The Beijing-Islamabad axis plays a central role in Asia's geopolitics, from India's rise to the prospects for a post-American Afghanistan, from the threat of nuclear terrorism to the continent's new map of mines, ports and pipelines. China is Pakistan's great economic hope and its most trusted military partner; Pakistan is the battleground for China's encounters with Islamic militancy and the heart of its efforts to counter-balance the emerging US-India partnership. For decades, each country has been the other's only 'all-weather' friend. Yet the relationship is still little understood. The wildest claims about it are widely believed, while many of its most dramatic developments are hid- den from the public eye. This book sets out the recent history of Sino-Pakistani ties and their ramifications for the West, for India, for Afghanistan, and for Asia as a whole. It tells the stories behind some of its most sensitive aspects, including Beijing's support for Pakistan's nuclear
program, China's dealings with the Taliban, and the Chinese military's planning for crises in Pakistan. It describes a relationship increasingly shaped by Pakistan's internal strife, and the dilemmas China faces between the need for regional stability and the imperative for strategic competition with India and the USA.
The Beijing-Islamabad axis plays a central role in Asia's geopolitics, from India's rise to the prospects for a post-American Afghanistan, from the threat of nuclear terrorism to the continent's new map of mines, ports and pipelines. China is Pakistan's great economic hope and its most trusted military partner; Pakistan is the battleground for China's encounters with Islamic militancy and the heart of its efforts to counter-balance the emerging US-India partnership. For decades, each country has been the other's only 'all-weather' friend. Yet the relationship is still little understood. The wildest claims about it are widely believed, while many of its most dramatic developments are hid- den from the public eye. This book sets out the recent history of Sino-Pakistani ties and their ramifications for the West, for India, for Afghanistan, and for Asia as a whole. It tells the stories behind some of its most sensitive aspects, including Beijing's support for Pakistan's nuclear
program, China's dealings with the Taliban, and the Chinese military's planning for crises in Pakistan. It describes a relationship increasingly shaped by Pakistan's internal strife, and the dilemmas China faces between the need for regional stability and the imperative for strategic competition with India and the USA.
Andrew Small has researched Chinese foreign and economic policy issues in Beijing, Brussels, London, and now Washington, D.C. He is a Transatlantic Fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States.
"An excellent book." --Anatol Lieven, New York Review of Books"An
impressive account of a little-understood friendship" -- The
Economist"An original and timely contribution to this unusual
relationship, never formalized in an alliance as it faces the
Western withdrawal from Afghanistan." -- Times Literary
Supplement"This fascinating book disentangles the relationship
between one of the oddest couples in geopolitics: an unpredictable
Islamic republic and a communist state that has turned to a mixture
of consumerism and authoritarianism." -- Prospect"Exceptionally
well-informed and insightful account" -- Foreign Affairs"This is an
excellent, succinct book, and written with great verve. It is
based, as the many pages of notes and references testify, on many
hundreds of hours of interviews with key people throughout the
region ... on China-Pakistan relations, and its regional and global
context, it is hard to think of a better possible treatment." --
Kerry Brown, Asia Review of Books
"This unique and timely work provides fresh insights into one of
the most important and most neglected new developments in world
affairs -- China's turn to south and west Asia. As the US pivots
toward (East) Asia, Andrew Small shows us how China is moving
beyond traditional concepts of Asia." -- Barnett Rubin, Senior
Fellow and Director at the Center on International Cooperation, New
York University" Small has written a valuable and perceptive book."
-- Survival"Andrew Small's remarkable book paints a vivid picture
of twenty-first century geopolitics by uncovering one of the most
important and under-explored relationships. A gripping narrative of
how China's rise meets nukes, terrorists and the Taliban" -- Mark
Leonard, Director of the European Council on Foreign Relations and
author of What Does China Think?"The China-Pakistan Axis explores
one of the most resilient and paradoxical bilateral relations of
the post colonial era -- a superb illustration of the manner in
which international relations can be determined by power
considerations. Pakistan and China have been 'all weather friends'
for more than fifty years in spite of their ideological
differences. Andrew Small shows that their rapprochement resulted
mostly from a real politik assessment of their common enemy, India,
but that non material variables are back in the picture today
because of the islamist connection in the case of the Uighurs, for
example. The strength of Small's work lies in its analysis of the
fascinating scope and trajectory of the Beijing--Islamabad
relationship." -- Christophe Jaffrelot, Research Director at CNRS,
Sciences Po and author of The Pakistan Paradox: Instability and
Resilience"A concise, informative and authoritative study of one of
the world's most important state-to-state relationships." -- Bruce
Riedel, Lawfare"Small has illuminated the complementary
calculations in Beijing and Islamabad which nurture this
fascinating relationship, through a painstaking survey of numerous,
diverse sources, coupled with extensive interviews throughout
southern Asia. Small brings to bear not only copious research but
analytic subtlety that makes this book both a joy to read and a
veritable 'keeper'." -- International Affairs"...vastly superior to
the fare that has been served of late on the subject... it is a
work of stupendous research, rich in fresh insights. Extremely
well-written." -- Frontline.in"Small's book is an important
reminder that if Pakistan continues to slide into instability,
China's help will be sorely needed. It should be compulsory reading
for anyone too carried away by the euphoria of warming U.S.-India
ties and tempted to believe China can be nudged out of the
picture." -- Myra MacDonald, War on the Rocks
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