakistani military. The picture remains hazy. Intriguing questions arise as to the culpability.

The internal tensions within the Taliban are no big secret. It is only to be expected that at a time when the group is trying to gain international legitimacy and tackle domestic crisis, internal tensions get accentuated, as interest groups competing for positions and privileges pull in different directions. Suffice to say, the Taliban is more vulnerable today than ever to infiltration and manipulation by the western intelligence.

Recently, Barnett Rubin, former State Department official and expert on Afghanistan who was a key aide to late Richard Holbrooke, took a historical perspective when he said, “The Taliban are the most unified organisation in Afghanistan. There has never been a significant split in the organisation. There are many differences and rivalries that are seized on by their opponents as evidence that the Taliban are divided, but they have never been divided in practice. The CIA spent $1 bn trying to split the Taliban and failed.”

That was time past. Time present may hold surprises. What is apparent is that while the Taliban government is being seen by the world community as the monarch of all it surveys in Afghanistan, Washington is singling out the Haqqani Network as its interlocutor. The folklore used to be that the Haqqanis were the blue-eyed boys of Pakistan. Equally, they became synonymous with brutal acts of terrorism. That said, however, the Haqqanis also have another side to their bio-profile.

Lest it gets forgotten, the great patriarch Jalaluddin Haqqani’s rift with Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and the subsequent split with Hizb-i-Islami in 1979 was not due to the acceptance or rejection of radicalism but reflected regional geography and their respective tribal origins. The Haqqanis belong to the Zadran Pashtun tribe, a branch of the Kalani tribal confederacy inhabiting southeastern Afghanistan (Khost, Paktia and Paktika provinces) and parts of Pakistan’s Waziristan. That is what distinguishes the Haqqanis in the top rungs of the Taliban leadership in Kabul. Mullah Hasan Akhund, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, Mullah Mohammed Yaqoob, etc. are largely drawn from the Abdali (Durrani) confederacy of the dominant Pashtun tribes.

True, the Taliban movement managed to put up a show of unity, but that was the period of the jihad against foreign occupation when clan and tribal identity got submerged and the friendship networks, or andiwali (Pashto for camaraderie) played an important cementing role. But even then, interestingly, the Haqqani Network had enjoyed battlefield autonomy while remaining politically subservient to the Quetta Shura.

Today, two factors become particularly important. First, no one knows whether the Taliban supremo Amir Hibatullah Akhundzada is still alive or not. There is a leadership vacuum. Second, since 2013-2014, Pakistan’s control of the Taliban had been progressively weakening following the assassination of several senior Taliban figures in Quetta. Now, these two factors combined together, there is no one with power or authority who can rein in the Taliban factions from going overboard. In all likelihood, Pakistan is helplessly watching. The cross-border tensions could well be a manifestation of this epochal transition in the Taliban’s tumultuous history.

Then, there is an interesting detail that has great relevance today. The Haqqanis and the CIA go back a long way. The Haqqani Network was the only Mujahideen group that then Pakistani President Zia-ul-Haq permitted the CIA to have direct dealings during the 1980s jihad. How far that had anything to do with the Haqqanis’ devotion to ‘global jihad’ is a moot point today. The point is, it was in the safe hands of the Haqqanis that the CIA entrusted Osama bin Laden’s life and security during the 1980s jihad.

Is it coincidental that the U.S. has ‘tweaked’ the sanctions against the Haqqanis unilaterally so soon after the defeat in Afghanistan so as to revive their direct line of communication with them?

The regional states cannot but be worried. Simply put, the spectre that is haunting the region is the U.S.’ return to Afghanistan to finesse a new geopolitical tool for influencing regional politics in a wide arc of countries — Central Asian states, China, Russia, Iran and Pakistan. The China-Pakistan joint statement issued in Beijing on Sunday is a forceful signal from Beijing against any such attempt to use Afghan soil as a springboard to destabilise the region. But it is going to be an uphill struggle unless the attempt is nipped in the bud.

It is not without reason that the Chinese President Xi Jinping told his Kazakh counterpart Kassym-Jomart Tokayev at their meeting in Beijing on Saturday that ‘The dimension of China-Kazakhstan relations has gone beyond the bilateral scope and is of great significance to regional and even world peace and stability.’ The very next day, at the meeting with Imran Khan, President Xi emphasised that ‘as the world finds itself in a period of turbulence and transformation, China-Pakistan relations have gained greater strategic significance.’

With the recent pledge by China, Russia, Iran and Pakistan for renewed defense of Afghanistan’s sovereignty and right to develop, many have jumped the gun to celebrate a little prematurely.

While watching a hegemonic wanna-be global overlord choke on humble pie is certainly satisfying, and while Afghanistan unquestionably has a renewed hope to recapture its ancient role as a pearl on the Silk Road uniting all cultures of the globe, something darker is also afoot. A process reminiscent of the events of 1979 when Zbigniew Brzezinski, then leading a trilateral Commission takeover of the USA using a dim-witted puppet president, managed to launch a program known as “Operation Cyclone”.

This clandestine operation was premised on the lies of Zbigniew’s Team B analysis of Soviet ambitions to supposedly dominate the world and which thence justified a program that utilized billions of dollars in tax payer money to fund the growth of Mujahedeen terrorist cells and narcotics in a bid to light a fire under Russia’s soft underbelly and suck the unsuspecting soviets into a bloodletting that would be sold to an incredulous western population as “Russia’s Vietnam.”

Over forty years later, the results of Zbigniew’s duplicitous proxy war are well known.

The Soviet Union was certainly bled, leading to its ultimate dissolution under Gorbachev and the world was given the gift Islamic terrorism- funded, armed and trained generously by CIA, MI6 and ISI operatives.

Additionally, organized crime syndicates of the world also grew their influence in leaps and bounds as the world center of opium production was moved from its former zones of Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, and Myanmar to more fertile soil in Afghanistan, providing both the funding needed to light the region on fire for decades while also amplifying a new opium war against ALL of civilization. The conspicuous integration of the DEA and CIA during this period which coincided with the heroin boom and also the flooding of crack cocaine into the ghettos of the USA under CIA director George Bush Sr (also a defender of Zbigniew’s Team B takeover of U.S. intelligence estimates) cannot be ignored.

Signs of Darkness

Signs of the re-activation of this old script with a modern twist are already visible on numerous levels, not the least of those signs being witnessed in the strange decision to demolish the CIA torture annex in Kabul in response to the August 26 attack by the mysterious ISIS-K on the Kabul airport which killed 170 civilians and 13 U.S. soldiers. Why was it the case that U.S. and British intelligence agencies issued warnings of an attack at that location and time long before it occurred and yet did less than nothing, other than shooting civilians and bombing three households after it happened?

Why would the U.S. military deem it wise to destroy a CIA base which has been a strategic central point of command of all clandestine activities in the region for the past two decades in response to this completely foreseeable event?

Recently a Lebanese analyst, commenting on the observations of the leader of Hezbollah wrote that “the U.S. have been using helicopters to save ISIS terrorists from complete annihilation in Iraq and transporting them to Afghanistan to keep them as insurgents in Central Asia against Russia, China and Iran”.

This observation is not unique to Nasrallah, but has been echoed at various times over the past three years by the Russian government, Syrian state media and leading officials in Iran including former Foreign Minister Javad Zarif who noted as early as March 2018 that “this time, it wasn’t unmarked helicopters. They were American helicopters, taking Daesh out of Haska prison. Where did they take them? Now, we don’t know where they took them, but we see the outcome. We see more and more violence in Pakistan, more and more violence in Afghanistan, taking a sectarian flavor.”

Zarif’s words echoed those of Iranian Chief of Staff Major General Mohammad Baqeri who said: “After witnessing ISIS and other organized terrorist groups losing their ground in Iraq and Syria, they are now relocating them to Afghanistan.”

Additionally, U.S. mainstream media has been preparing the western zeitgeist with strange interviews with leaders of Al Qaeda and ISIS-K in recent weeks. First the state-funded PBS broadcasted a suspicious interview with Hayat Tahrir Al Sham (aka: Al Nusra aka: Al Qaeda) leader Abu Mohammad al-Jolani who was repackaged in a business suite and sold as a “moderate resistance fighter” in Syria. Then just days before the August 26 Kabul attack, CNN’s Clarissa Ward interviewed an ISIS-K commander in a silhouetted frame to protect his identity. When asked if he would continue the campaign of international terror, the unnamed terrorist stated “instead of currently operating, we have turned to recruiting only, to utilize the opportunity to do our recruitment. But when the foreigners and people of the world leave Afghanistan, we can restart our operations.”

To top things off, the incredibly talented Bulgarian researcher Dilyana Gaytandzhieva noted on June 22 that the U.S. Army contracted four companies to purchase $350 million worth of weapons made by eight companies located in Serbia, Bulgaria and Croatia which are destined to flood into Syria as part of a program called Task Force Smoking Gun. This 2017 program was part of a U.S. Special Operations Command Unit Task force which carried out the Syrian ‘train and equip program’ designed to overthrow the Assad regime using Al Qaeda affiliates as freedom fighters. In her report, Gaytandzhieva wrote:

“According to the U.S. Federal Procurement Data System, the eight companies have already received orders with an estimated value of $25 million each or $200 million combined under the 5 year-long Pentagon program for non-U.S. standard weapons supplies. These are foreign weapons which are not compatible with the U.S. military standard, hence cannot be used by the U.S. army and will be delivered as military aid to third parties.”

China Will Fill the Vacuum

It is 100% certain that China has great hopes to invest in Afghanistan’s bountiful rare earth, copper and iron deposits, as well as rail, roads, fibre optics, energy plants and communications bringing Afghanistan into the evolving Belt and Road Initiative. However, the expanded presence of Chinese engineers in the region will put China at risk of asymmetric attacks.

Over the past 15 years, projects like the 2007 Mes Aynak copper mining operation and 2011 Faryab and Sar-i-pul oil development deals have stalled due to the frequent occurrence of U.S.-backed terrorist attacks on Chinese engineers and workers. Just this summer, 9 Chinese engineers were killed in Pakistan when an explosive device detonated sending a busload of workers off a cliff. These workers were en-route to work on the large Dasu hydroelectric dam that is part of the CPEC.

China is additionally concerned that the East Turkestan Islamic Movement which has cut its teeth fighting alongside its Al Qaeda affiliates in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan may also spring to new life. It was only in November 2020 that Secretary of State Pompeo removed the group from the U.S. list of terrorist groups despite the fact that the United Nations Security Council had released a report in May 2020 stating that the ETIM “has a transnational agenda to target Xinjiang, China, and the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, as well as Chitral, Pakistan, which poses a threat to China, Pakistan and other regional States.”

The refutation of China’s anti-Muslim genocide myth promoted by western MSM was laid out in a recent interview by this author here:

Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen has attempted to allay China’s fears saying: “Those who are intending to carry out sabotage activities in other countries or have their foreign agenda would not be able to remain in the country.”

However, it is still too early to validate such claims as the ETIM alongside ISIS cells certainly abound in the mountainous northeast regions enjoying support from western clandestine operations and parallel networks still active in Pakistan such as Lashkar-e-Islam and Tehrik-e-Taliban as outlined in the aforementioned UN report.

The need to cut off all Al Qaeda operations are vital at this time and thus the convergence of the “big four” nations of Russia, China, Iran and Pakistan are so vital. With Iran having been inducted into the Shanghai Cooperation Organization as of September 17 joining both Pakistan and India as full members, it is understood by all relevant parties that a new security doctrine is needed in the region premised on win-win cooperation.

This is most apparent when one considers that the living force for the multipolar alliance’s long-term success is hinged upon the continued success of China’s 130 nation strong Belt and Road Initiative whose four of the six primary networks pass through Xinjiang and the region which Brzezinski lit on fire four decades ago to keep the “world island” divided and weak.

The Chinese and their growing array of partners have come to the fundamental insight that the only way to destroy terrorism is not by bombing nations to smithereens, but rather by providing the means of improving the lives of people. This is the true meaning of “civilization” that not merely builds infrastructure for the sake of shareholder value, but uplifts and ennobles the hearts and minds of a people who have been caught too long in the darkness of ignorance, despair, war and poverty. This is the only antidote for global terrorism, the plague of drugs that have ravaged countless lives, and even the poisonous misanthropy underlying the decaying “Rules-Based International Order”.

The author can be reached on his Substack

With the transformation of the rules of the “Great Game” in the Middle East emerging out of President Trump’s recent Syrian surprise pullout and Putin’s brilliant manoeuvres since 2015, a sweeping set of development/reconstruction programs led by China now have a chance to become hegemonic across the formerly hopeless, terrorist-infested region.

The fact that the Arab states of the Middle East were targeted for destruction by western geopoliticians over the last 40 years is not un-connected to the region’s historic role as “cross-roads of civilizations” which were once the bridge between East and West along the ancient Silk Road (c. 250 BC). Today’s New Silk Road has brought 150 countries into a multipolar model of cooperation and civilization-building which necessitates a stabilized Middle East in order to function.

When asking “how could a reconstruction of the Middle East be possible after so many years of hell” I was pleasantly surprised to discover that both great projects once derailed have been given new life with the new prospects for peace and also new projects never before dreamed possible have been created as part of the New Silk Road (Aka: One Belt One Road).

Just to get a sense of this incredible potential that is keeping western oligarchs up at night, I want to quickly review just a few of the greatest China-led reconstruction projects which are now taking hold in four of the most decimated areas of the Middle East: Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Afghanistan.

Iraq Joins the New Silk Road

After decades of foreign manipulation, the Iraqi government was able to declare victory over Da’esh in 2017- just 3 years after the western-sponsored insurgents had gained control of one third of the territory. This new stability created by Russia’s intervention into Syria, unleashed a vast potential for China-led reconstruction to not only re-build the war-torn nation, but launch it into the 21st century.

In September 2019, Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdu-Mahdi announced Iraq’s participation in the New Silk Road standing alongside Xi Jinping in Beijing. Mahdi said: “Iraq has gone through war and civil strife and is grateful to China for its valuable support… Iraq is willing to work in the ‘One Belt One Road’ framework”.  President Xi then said: “China would like, from a new starting point together with Iraq, to push for the China-Iraq Strategic Partnership”.

Part of this Strategic Partnership involves an Oil for Reconstruction program which will see Chinese firms exchange infrastructure-building for oil (100 000 barrels/day to be exact). Already Iraq is China’s 2^nd largest supplier of overseas oil while China has become Iraq’s #1 trade partner. Abdul Hussein al-Hanin (Advisor to the Prime Minister) explained that rather than giving money for Iraqi oil, China would build its projects defined by 3 priorities which al-Hanin said “first is building and modernizing the highways and internal roads with their sewage systems. Second is the construction of schools, hospitals and residential and industrial cities, and third is the construction of railways, ports, airports and other projects”. Atop the list of “other projects” include water treatment systems and power plants.

While Iraq’s economy is dependant on oil (making up 65% of its GDP, 100% of its export revenue), China’s New Silk Road focuses upon diversifying Iraq into a more complex full spectrum economy which is vital to enhance its sovereignty.

While great strides have been made towards a new system, anti-government protests threaten to disrupt this program having left 100 dead and thousands wounded since they began in July 2018.

A New Hope for Syria

The wounds Syria has inflicted since the crisis erupted in 2011 will take generations to heal, with over half a million deaths, a loss of 5.6 million civilians who have fled the country and approximately 6.1 million displaced within Syria itself. China has made clear its intentions to bring the BRI to Syria as fast as possible since 2017 with Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang saying:

“Too many people in the Middle East are suffering at the brutal hands of terrorists. We support regional countries in forming synergy, consolidating the momentum of anti-terrorism and striving to restore regional stability and order. We support countries in the region in exploring a development path suited to their national conditions and are ready to share governance experience and jointly build the Belt and Road and promote peace and stability through common development.”

After committing $23 billion in aid in 2018, BRI projects in Syria have taken many forms which can now begin as a viable peace process is finally underway, including East-West rail and road connections between Asia and Europe passing through Iran, to Iraq and into Syria where goods can be sent to the Basra Port in Iraq, the Syrian ports of Latakia and Tartus on the Mediterranean as well as the incredibly important Port of Tripoli in Lebanon called a “pearl on the New Silk Road” by the Chinese.

Discussion of a North South route connecting transport routs through Syria to Lebanon, Israel and Egypt into Africa are now underway and the timing of the chaotic anti-government protests in Lebanon makes one wonder if western meddling is behind it.

Many of the beautiful possibilities for Syrian reconstruction were laid out in great detail in a 2016 Schiller Institute video entitled Project Phoenix which has circulated widely across the Arab world.

Assad’s Five Seas Strategy Revived

Little known in the western world, President Bashar al-Assad had already advanced this vision as early as 2004 when he first announced his “Five Seas Strategy”. In an August 1, 2009 interview, President Assad described his program beautifully: “Once the economic space between Syria, Turkey, Iraq and Iran becomes integrated, we would link the Mediterranean, Caspian, Black Sea, and the [Persian] Gulf . . . we aren’t just important in the Middle East. . . Once we link these four seas, we become the unavoidable intersection of the whole world in investment, transport, and more.”

Going beyond mere words, President Assad had led delegations signing agreements with Turkey, Romania, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Iran, Iraq and Lebanon to begin Five Seas projects. This was done at a moment that President Qadaffi was well underway building the Great Manmade River as the largest water project in history alongside a coalition of nations of Sudan and Egypt.

In a powerful report Extending the New Silk Road to West Asia and Africa, BRI expert Hussein Askary wrote: “Through the BRI, China is offering the rest of the world its know-how, experience and technology, backed by a $3 trillion financial arsenal. This is a great opportunity for West Asia and Africa to realize the dreams of the post-World War II independence era, dreams that have unfortunately been sabotaged for decades. The dramatic deficit in infrastructure both nationally and inter-regionally in West Asia and Africa can, ironically, be considered in this new light as a great opportunity.”

It is now becoming obvious, that the Syrian project that was derailed in 2011 can now get back on track.

Yemen as Keystone of the Maritime Silk Road

The four year Saudi war on Yemen has been a humanitarian disaster of our times. However in spite of insurmountable odds, the Yemenis have managed to not only defend themselves but have pulled off one of the most brilliant military flanking maneuvers in history crippling the Saudi economy on September 29^th. This victory has both forced the Saudis to eat yet-another mouthful of humble pie and created a breathing space for a serious discussion for Yemen’s reconstruction through participation in the New Silk Road. Sitting upon the entry of the Gulf of Aden with the Red Sea, Yemen is today as it was 2000 years ago: a vital node in both Maritime Silk Road and the land-based Silk Road connecting Asia with Africa and Europe.

Already several Yemeni organizations have been created endorsing this vision led by the Yemeni Advisory Office for Coordination with the BRICS, Yemeni Youth BRICS Cabinet and the New Silk Road Party which has gained the support of leading government officials since their founding by Yemeni poet/statesman Fouad al-Ghaffari in 2016. Courageous efforts such as these have resulted in the government’s signing an MOU to join the BRI in June 2019.

A word on Turkey and Afghanistan

The Middle Corridor linking Turkey to Georgia and Azerbaijan via rail and to China via Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan was hailed by Erdogan to “be at the heart of the Belt and Road Initiative.” In July 2019, Erdogan said the BRI “has emerged as the greatest development project of the 21^st century”. After citing the Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge over the Bosporus, Eurasian tunnel and Marmaray system across the Dardanelles and its vast high speed rail, Erdogan continued by saying: “Turkey shares China’s vision when it comes to serving world peace, preserving global security, stability, promoting multilateralism… the world seeks a new multipolar balance today”. It is no secret that Turkey has come to the realization that its destiny relies on China, whose trade rose from $230 million in 1990 to a staggering $28 billion in 2017!

President Trump’s efforts to bring the Taliban to the discussion table with the Afghan government of Ahmadzai have resulted in a renewed potential for China’s desire to extend the $57 billion China-Pakistan-Economic Corridor (CPEC) into Kabul. While this diplomatic opportunity is very fragile, it is the closest the region has yet come to a viable resolution to the post 2001 insanity (including the replacement of its opium-based economy towards a viable full spectrum nation).

It goes without saying that the entire Arab world is looking at a new future of hope and development through the combined efforts of Russia and China. The USA, under Trump’s efforts to undo the decades of Gordian Knots in the Middle East have resulted in the most absurd campaign from republican and democratic tools in Washington to impeach the president. Obviously, a US-Russia-China alliance would be a wonderful blessing for the world, but for this to occur, the matter of the deep state infestation of America must first be dealt with.

The author can be reached at matt.ehret@tutamail.com

When it became evident that the regime change wars that grew out of 9/11 were not merely driven by oil profits- but were rather designed to prevent the possible formation of an alliance of Eurasian nations, a counter-offensive was adopted by those targeted Eurasian powers to ensure their survival and international stability. This counter-offensive was driven by the incredible alliance of Russia and China who together had the combined talents of Russia’s extraordinary military/intelligence capabilities and China’s powerful infrastructure building capabilities.

While certain Asian nations had been positioned by western geopoliticians to be anti-China, other nations under the NATO cage were forced to be anti-Russia. With the surprise Russia-China partnership, moves to unwind impossible knots of conflict threatening WWIII have begun to come unwound. Xi’s current visit to India is just one of many examples made possible by the flanking maneuvers created by the great alliance.

India Joins the Polar Silk Road

The importance of India and Japan’s participation in the 5^th Eastern Economic Forum from September 4-6 in Vladivostok Russia can only be appreciated by recognizing this cooperative strategy between Russia and China. Both nations have recently transformed the ambitious development plans of Russia’s Far East and Arctic region into a Polar Silk Road – bringing the BRI into Russia’s Arctic.

The fact that India was able to integrate its destiny into this emerging Polar Silk Road is vitally important for the future of international affairs, as President Modi was welcomed as Russia’s guest of honor. This visit ended with a historic 81 point joint statement with President Putin, solidifying cooperation in nuclear development, space technology, telecommunications, AI, nanotechnology, as well as Russia’s participation in major Indian infrastructure and India’s investment into Russia’s Far East and Arctic infrastructure. The International North-South Transport Corridor was high on the agenda as was an increased building up of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization as “an equal and indivisible security architecture in Asia and the Pacific region”. Putin beautifully stated that both nations have “similar civilizational values” and similar approaches to the “fundamental issues of development and economic progress”.

Echoing Putin’s message of multipolar cooperation, Modi said “by declaring the development of the Russian Far East a ‘national priority for the 21^st century’, President Putin has taken a holistic approach towards improving everything ranging from economy, education, health to sports, culture and communication”.

As the Indian president spoke these words, a $1 billion USD line of credit was offered by India for Russia’s Far East development, adding to the $7 billion USD currently invested by Indian firms in Russian oil and gas.

This incredible unification of interests between Russia and India on the Polar Silk Road have flanked the fanatics within Modi’s own government who are ideologically committed to an enemy relationship with China due to the latter’s partnership with Pakistan on the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).

While not as dramatic in effect, the Vladivostok meeting was also highlighted by participation by the leaders of Malaysia, Mongolia, and Japan- all of which have increased their commitments in the Polar Silk Road program and have in the same measure begun to liberate themselves from western manipulation.

Putin’s Far East Vision Diffuses Japan-Chinese Tension

For years, Japan has been a problem case in the Asia Pacific due in large measure to a decades-old military treaty with the USA resulting in 50 000 US military personnel, dozens of bases and an anti-China/Russia missile shield hosted in Japan. Fuel has been poured on the flames of conflict with China over the disputed East China Sea (known in Japan as the Senkakus and Diaoyus). Similarly, a Japan-Russian conflict has been kept hot over decades due to Japan’s claims over ownership of its “Northern Territories” which in Russia are dubbed the “Kuril Islands”. Of course Russia has made clear that it is willing to give those territories to Japan in accord with a 1956 Joint Declaration, but due to Japan’s status as colony of a US military seeking unipolar hegemony around “Full Spectrum Dominance”, it cannot do so, nor can it accept Japan’s calls to formerly end WWII with Russia. These obstacles aside, progress has been made.

While Japan did not make the dramatic commitments into Russia’s Far East as India did, PM Shinzo Abe did make headlines when he stated Russia should be re-introduced in the G8, joining in similar statements recently made by both Emmanuel Macron and President Trump on August 21 in France. President Putin took the opportunity to advance on the theme by saying that not only would Russia accept being re-introduced into the group, but that China, India and Turkey must also become members!

Just two months earlier, Abe applauded the signing of a deal “that facilitates Russia’s efforts to develop the Arctic and ensures stable energy supply to our country”– referring to the Mitsui and JOGMEC oil giant’s participation in the 2^nd LNG project in Novatek. Commenting on the LNG-2 deal, Energy Security expert Professor Francesco Sassi of Pisa University recently said that the project “will see an unprecedented level of cooperation between Japanese and Chinese energy companies in one of the most important Russian energy projects of the next decade”.

Lastly, the 9300 km Trans-Siberian Railroad has increasingly become a part of the BRI carrying goods between the East and West. On July 3^rd Russian Railways announced a 100-fold increase in Cargo volume from 3000 twenty ft units to 300 000 by upgrading and doubling the rail, making this the “main artery for Europe-Japan trade”.

Malaysia Solidifies its Relations with Russia and China

While Malaysia has been pushed by the US Military Industrial Complex to participate in war games while confronting China over disputed territory in the South China Sea, the current President Mahathir Mohammed has resisted this anti-China stance by calling for increased cooperation on China’s BRI. President Mahathir’s visit to Vladivostok resulted in the creation of a Russian-sponsored Aerospace University in Malaysia and Mahathir’s happy announcement that the Russian Far East will open up new markets for his nation.

On the Aerospace University, Dr. Mahatir stated: “we are very interested in aerospace and engineering. I am confident that the proposal by Russia to set up an aerospace university would not only boost investment but also promote transfer of technology in the sector.”

Mongolia and the New Silk Road

Up until just a few years ago, Mongolia was seriously being courted to join NATO. Canada’s Governor General David Johnson did the most to seduce Mongolia’s leadership going so far as to praise Genghis Khan as the great civilization builder and true soul of Mongolia that needed to become hegemonic in the Mongolian psyche as the nation joined North Atlantic Alliance.

Luckily, the nation’s leaders recognized the sea change and made the decision to drop the offer (though still hasn’t managed to join the SCO beyond its current Observer Status). The creation of the China-Mongolia-Russia Economic Corridor in 2016 was a watershed moment which expands heavily upon the Trans-Mongolian Railway and AH-3 Highway Route creating vital links between Russia and China. These projects play heavily into China’s BRI.

The days before the Vladivostok summit, Putin visited Mongolia where the two nations signed a “Treaty of Friendly Relations and Comprehensive Partnership” to bring “strategic partnership to a whole new level.” Putin announced a joint investment fund and $1.5 billion USD loan which President Battulga announced would be used to build more rail to the Chinese border for coal and mineral exports and the upgrade of the Ulan Bator Railway which Putin stated “is an important transportation artery for Mongolia”. Since 2017, Russian-Mongolian trade grew by 22%.

In spite of all of this incredible development, US Defense Secretary Mark Esper demonstrated the superhuman disconnection from reality shared among all technocrats and neocons of the west during his August visit to Mongolia where he tried in vain to win the nation over to his imagined anti-Chinese alliance.

The Welfare of Humanity is at the Heart of Everything

Re-stating his concept of the global importance of the new paradigm emerging in Russia’s Far East and its connection with the broader BRI as an international affair for all mankind, President Putin stated “I believe that our brainstorming today at this forum will not only strengthen the efforts of human welfare in the Far East, but also the entire mankind.”

This parting thought represents one of the most powerful concepts and sources of creative energy which both fuels the growth of the Belt and Road Initiative and the Polar Silk Road. It is also the core reason why western game theory logicians cannot understand how to beat it (except using the temper tantrum strategy of a toddler wielding nuclear weapons). It is creative and premised on a care for all mankind, whereas technocrats and game theorists operate on the narrow principle of selfishness which cannot generate anything truly creative.

M.K. BHADRAKUMAR

In the aftermath of the Indian government’s decision to remove “special status” for Jammu and Kashmir and split the state into two union territories, the most keenly awaited regional and international reaction – and a hugely consequential one – would be that of China, not the US or even any of the other three permanent members of the United Nations Security Council.

This is for three reasons. First, China is the only P5 member that is party to the Kashmir dispute by virtue of its Faustian deal with Pakistan in 1963 – the Sino-Pakistan Frontier Agreement and Sino-Pakistani Boundary Agreement – as well as because of Aksai Chin being a disputed territory.

Second, it is well known that China has a larger-than-life influence over Pakistan, and therefore, indirectly, is in a position to leverage the next moves by Islamabad on the J&K situation in practical or political terms.

Third, of course, China is a veto-holding P5 member. Although not involved in the making of the UN resolutions on Kashmir in 1948-1949 – which was an Anglo-American enterprise at a juncture when Indian prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru somehow deliberately refrained from seeking Soviet help to counter India’s isolation in the UNSC – nonetheless, China is a powerful protagonist today if the Kashmir file were to reopen in New York at Pakistan’s behest.

Chinese reaction

On Tuesday, the Chinese reaction to the announcement in Delhi on Monday relating to J&K has come in two parts in the nature of remarks by the Foreign Ministry spokeswoman in Beijing – a relatively low-key reaction in diplomatic terms in comparison with a full-fledged statement, as Turkey, for instance, has done. One part exclusively relates to Ladakh’s new status as union territory, while the other one relates to the “current situation” in J&K.

Both remarks are devoid of any stridency, and on the whole India can live with them, although Western media, unsurprisingly, has hyped them. In fact, neither voices any overt backing to Pakistan. And, importantly, there are no new overtones as such in the well-known Chinese stance.

The remark on the change in Ladakh’s status begins by underscoring explicitly that China is voicing its “firm and consistent position,” which “remains unchanged.” That is to say, it regards part of Ladakh to be Chinese territory and India should not unilaterally create facts on the ground through domestic laws. If India does, China will consider that unacceptable and it “will not come into force.”

The remark rounds off stating the Chinese stance that India should speak and act with prudence on the boundary question, strictly abide by relevant agreements on peace and tranquility and avoid precipitate steps.

This is exactly what China has maintained and can be expected to state. No doubt, this is also what India would expect China to observe in regard of the unresolved border dispute. The Indian stance on the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is a fine example.

The gray area here is whether the administration of Ladakh as a union territory will entail administrative arrangements on the ground that tread on Chinese sensitivity. Prima facie, that is unlikely to happen, since the two militaries present in the vacant spaces observe ground rules.

On the other hand, the interesting aspect of the Chinese spokeswoman’s remark on the J&K situation is that there is no direct reference to the specific situation involving the abrogation of Article 370 of the Indian constitution. The remark is of a generic nature. It repeats that the J&K situation is a matter of serious concern, but underscores categorically that “China’s position on the Kashmir issue is clear and consistent.”

‘International consensus’

Most important, it flags that China is in sync with the “international consensus” that the Kashmir issue is a historical conundrum that India and Pakistan have to grapple with by exercising restraint and prudence. This means, however, that the two countries “should refrain from taking actions that will unilaterally change the status quo and escalate tensions.” China calls on the two countries to “peacefully resolve … [their] relevant disputes through dialogue and consultation” in the interest of regional “peace and stability.”

Indeed, the “known unknown” here is to what extent, if any, the current upheaval in Hong Kong influenced Beijing to sidestep the Indian government’s specific move to abolish Article 370 and abandon J&K’s “special status.” To be sure, a grave situation has arisen in Hong Kong, which has assumed anti-China overtones.

No analogy holds 100% in politics, but there are similarities in the public alienation in J&K and in Hong Kong that foreign powers are exploiting. In fact, China also has to contend with its equivalent of India’s Article 370 – the Sino-British Joint Declaration, which is as sacrosanct as an international bilateral treaty, signed between China and Britain on December 19, 1984, in Beijing.

Legally binding

Curiously, the Joint Declaration is also legally binding, and like Article 370, it commits China to allow Hong Kong to “enjoy a high degree of autonomy, except for foreign and defense affairs” even as the territory will be “directly under the authority” of Beijing.

Most important, the Joint Declaration affirms that the government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) is responsible for the “maintenance of public order … Military forces sent by the Central People’s Government to be stationed in … [the HKSAR] for the purpose of defense shall not interfere in the internal affairs” in the HKSAR.

The treaty is valid for 50 years, but a crisis is looming large on the horizon, and there is much speculation that patience is wearing thin in Beijing. A top Chinese official said on Wednesday: “Hong Kong is facing the most serious situation since its return to China.”

A Beijing-datelined commentary by Xinhua on Monday titled “Bottom Line on Hong Kong brooks no challenge” was furious that “black-clad, masked protesters removed the Chinese national flag from a flagpole in Tsim Sha Tsui of Hong Kong and later flung the flag into the water Saturday, an unforgivable, lawless act that has blatantly offended the national dignity, is an insult to all Chinese people, including Hong Kong compatriots, and must be severely punished in accordance with law.”

All factors taken into account, as the saying goes, the pot cannot call the kettle black. The MEA’s response to the Chinese remarks on J&K has gently drawn attention to the reciprocity that governs inter-state relationships by underscoring that the legislation known as the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganization Bill 2019, introduced by the government in Parliament on August 5, is “an internal matter concerning the territory of India. India does not comment on the internal affairs of other countries and similarly expects other countries to do likewise.” India has scrupulously maintained silence on Hong Kong developments.

asiatimes.com

So I looked forward to Khan’s first meeting with Trump at the White House. Pakistan’s relationship with the US looks strained on the surface as Trump cut off aid packages to Pakistan at a time when the country’s finances have been, to say the least, challenging.

Khan is in a incredibly difficult position, trying to legitimize the civilian government while reining in the de facto military one. I don’t pretend to understand all the ins and outs but it should be obvious that Khan is facing the same kind of ‘deep state’ pushback that Trump, Salvini and others like him are experiencing.

Pakistan is the lynchpin on which China’s Belt and Road Initiative rests. China has pumped more than $60 billion into Pakistan through the China Pakistan Economic Corridor. That money has itself become a political football Khan has had to deal with.

At the same time, the US is still obsessed with keeping central Asia chaotic and unsettled.

Those forces within both the US and British Deep States have worked hard to sabotage any gains made by Khan to navigate the roiling waters around him. They cling to the more than 150 year-old view of disrupting central Asia, what Halford Makinder called “The Heartland,” as the key to maintaining supremacy over China and Russia.

Preventing rapprochement between India and Pakistan was the point behind the terrorist attack back in February which nearly set the two countries to war, as Khan made a strong first impression at ending the forever war between the two countries.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a committed neoliberal if there ever was one, took full advantage of the attack to ensure his re-election in May.

And since then he has gone out of his way to virtue signal how upset he is with Khan over not getting control over ‘terrorism’ in Pakistan. No invitation to his inauguration, snubbing him at the recent SCO conference. Modi knows full well the challenges Khan is facing and his behavior has been nothing short of abominable these past few months.

But he also knows that the Afghanistan peace process is proceeding without India’s input. And both sides of the conflict have been elevating Pakistan to get what they want. While India has fumed and stamped its feet over both BRI and Afghan talks the world has moved on without it.

Trump is moving forward with some form of end to the Afghan war. He needs this for political purposes. It won’t be a full withdrawal, not with the people surrounding him in place.

India is wedded to the Ghani government, barely hanging on in Kabul by the grace of US support, and keeps making investments outside of BRI, namely the port at Chabahar in Iran, and railways to Afghanistan, to spite the Chinese, who they are still angry with over the Tibetan border.

And India’s pride has ultimately isolated them because they are not central to solving Afghanistan like Pakistan is.

Talks with the moderate Taliban leaders began in December 2016 when China, Russia and Iran elevated Pakistan to lead the talks, knowing full well that for any lasting peace between the two countries, Pakistan would have to be a primary negotiator. This has kept India on the sidelines, hoping the US would support them in talks.

But it hasn’t worked out that way at all under Trump. If anything Trump has been dismissive of India, relegating their concerns to the back burner. Russia, China, the US and Pakistan have all agreed, in principle, to a path forward towards de-escalating the situation in Afghanistan.

This is why it was important for Khan to come to Washington D.C. now while Trump is mad at Modi for buying Russian S-400 missile defense systems and giving Khan a stage.

And, to Khan’s credit, he did just that.

Going on Fox News and making the public offer to give up Pakistan’s nuclear weapons if India would was a masterstroke of diplomacy. Will anything come of it? Not directly. India isn’t giving up its nukes because Imran Khan asked nicely.

Will the war hawks in Washington decry Trump for meeting with Khan and talking peace? Yes.

In fact, to over-shadow Khan’s offer the media, both US and Russian sadly, has focused on Trump’s tweets about ending the war in Afghanistan (10 million dead) and India denying there was an offer to mediate on Kashmir.

Lost in all of that was Khan, again playing it very smart, saying he made the offer to Trump back in February to mediate a settlement on Kashmir.

“Nuclear war is not an option between Pakistan and India. The idea of nuclear war is actually self-destruction,” he replied.

Speaking on the recent tensions between the two South Asian neighbors in February, Prime Minister Imran Khan said he had asked President Trump to play his role and mediate between the two countries.

“The US is the most powerful country in the world, the only country which could mediate between Pakistan and India and resolve the only issue which is Kashmir. The only reason for 70 years we have not been able to live like civilized neighbours is Kashmir,” Prime Minister Imran Khan told Fox News.

“I really feel that India should come on the table, US could play a big part, and President Trump can certainly play a big part. We are talking about 1.3 billion people on this earth. Imagine the dividends of peace if somehow that issue could be resolved,” he added.

And the answer from Modi was to deny there was ever an offer of such mediation and Trump had to back down as the State Department went into spin control mode. Modi, of course, has to say that, even though it’s clear that the subject has come up.

But Khan has been consistent in his working towards peace in the region since his election.

It’s all ridiculous and sad, as it is becoming clearer by the day that the forces of the status quo and war are working over-time to erect phantom barriers to peace through perceived slights and political chicanery.

Modi is still playing up the terrorism angle and hard-liners in India prevent him from moving forward with any real diplomacy outside of the SCO, of which both India and Pakistan are full members. No one in the West is happy about this arrangement and it’s clear to me the terror attacks in February were meant to split either Pakistan or India from the SCO and set things aright in The Heartland.

So if Modi continues to act like an inconsolably aggrieved party that may be your signal that we’re no closer to regional peace than we’ve been. But it hasn’t been for a lack of trying by all the major players.

In the end, it all comes down to Trump and his parallel position within the US government to Khan’s in Pakistan’s. Does he have the clout and the will to achieve his goals of ending the war in Afghanistan while effecting a tactical retreat from the Heartland?

I don’t know, but it’s beginning to look like that is his plan. So much has changed since the G-20 and the meetings in Doha and Beijing since then concerning Afghanistan, that it is possible to entertain this hope.

Trump has little control over the forces unleashed in his maximum pressure campaign on Iran. His presidency represents a threat to a very old policy that transcends governments and political systems.

Like with North Korea he is doing what he can to signal to his ‘partners,’ as Russian President Vladimir Putin would put it, that he won’t make things worse in Pakistan and Afghanistan while they work out the details and through his inaction force players like Modi to accede to reality.

Trump needs a way to save face after doubling down in Afghanistan at the behest of the war hawks in 2017. Khan can give him that, publicly. It may be Russia, China and Iran doing the heavy lifting but it’s Khan and Pakistan that can be the politically palatable face on it.

Putin gave a speech at the BRI forum on April 26 stating:

“the Great Eurasian Partnership and Belt and Road concepts are both rooted in the principles and values that everyone understands: the natural aspiration of nations to live in peace and harmony, benefit from free access to the latest scientific achievements and innovative development, while preserving their culture and unique spiritual identity. In other words, we are united by our strategic, long-term interests.”

Weeks before this speech Russia unveiled a bold plan for Arctic development during the conference Arctic: Territory of Dialogue on April 9-10. This bold plan ties to the “Great Eurasian Partnership”, not only extending roads, rail and new cities into the Far East, but also extending science and civilization into a terrain long thought totally inhospitable. At this Arctic conference, China and Russia signed the first scientific cooperation agreement together setting up the “China-Russia Arctic Research Center” as a part of the Polar Silk Road.

The BRI’s Success So Far

The Belt and Road Initiative has already won over much of Africa as BRI-connected rail, ports, and other infrastructure are providing a breath of fresh air to nations long held hostage by IMF/World Bank conditionalities. Pakistan and much of Southwest Asia are also increasingly on board the BRI through the growing China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. Seventeen Arab states consolidated 8 massive BRI infrastructure projects between April 15-16 and much of Latin America has also joined with hundreds of billions of dollars of infrastructure projects. Italy embraced this new BRI framework on March 23, and Greece joined the Central and Eastern European nations of the 16+1 alliance on April 9^th. The Eurasian Economic Union is now in the final stages of a long planned economic treaty between China and the Russian-led economic block. Although America has been invited to the BRI on many occasions since its 2013 inception, no positive response has been permitted by the NATO-Deep State power structures manipulating the west.

While China’s activity in the Arctic is only manifesting now, its Arctic Strategy began many years ago.

The importance of the Arctic Silk Road for China

China deployed their first Arctic research expedition in 1999, followed by the establishment of their first Arctic research station in Svalbard, Norway in 2004. After years of effort, China achieved a permanent observer seat at the Arctic Council in 2011, and began building icebreakers soon thereafter surpassing Canada and nearly surpassing the USA whose two out-dated ice breakers have passed their shelf life by many years.

As the Arctic ice caps continue to recede, the Northern Sea Route has become a major focus for China. The fact that shipping time from China’s Port of Dalian to Rotterdam would be cut by 10 days makes this alternative very attractive. Ships sailing from China to Europe must currently follow a transit through the congested Strait of Malacca and the Suez Canal which is 5000 nautical miles longer than the northern route. The opening up of Arctic resources vital for China’s long term outlook is also a major driver in this initiative.

In preparation for resource development, China and Russia created a Russian Chinese Polar Engineering and Research Center in 2016 to develop capabilities for northern development such as building on permafrost, creating ice resistant platforms, and more durable icebreakers. New technologies needed for enhanced ports, and transportation in the frigid cold was also a focus. China additionally has a 30% stake in the Yamal LNG Project and the ‘Power of Siberia’ 3000 mile pipeline to China is 99% complete and will soon be the primary supplier of China’s oil and natural gas needs.

Where the Belt Goes, the Road Follows

While the Belt and Road features two components (land and sea), the fact is that they are inextricably connected. Rails, ports and other civilization-building practices driven by a belief in scientific and technological progress have given this design a power and flexibility to adapt to every nation’s chosen developmental pathways. This is the mysterious “secret ingredient” to the BRI’s powerful adaptability which boggles the minds of closed-minded geopoliticians who can only think in zero-sum terms.

Scientific and technological progress, when shaped by the intention to uphold the common good represent UNIVERSAL requirements for human survival and satisfy a creative yearning at the deepest core of all people. Without this commitment to the continual improvement of productive powers of society and quality of life, a society will always be divided by the localized self interest of its parts fighting for their own short term benefits. Such has been the fate of the west as it embarked upon a consumer society driven by a “post-industrial mode of existence” after the assassinations of the 1960s and floating of the US dollar in 1971.

This concept of the common development of mankind both as a whole and in all of its parts was echoed recently by Xi Jinping who stated:

“China is ready to jointly promote the Belt and Road Initiative with international partners. We hope to create new drivers to power common development through this new platform of international cooperation; and we hope to turn it into a road of peace, prosperity, openness, green development and innovation and a road that brings together different civilizations.”

The BRI summit closed on April 27 with 37 Heads of State, and over 5000 leading participants from the public and private sector. Billions of dollars in BRI contracts were signed and the ideas that will carry humanity into the coming decades were displayed brilliantly. The future orientation of the BRI and the Russia-China alliance doesn’t stop with Earth based development, but extends also towards space exploration and colonization of other planetary bodies such as the Moon and Mars development programs to which both China and Russia have committed to in recent months.

The cage of delusions holding the Trans-Atlantic system together is cracking ever faster by the day with Trump’s continued fight against the British-run Deep State producing surprises such as the US-China collaboration during China’s historic landing on the far side of the moon on January 3, and his recent appeals for China-US-Russian cooperation. Following Italy’s lead, patriotic forces in Switzerland and Luxembourg signed MOUs with China’s Belt and Road creating a precedent for more Trans-Atlantic nations to jump on board the new emerging paradigm.

Why there?

And, Why Now?

Why Kashmir?

India and Pakistan are both making serious moves to slip out from underneath the US’s external control. India has openly defied the US on buying S-400 missile defense systems, keeping up its oil trade with Iran and developing the important Iranian port at Chabahar to help complete an almost private spur of the North South Transport Corridor.

Pakistan, under new Prime Minister Imran Khan is trying to square accounts with China over its massive investment for its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) known as the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). It has also been at the forefront of multiple rounds of talks spurred by the Russians and Iranians to forge some kind of peace in Afghanistan.

And the Trump administration cut off US aid to Pakistan for not being sufficiently helpful in the fight against terrorism. This opened up a war of words between Trump and Khan who reminded Trump that the little bit of money the US sent Pakistan nothing compared to the losses both economic and personal.

If there was ever the possibility of peace breaking out between India and Pakistan it would be in the context of stitching the two countries together through China’s regional plans as well as solving the thorny problem of continued US and NATO occupation of Afghanistan.

Anything that can be done to flare up tensions between these two adversaries then serves the US’s goals of sowing chaos and division to keep the things from progressing smoothly. Khan was elected to, in effect, drain the Pakistani Swamp. His, like Trump’s, is a tall order.

And at this point it looks like he’s still willing to give it a go as opposed to Trump who is simply revealing himself to be a thin-skinned version of Barack Obama, albeit with a distinctly orange hue.

But, still why right now?

Because Trump is distracted with his latest love affair with himself – taking credit for a Korean peace process that will proceed with or without him at this point. All he can do is slow it down, which is exactly what his Secretary of State has been doing since last year’s meeting in Singapore.

And that leaves people like John Bolton and the rest of the worst people in D.C. to go to work undermining an entire region of the world.

Last weekend’s terrorist attack was a planned provocation to produce the very outcome we have today. Jaish-e-Mohammed have too many direct and indirect links to Bush the Lesser era programs and Saudi Arabia to be ignored.

This attack happens just days after Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman comes rushing in to save Pakistan’s dwindling foreign exchange reserves with promises of $10 billion to build a refinery of Saudi oil at the (now Chinese) port of Gwadar.

There are no coincidences in geopolitics. Timing is everything.

It reminds me of the flare up in Nagorno-Karabakh between Armenia and Azerbaijan in 2016. Then Secretary of State John Kerry meets with Azeri leader Ilham Aliyev on a Wednesday and by Sunday a nearly twenty-year peace was broken.

National Security Advisor John Bolton is desperate to keep Trump from pulling half of the troops out of Afghanistan. After a disastrous “Let Make War on Iran” conference in Warsaw two weeks ago, Bolton, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were reeling from having obtained no support outside of those already committed to such a plan.

Europe roundly said no, other than willing satrap Poland, still hoping Daddy Trump will save them from the mean old Nordstream 2 pipeline.

As Alistair Crooke pointed out recently, Bolton is putting pressure on Pakistan to forge a peace agreement with the Taliban which somehow allows for the US to maintain all of its troop presence there.

Washington is now embracing Pakistan (with Saudi Arabia and UAE writing the cheques). And Washington looks to Pakistan rather, not so much to contain and disrupt the Taliban, but to co-opt it through a ‘peace accord’ into accepting to be another US military ‘hub’ to match America’s revamped military ‘hub’ in Erbil (the Kurdish part of Iraq, which borders the Kurdish provinces of Iran). As a former Indian Ambassador, MK Bhadrakumar explains:

“What the Saudis and Emiratis are expecting as follow-up in the near future is a certain “rebooting” of the traditional Afghan-Islamist ideology of the Taliban and its quintessentially nationalistic “Afghan-centric” outlook with a significant dosage of Wahhabi indoctrination … [so as to] make it possible [to] integrate the Taliban into the global jihadi network and co-habitate it with extremist organisations such as the variants of Islamic State or al-Qaeda … so that geopolitical projects can be undertaken in regions such as Central Asia and the Caucasus or Iran from the Afghan soil, under a comprador Taliban leadership”.

Bolton was also able to get Trump to agree to pull most of the troops out of Syria, leave just enough behind to call in airstrikes to protect what’s left of ISIS and relocate the rest to Iraq.

Trump gets to say he fulfilled a campaign promise, and everyone’s plans for War with Iran stays on schedule.

So, if I’m right (and there’s no guarantee that I am) what purpose does poking a fight between India and Pakistan serve?

Many, unfortunately.

1. One it sells the regional chaos angle about the need to continue the War on Terror.

2. ISIS is gone but we still have to fight Iran.

3. It punishes India for daring to get off the reservation.

4. It reminds Khan just how tenuous his hold on power is.

5. It is a warning to China that the US will risk everything to not lose the Heartland.

Add in the proximity to the Trump-Kim meeting as well as the fractious trade talks with China and you have an orgy of related news all at the same time to drive the point home.

Bolton, the Brits, France and Netanyahu were willing to risk World War III in Syria to create a false flag event in which Russia attacked a NATO target – the downing of the IL-20 ELINT aircraft last September.

Do you not think these insane animals wouldn’t risk a nuclear conflict between Pakistan and India to blow up (literally) China’s plans to win the biggest prize in geopolitics?

If you don’t then you haven’t been paying attention.

Both Imran Khan and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi need to keep their heads here. Modi has an election coming up later this year. I’m sure the calculus was that he would jump at the opportunity to burnish his cred with voters by lobbing a few bombs inside Pakistan. For Khan, this is the first real test of his leadership and he has to resist the siren’s call of the Saudi’s money to balance all sides of the equation while de-escalating this situation as quickly as possible.

One thing is for certain, we haven’t seen the last of this. 

Photo: Flickr

On top of the graceful Baltit Fort, overlooking the Hunza Valley’s Shangri-La-style splendor, it’s impossible not to feel dizzy at the view: an overwhelming collision of millennia of geology and centuries of history.

We are at the heart of Gilgit-Baltistan, in Pakistan’s Northern Areas, or – as legend rules, the Roof of the World. This is an area about 70,000 square kilometers (27,000 square miles) crammed with spectacular mountain ranges and amidst them, secluded pristine valleys and the largest glaciers outside of the Polar region.

The location feels like vertigo. To the north, beyond the Batura Glacier, is the tiny northeast arm of Afghanistan, the legendary Wakhan corridor. A crest of the Hindu Kush separates Wakhan from the regional capital Gilgit. Xinjiang starts on Wakhan’s uppermost tip. Via the upgraded Karakoram highway, it’s only 240 km from Gilgit to the Khunjerab Pass, 4,934 meters high on the official China-Pakistan border.

To the south lies Azad (“Free”) Kashmir and slightly to the southeast what locals define as Indian-occupied Kashmir. The former King of Kashmir agreed to be part of India after Partition in 1947 but troops were airlifted to the northern state and after a year of fighting, India went to the UN. A temporary ceasefire line was established in 1948 and runs down from the Karakoram towards the Nanga Parbat – the killer mountain, dividing Kashmir into two virtually sealed halves.

Massive mountain ranges

Driving across the Karakoram Highway (see part 2 of this report) we were face to face with three massive mountain ranges running in different directions. The Karakoram roughly starts where the Hindu Kush ends and then sweeps eastward – a watershed between Central Asian drainage and streams flowing into the Indian Ocean.

The Himalayas start in Gilgit and then run southeast through a cluster of high peaks, including the Nanga Parbat, directly on the Islamabad-Gilgit air route (flights by turboprop only take off if weather around the Nanga Parbat allows).

The Karakoram and the Himalayas are like an extension of each other, while the Hindu Kush starts in southern Afghanistan and ties up with the Karakoram north of the Hunza Valley. Within a radius of roughly 150 km from Gilgit and Skardu, there are no less than 90 peaks towering over 8,000m.

Strategically, this is one of the top spots on the planet, a protagonist of the original Great Game between imperial Britain and Russia. So it’s more than appropriate that here is exactly where a protagonist of the New Great Game, the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), the flagship project of the New Silk Roads, or Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), actually starts, linking western China’s Xinjiang to the Northern Areas across the Khunjerab Pass.

Karakoram politics

CPEC is the supreme jewel in the Belt and Road crown, the largest foreign development or investment program in modern China’s history, loaded with way more funds than years of US military aid to Islamabad.

And we are indeed in Ancient Silk Road territory. Looking at the millenary trail parallel to the Karakoram, lovingly restored by the Aga Khan Development Foundation, it’s easy to picture the great Chinese traveler Hiuen Tsang traversing these heights in the 7th Century, and naming them Polo-le. The Tang dynasty called it Great Polu. When Marco Polo trekked in the 14th Century, he called it Bolor.

Early last month, I was privileged to drive on the upgraded Karakoram Highway along CPEC all the way from Gilgit to the Khunjerab, and back, with multiple incursions to valleys such as lush, pine-forested Naltar, Shimshal (manufacturers of sublime yak wool shawls), Kutwal and receding glaciers, such as Hopper and Bualtar.

The Karakoram Highway was originally conceived in the 1970s as an ambitious political-strategic project able to influence the geopolitical balance in the subcontinent, by expanding Islamabad’s reach into previously inaccessible frontiers.

Now it’s at the heart of a trade and energy corridor from the China-Pak border all the way south to Gwadar, the port in Balochistan in the Arabian Sea a stone’s throw from the Persian Gulf. Gwadar looks likely to be a crucial springboard to China becoming a naval power – active from the Indian Ocean to the Persian Gulf and on to the Mediterranean, while CPEC, slowly but surely, aims to change the social and economic structure of Pakistan.

Previous Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif, the controversial “Lion of the Punjab”, was an avid CPEC supporter after he won the 2013 elections. At the time current Prime Minister Imran Khan’s Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, winner of elections held in July, had already polled second nationwide and rose to power in the strategic Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province – straddling the area between Islamabad and the tribal belt.

Sharif, in June 2013, when he was about to enter negotiations with the Chinese, was lauding what would become CPEC as an infrastructure scheme that “will change the fate of Pakistan”. So far that has translated mostly into new hydroelectric dams, coal-fired power stations, and civil-nuclear power. The China National Nuclear Corporation is building two 1,100 MW reactors near Karachi for nearly $10 billion, 65% financed by Chinese loans. This is the first time that the Chinese nuclear industry has built something of this scale outside of their country.

More than a dozen CPEC projects involve power generation – Pakistan is no longer woefully energy-deprived. These projects may not be as sexy as high-speed rail and pipelines, which could arrive much later; after all CPEC in its planned entirety runs to 2030.

Of course, monumental business decisions will have to be addressed; the staggering cost – and state of the art engineering – involved in building a railway parallel to the Karakoram; and the fact that oil pumped via a pipeline from Gwadar to Xinjiang might cost five times more than via the usual sea lanes all the way to Shanghai.

Imran Khan is way more cautious than Sharif, who had a “China cell” inside his office and commanded the Pakistani Army to set up a 10,000-strong security force to protect China’s CPEC investments.

But Khan knows well about the firepower behind CPEC: the Silk Road Fund, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), CITIC, Bank of China, EXIM, China Development Bank. The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) projects that BRI could mobilize as much as $6 trillion in the next few years. What Khan wants is to negotiate better terms for Pakistan.

China’s ambassador to Pakistan, Yao Jing, never tires to stress that Pakistan’s serious debt problem relates to the initial phase of CPEC, due to the massive import of heavy machinery, industrial raw materials and services.

As I learned in Islamabad in various discussions with Pakistani analysts, Khan actually wants to expand CPEC and prevent it from leading Islamabad towards an unsustainable debt trap. That would mean tweaking CPEC’s focus away from too much infrastructure development to technology transfer and market access for Pakistani products. Financing for agriculture projects, for instance, could come via CPEC’s Long Term Plan, which unlike the so-called Early Harvest Plan does not come with a price tag attached and can be negotiated freely between Islamabad and Beijing.

According to a 2016 IMF report, $28 billion in projects included in Early Harvest will be completed by 2020: $10 billion to develop road, rail and port infrastructure, and $18 billion in energy projects via Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), with Chinese firms using commercial loans borrowing from Chinese banks.

CPEC though is an extremely long-term endeavor. Other CPEC investments in energy and transportation infrastructure financed by China will be finished only by 2030.

A new CPEC emphasis on industrialization via technology transfer would allow Pakistan to produce some of what China imports. That would imply renegotiating the Pakistan-China Free-Trade Agreement (FTA), getting to the level of preferential treatment that China offers to ASEAN. Essentially, this is what Imran Khan is aiming at.

Hail the Ismailis

Gilgit-Baltistan is the safest place in the whole of Pakistan. Here, there’s no “terror threat” by the Pakistani Taliban or dodgy al-Qaeda or ISIS spin-offs. Major spoken languages are Shina and Burushaski, not Urdu. The population is overwhelmingly composed of Ismaili Shi’ites – like Karim Shah, an encyclopedia of Central and South Asian history and culture reigning over a cave of wonders in Gilgit where anything from authentic heads of Gandhara Bodhisattvas to 18th Century silk Qom carpets from a Persian royal family can be found.

We spent hours talking about Khorasan, the original Kipling-esque Great Game, Col. Durand (who drew the Durand Line separating Pashtuns on both sides of an artificial border), the Kashmir question, the astonishingly complex geo-eco-historical system of the Northern Areas, and of course, China.

Shah imparted the impression – confirmed by other traders – that the local population may see some tangible CPEC-related benefits, but does not know exactly what Beijing wants. Chinese visitors – engineers, bureaucrats – are remote; tourism has not picked up yet, as in the case of the Japanese, who have been Northern Areas enthusiasts for decades. Thus, an improvement in Xi Jinping’s “people-to-people exchange”, a key component of BRI, seems to be in order.

Legend rules that Hunzakuts, the inhabitants of the glorious Hunza Valley, are descendants of three soldiers of Alexander the Great who married beautiful Persian women of high aristocracy. While Alexander campaigned along the Oxus, the three couples traveled across the Wakhan corridor, discovered the marvelous valley, and settled down.

The tolerant Islam they came to practice centuries later is impervious to Gulf proselytizing. When I crossed an austere village by the Karakoram, visibly out of place, my Ismaili driver Akbar noted that these were “Sunni Wahhabis”.

Finding Gandhara art in Gilgit made perfect sense. Gandhara historically formed a sort of fertile and irrigated triangle between the Iranian plateau, the Hindu Kush and the first peaks of the Himalayas. Between the 6th Century BC and the Islamic invasions, it was the crossroads of three cultures: India, China and Iran. And it was here that an extremely original Greco-Buddhist art and culture flourished, way after Greek power had waned.

As a new 21st Century crossroads, CPEC faces stern challenges – from geology (constant landslides and floods in Gilgit-Baltistan) to wobbly security in Balochistan, threatened by a combination of separatist and religiously or politically manipulated movements. I was not able to visit Gwadar and the south of CPEC even though contacts in Islamabad supplied military sources with an application for a NOC (No Object Certificate, as it is known on Pakistan) weeks in advance. The military response: too “sensitive”, as in dangerous, for a lone Western journalist, especially in the aftermath of the Aasia Bibi case.

China will need to find a way – perhaps via negotiations inside the Shanghai Cooperation Organization – to mollify India on CPEC’s route straddling Kashmir.

In 1936 the British made a deal with the Maharaja of Kashmir, getting Gilgit on lease for 60 years. But then came Partition. At the time the Kuomintang – in power in China, before Mao’s victory – was engaged in secret negotiations to restore Hunza’s fabled independence as a new state allied with China. But the Mir of Hunza finally decided to join the newborn Pakistani nation.

Few may remember that, during the 1950s, way before the India-China border war in 1962, there was trouble on the China-Pakistan border, when Beijing seized 3,400 square miles of Kashmir, including parts of old Hunza, whose Mirs always recognized Chinese suzerainty. When the British had first seized Hunza in 1891, the Mir actually fled to China.

This puts into perspective some fabulous documents preserved at Baltit Fort, like China-Baltistan trade agreements and a picture of Zhou EnLai visiting the fort in the early 1960s

It’s also fascinating to remember that at the time Zhou Enlai already thought about Karachi – no Gwadar at that time – connecting to an “ancient trade route, lost to modern times, not only for trade but for strategic purposes as well”. Xi Jinping has definitely read his Zhou EnLai thoroughly.

Nowadays, the President of Azad (Free) Jammu and Kashmir, Sardar Masood Khan, always stresses that “unlike Indian propaganda”, the Pakistani side is “thriving politically and economically”, and CPEC could also be beneficial for Indian Kashmir. As it stands, this remains a red line for New Delhi.

Once in a lifetime chance

At the National Defense University in Islamabad, I was shown a paper by Li Xiaolu, from the Institute of Strategic Studies at the National Defense University of the PLA detailing how Beijing hopes that “by opening China’s west to Central and South Asia, building better transportation infrastructure, and by encouraging trade with South and Central Asian countries, the development of manufacturing, processing and industrial capacities in Western China can be promoted”.

Now compare it with road and rail infrastructure improved across Pakistan being able to turn the whole nation into an actual trade corridor, while the Pakistani Navy improves its defense in deep-sea waters with Gwadar positioned as a third naval base and offering support for Chinese ships across sea lanes close to the Middle East and Northern Africa.

No wonder Chinese analysts share a virtual consensus about traditional Chinese wisdom favoring unity for prosperity – a key plank of CPEC and BRI – and prevailing over containment and confrontation.

For CPEC to work, Beijing needs three things: a political solution for Afghanistan, which is already being worked out inside the SCO, with China, Russia, India, Pakistan and Iran (as an observer) directly involved; stable relations between India and Pakistan; and certified security across Pakistan.

Beijing is actively encouraging closer connectivity between Afghanistan and Pakistan, with the Quetta-Kandahar railway and the Kabul-Peshawar highway. CPEC is actually expanding from the Karakoram to the Khyber Pass, trespassing the artificial Durand line along the way.

In contrast, multiple factions in Washington continue to twist all possible faultlines to thwart these projects, with a propaganda campaign designed to portray BRI as a swamp of corruption, incompetence, a “debt trap” and “malign” Chinese behavior.

Yet among all BRI corridors, material progress across CPEC is more than self-evident. I saw every village in the Northern Areas with electricity and most of them linked by fiber optics, a stark contrast to when I traveled a severely dilapidated Karakoram, twice, two decades ago.

Pakistan now has a once in a lifetime chance to harness its geographical location – with borders intertwining centuries of history and culture with Iran, Afghanistan, Central Asia and the Middle East – to set itself up as a key bridge between the Middle East and both the Mediterranean and Western China.

Rumors abounded in Islamabad that Imran Khan is aiming for an international standard university in the capital, positioned as a center of study and research tracking the new mosaic of an emerging multipolar world. Young people power will be more than available, like Jamila Shah, currently at the National Defense University, doing a masters in Peace and Conflict Studies, and working with an NGO, the International Rescue Committee. Jamila, from Hunza, in Gilgit-Baltistan, is the face of Pakistan’s future.

Still hostage to a corrupt oligarchy, cartelized industries, falling exports (60% of which are textiles), and with almost half of their youths aged from five to 16 out of school, Pakistan faces a Sisyphean task.

Economist Ishrat Husain has correctly noted that Pakistan’s model of “elitist growth” must be replaced by “shared growth”. Enter a modified CPEC opening the path ahead, hopefully like those cargo trucks defying the slippery, snowy Khunjerab full blast.

atimes.com

The relationship between the Trump administration and Pakistan is frosty after the United States cut $330 million in military aid to Pakistan in October over what Washington says is its failure to reign in militant groups operating in Afghanistan.

The Obama administration had also suspended $800 million in aid in 2011 and $350 in military aid in 2016 for the same reasons.

But the U.S. isolates itself from Pakistan at its own peril. With a population of over 202 million, Pakistan has the sixth largest population in the world following China, India, the U.S., Indonesia and Brazil. It is one of nine countries that have developed nuclear weapons, and is a key security player in Afghanistan, Iran, India and China.

During the Cold War Pakistan played a pivotal role for the U.S. that was revived after 9/11 but has since faded.

With the U.S.rebuff, it’s not surprising the new government of Prime Minister Imran Khan, a former cricket star and U.S. critic, has turned to neighbors for help, namely Iran and China. Khan’s first official meeting was with Javad Zarif, Iran’s foreign minister.

Khan: Fighting extremists and Washington. (Wikimedia Commons)

While I was in Pakistan two weeks ago speaking at a conference on “The Geopolitics of Knowledge and Emerging World Order” held by the Pakistani National Defense University, Khan again met with Zarif. Khan was also off to China as Beijing’s guest of honor at the First China International Import Expo in Shanghai. The Khan administration is banking on $60 billion in land and sea projects underway with the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a link in China’s massive project of the Belt-and-Road Initiative (BRI), otherwise known as the New Silk Road.

The Trump administration has been left on the sidelines—again—in a crucial region where the U.S. is in its 18th year of war on Pakistan’s neighbor, Afghanistan.

As I was in Pakistan from Oct. 31 to Nov. 3, the challenges for the new Pakistani government were evident. Protests paralyzed the country over the decision of the Supreme Court to acquit a Pakistani Christian, Aasia Bibi, of blasphemy (insulting Islam or the Prophet Mohammed) after she had been on death row for eight years.

The Supreme Court had ruled eight years ago there was no evidence to convict her, and the court cited the Koran to bolster its decision. But the court has now come under threat of death by the religious extremists because of its verdict.

Mere allegations of blasphemy have resulted in deaths of those accused. This has been led largely by vigilantes and religious zealots of the the Tehreek-e-Labaik Pakistan Party. Founded just three years ago, the TLP blockaded the capital, Islamabad, for several weeks last year in calling for stricter enforcement of the controversial blasphemy laws. It forced the resignation of the federal law minister. The protests also paved the way for the party to win more than 2.23 million votes in the July 25 general election.

The protests over the Bibi decision continued for three days with Khan and Pakistan’s army chief of staff warning the protesters the army would act if “chaos” resulted.

On Nov. 2, the government shut down the mobile phone system across the entire nation to disrupt the protestors’ communications. For twelve hours, Pakistan relied on landline telephones and home and business internet.

Schools were closed for two days and traffic in all major cities were snarled by the protestors’ roadblocks.

Later on Nov. 2, Taliban leader Maulana Sami Ul-Haq was stabbed and killed in his home in the military city of Rawalpindi.

Ul-Haq had been an internationally known cleric and chancellor of Pakistan’s Darul Uloom Haqqania seminary and university. The university had awarded Afghan Taliban chief Mullah Omar an honorary doctorate and the majority of Afghan Taliban leaders, including Jalaluddeen Haqqani, founder of the Haqqani network, had studied there.

Promises of Reconciliation and Challenges

After the Taliban came to power in Afghanistan in the mid-1990s, after the U.S. had aided Islamist militants, including Osama bin Laden in the 1980s, eight ministers in the Taliban government in Kabul studied at the university, which gave the now slain ul-Haq the title, “Father of the Taliban.”

After US-led talks in Qatar between a Taliban delegation and Pakistani religious leaders, Pakistan released several Taliban leaders, including co-founder and second in command Abdul Ghani Bradar, who had been detained in Pakistan since Al Qaeda’s September 11, 2001 attack.

These are the promises of reconciliation and the challenges facing the secular-leaning Khan government, which seeks a modicum of independence from Washington. Instead of support, the Trump administration is trying to undermine Pakistan.

On Sunday, Donald Trump criticized Pakistan, telling Fox News it should have revealed that Osama bin Ladin was “living in Pakistan in what I guess they considered a nice mansion, right next to the military academy. Everybody in Pakistan knew he was there. And we give Pakistan $1.3 billion a year… I ended it because they don’t do anything for us, they don’t do a damn thing for us.”

Khan responded on Monday in a series of tweets, saying the “record needs to be put straight on Mr. Trump’s tirade against Pakistan: 1. No Pakistani was involved in 9/11 but Pak decided to participate in US War on Terror. Pakistan suffered 75,000 casualties in this war & over $123 bn was lost to economy… U.S. aid was a minuscule $20 bn… Our tribal areas were devastated & millions of ppl uprooted from their homes. The war drastically impacted lives of ordinary Pakistanis… Pak continues to provide free lines of ground & air communications… Can Mr Trump name another ally that gave such sacrifices?”

In his third tweet, Khan said: “Instead of making Pakistan a scapegoat for their failures, the US should do a serious assessment of why, despite 140,000 NATO troops plus 250,000 Afghan troops & reportedly $1 trillion spent on war in Afghanistan, the Taliban today are stronger than before.”

Washington would be wise to engage the new Pakistani administration to help fight extremism at home and bring about reasonable solutions to regional crises, rather than exacerbate them.

consortiumnews.com