One-track partnership

In Pakistan, most people view China as a saviour and time-tested friend – one that, unlike the US, will never abandon their country. According to former diplomat Tariq Fatimi, this is the only one of Pakistan's links that can be considered truly 'strategic'. To a great extent, however, this relationship is based on the transfer of military technology. Beijing played a key role in the development of Pakistan's nuclear programme, and was also a source of weapons to fill the gaps left by the US arms embargo on the country until the blockade was lifted in 2001. China also provided military supplies when none were assured from the West.

China-Pakistan links have survived adverse times as well as the ideological and cultural divide. Yet there is still very little cultural exchange between the two at the level of the common citizen. A bottom-up view indicates that the relationship is less strategic than the official top-down perspective would suggest: the two societies are less relevant to each other than the two states, meaning that the relationship lacks depth. Since it has become increasingly difficult for an average Pakistani to obtain a Chinese visa, people-to-people contact, which could build stronger and deeper ties, has become almost impossible. Moreover, Pakistan is a heavily Muslim country where there is little popular sympathy for Chinese communism. Even among the Pakistani left, there was long a division between pro-Soviet and pro-Maoist groups, and the latter version of communism never found much purchase in Pakistan.