welcome Foreign PolicySouth Asia Overview.
Highlight of the week: Pakistan Counterterrorism StrategyPerhaps keeping in mind China’s interests in India, the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi The president has sought to strengthen engagement with neighbouring countries as he begins his third term, with the United Nations including a Taliban representative at its latest talks. Doha Process Consultations.
Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s office last Saturday unveiled a “revitalized” national counterterrorism strategy, promising a combination of “kinetic efforts” and new laws to strengthen terrorism prosecutions, as well as measures to counter violent extremism.
Sharif made clear on Tuesday that the strategy, which Islamabad stressed has not yet finalized, will focus on strengthening existing intelligence-based operations rather than launching new military strikes.Still, the shift in policy marks one of the biggest steps yet to address the growing terror threat in Pakistan, where attacks increased by two-thirds from 2022 to 2023.
Pakistan has engaged in talks with the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), which is its biggest threat, pressured the Afghan Taliban to curb anti-Pakistan militant activities in Afghanistan, and conducted cross-border attacks in Afghanistan, but none of these policies have solved the problem.
Some analysts rightly attribute the timing of this decision to political timing: after a long period of domestic turmoil, a degree of political and economic stability has returned to Pakistan, creating the space for a strong military to pursue this strategy and potentially helping to repair its recently damaged national image.
But there is also good reason to believe that China was the motivating force behind the new plan, and that China may play a role in the strategy if the plan is implemented.
China is Pakistan’s closest ally, but it currently faces serious terrorism risks in Pakistan. Pakistan’s most active militant groups, the TTP, the Islamic State of Khorasan (IS-K) and the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), all target Chinese nationals and Chinese corporate interests. Many of China’s investment projects are located in western Pakistan, near the border with Afghanistan, making them particularly vulnerable to terrorism.
Following a series of attacks targeting Chinese interests in Pakistan in recent years, Beijing has repeatedly urged Islamabad to step up security. It is notable that Pakistan announced the new counter-terrorism plan soon after Foreign Minister Sharif returned from a five-day visit to China.
The TTP is based in Afghanistan and works closely with the Afghan Taliban, which has resisted Pakistani pressure to take control of the group. Beijing may play a role in this regard. China has considerable influence over the Taliban. If terrorism concerns in Afghanistan are addressed, it could inject significant capital into investing in the country. (Militants have attacked Chinese targets in Afghanistan as well as Pakistan.)
Pakistan’s influence in Afghanistan has declined since the Taliban came to power, as they no longer need Pakistan’s protection. Islamabad may be hoping that Beijing will pressure the Taliban to take steps to reduce the TTP threat in Pakistan. This will also serve China’s interest by reducing risks in Afghanistan. Less cross-border terrorism will reduce Pakistan’s incentive to launch attacks in Afghanistan, where China is exploring potential investment opportunities.
The United States should not be left out here. Growing fears about the growing ability of the Afghanistan-based Islamic State-Kingdom to pose a global threat have strengthened the shared US and Pakistani concerns about the group. The two countries recently held a bilateral counterterrorism dialogue. But their counterterrorism cooperation is limited. Most of the US security assistance to Pakistan has been suspended since 2018, and the two countries’ primary concerns are now different.
Moreover, the Biden administration has largely pulled out of Afghanistan almost three years after the troop withdrawal. The U.S. seems content with the Taliban’s own operations against ISIS, which is a Taliban rival unlike the TTP. In contrast, China has made outsized investments in Pakistan and is seeking deeper involvement in Afghanistan.
After all, China has bigger interests in the region than the United States, which may make Beijing a more viable counterterrorism partner for Islamabad going forward.
India will strengthen its regional diplomacy. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has signaled strongly that greater engagement with neighbours will be a foreign policy priority as he takes office for a third term, hosting a slew of regional leaders at his inauguration this month and holding high-level talks with Bangladesh and Sri Lanka in recent days.
Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina met Modi last Saturday in the first foreign leader’s visit to New Delhi during her third term in power. The talks were substantive and the two sides agreed to strengthen cooperation on marine and water resource management issues, health, connectivity and visas.
Indian Foreign Minister Jaishankar visited Sri Lanka on June 20 and met with Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe and other leaders, emphasizing the importance of long-term economic cooperation. The Indian government has provided more than $4 billion in financial assistance to Sri Lanka during its economic crisis in 2022 and 2023. Jaishankar also met with Sri Lankan opposition leaders, likely intended to ensure strong ties as Sri Lankan elections approach this fall.
The Taliban take part in UN-sponsored talks. The UN will hold two days of talks between Afghanistan’s envoys and Taliban leaders on June 30. This will be the third round of the so-called Doha process, but the first with the Taliban. The Taliban was not invited to the first round of talks and declined an invitation to the second.
The Taliban’s participation this year is particularly controversial because Afghan civil society, human rights and women’s leaders were not invited. U.N. officials say they want to use the meeting as an opportunity for world leaders to speak directly with the Taliban to discuss ways to ensure more financial aid reaches Afghan people and businesses.
The UN special envoy for Afghanistan insists that the discussions on economic issues are intended to help Afghan women and others facing great hardship. UN officials also say human rights issues, such as the regime’s ban on women’s education, will also be discussed and Afghan civil society leaders will be available to consult with UN officials and international envoys.
But the UN’s decision caused an uproar among many Afghans and critics around the world. Amnesty International warned that excluding Afghan women and human rights leaders would “undermine” the Doha process. While the UN is supposedly trying to be pragmatic, in the end the Taliban are getting exactly what they want: participation in high-level international negotiations without the involvement of people they don’t want at the table.
Prime Minister Modi will not attend the SCO annual summit. In his push for regional diplomacy, Prime Minister Modi appears to be taking a temporary step back from Central Asia, reportedly deciding not to attend the annual summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) to be held in Kazakhstan on July 3-4, instead sending Jaishankar. The four SCO member states are Central Asian countries.
India had initially indicated that PM Modi would attend but later announced that he would not attend as the summit overlaps with the first parliamentary session of the new term, which runs from June 24 to July 3. Still, PM Modi’s decision to not even attend part of the summit comes as a shock, given India’s strong commitment to strengthening its engagement with Central Asia.
This suggests there are other considerations beyond the dates: Modi may not want to negotiate with the leaders of Pakistan and China. Relations between India and Islamabad have become more tense since a recent spate of terrorist attacks in Indian-administered Kashmir, and with China since India brokered a meeting last week between a U.S. congressional delegation and Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama.
Given the centrality of Central Asia to India’s foreign policy, it is possible that Modi may change his mind at the last minute and attend the summit after all.
Last week, Pakistan’s ambassador to Russia, Muhammad Khalid Jamali, said Islamabad had accepted an invitation from Russian President Vladimir Putin to join the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC), which would stretch from Europe to Central Asia, the Middle East and India as envisioned. Jamali said Pakistan had “agreed in principle” and was in the formal process of joining the project.
Russia and Pakistan have friendly relations and some common interests, including curbing terrorist threats like ISIS — last year Pakistan began importing Russian oil — but the relationship is less substantive, especially compared to the longstanding cooperation between Moscow and New Delhi.
Russia appears to be looking to South Asia to show the West that it continues to have friends and partners willing to cooperate even amid the Ukrainian war. Indeed, Pakistan has good reason to join the INSTC, given its long-standing desire to strengthen ties with Central Asia through cross-border connectivity projects.
India, which cooperates with Pakistan in various multilateral organisations, from the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation to a long-stalled gas pipeline project involving Afghanistan and Turkmenistan, may not welcome this development. Moscow has also been highlighting its special ties with India recently, and the two countries are moving towards ratifying a proposed agreement to enhance interoperability between their militaries.
