What do you want Pakistan to be?
China and Pakistan are brothers.
There is an old saying in China that “giving peaches to repay plums”, it means a metaphor for repaying the beneficiaries. Pakistan has offered a lot of help to China, which in times of difficulty. It has helped us built strong friendship. After China’s economic take-off, it unconditionally supported Pakistan, and good brothers shared difficulties. This kind of good relationship makes others jealous. For example, India, because it has never received such love, so pitiful.
China and Pakistan have established all-weather friendship, because of they have friendship of brothers.
About China’s “OBOR”, China needs to establish a global trade mode to develop its economy, But Pakistan also needs to take advantage of the “OBOR” opportunity to develop their economy. This does not exist the problem of “making use of and being used”, but “mutual benefit”. This is taking advantage of each other’s needs.
Only a narrow-minded person will look at the world in disgust and think that the world is full of conspiracy.
So there is also an old saying in China that “Don’t treat a gentleman with a petty heart”. China only wants to make more friends, and China wants to share its experience that successful economic development through foreign investment to poor brothers (country), to help others is to help oneself, Because while others are making progress, So you will reap a bigger market, you will get more opportunity.
I am taking an answer from another analysis I wrote on China-Pakistan-India to answer this question.
China loves nobody except itself, and it certainly does not love Pakistan. It simply uses Pakistan to counter India. Pakistan has suffered a great deal due to a string of poor or corrupt leadership, or just bad choices made in some cases. Pakistan desperately needs to stabilise and become a nation worthy of Jinnah’s dream. And Pakistan IS capable of becoming that nation. However, it lacks strong leadership and the critical mass of economic development. China has been drawn to Pakistan to exploit this weakness/insecurity and continues to prop up Pakistan militarily to counter India. Its all weather friendship rings hollow, because China could have also supported democracy, education, medical care, and infrastructure development in Pakistan, but it chooses to primarily help only militarily. Why? Because a stable and prosperous Pakistan will not be dependent on China, and that is NOT a good thing for China’s interest.
Hence, China ultimately wants to weaken India and keep Pakistan unstable and subservient. That is pretty much the extent of China’s “love” for Pakistan.
Ever since the founding of Pakistan, it was haunted by poverty and uproar, with its industrialization lagging far behind that of India and the menial jobs in agriculture and traditional service sector accounting for 70% of the total. Crippled by its internal conflicts between the democratic and autocratic camps, its proximity to Afghanistan, Iran and India has made it skate on thin ice over hot water, hence the constant coups.
The reconciliation of it with India will be of little significance to its own economic growth, which has to do with its inherent geopolitical factors. The Indus region, cradle of the ancient civilization, was sufficient for a relatively small population in the ancient times, but it has now become the major impediment to the nation’s industrialization, because of the minimal rainfall and constant drought caused by its scorching weather in the tropical region. Considering that manufacturing consumes more water than agriculture, the lack of water arguably is stacking the odds against the construction of industries in Pakistan. Adding oil to the flame, its ever-rising population to 200 million is further leading to the shortage of water, because the habitable land is finite due to its geological features. So, even if it’s taken over by the Indians, these delicate issues can hardly be resolved, given the disadvantaged Indian economic prowess and unwillingness to do so.
They simply can’t be compatible with each other. The sheer size and superb geopolitical position of India will render it utterly dominant in their relationship, which will squeeze concessions from Pakistanis. Plus, the chasm in the said industrialization and religion will hold back the future development of Pakistan. The shift in America’s aid in India in the 60s pushed Pakistan to rely on China for economic and military aid.
With the rise of China, Pakistan can become a free-rider as the Chinese government embarked on the OBOR for the sake of the social stability and economic growth of China’s Western region, rather than hegemony. This initiative is crucial to Pakistan’s social stability because the warfares with India and the democratic system it inherited from the British has led to the alternation of its two political camps: the democratic camp have difficulties raising fundings for the wars with India, whereas the autocratic camp have to face the bitterness of the public. This vicious circle can only be broken with the economic rise of this country.
Believing in “a rising tide will lift all ships”, China intended to build a cross-border high-speed rail linking Xinjiang to Pakistan to spur the economy of the regions along the rail, thereby combating the separatism in Xinjiang, which is insulated by plateau and desert. This proposal was advanced by the former leader of Pakistan a decade ago and has led to the contentions among Chinese. 4 years ago, there used to be some posts regarding the concern of ubiquitous muslins in Xinjiang once the rail is completed. After all, there are over 600 million muslins in the abutting nations. So, some fretted about the unbridled entry of those muslins and the infiltration of terrorists among them. They thought that the government was rushing headlong into this project when we are ill-prepared. On the other hand, some Chinese think that radicals can have access to our regions without such rail and the overriding concern of building such rail is to prevent the oil crisis in the future. After all, Americans are intervening in the activities in the Strait of Malacca. Therefore, it’s judicious to prepare for the worst. We have to be wary of “a slippery slope” towards uproar when we run out of oil.