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Why Pakistan sees China as a "force for stability"
Pakistan’s most important relationship may be its deep strategic partnership with China. The two countries have close security ties and economic alignment, especially when it comes to managing their mutual adversary India. On GZERO World, former Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Khar gives her view on the China-Pakistan relationship, which she sees as a stabilizing force in Southeast Asia. Given so much geopolitical uncertainty right now, Khar explains, the world has just started noticing Pakistan and China’s strong ties. But the relationship goes back decades.
Khar says Pakistan doesn’t see the world in competing blocs, and believes there’s value in maintaining friendly relations with Western countries as well as its immediate neighbor, China. Beijing’s Belt and Road program has made significant investments in Pakistan, which has sped up Pakistan’s development and allowed it to strengthen economic partnerships with its neighbors. When multilateral institutions stopped financing infrastructure projects, China was able to provide goods and investment loans, helping to build trains and highways in Pakistan, as well as Iran, Afghanistan, and Uzbekistan.
“This is a country [the world sees] as very belligerent, very hegemonic. We’ve always seen in our region, an immediate neighbor to China, that it only relies on economic relationships,” Khar says, “Within Pakistan and the broader region, China has been a force of stability.”
GZERO World with Ian Bremmer, the award-winning weekly global affairs series, airs nationwide on US public television stations (check local listings).
New digital episodes of GZERO World are released every Monday on YouTube. Don't miss an episode: subscribe to GZERO's YouTube channel and turn on notifications (🔔). GZERO World with Ian Bremmer airs on US public television weekly - check local listings.
India vs. Pakistan: Rising tensions in South Asia
Could tensions between India and Pakistan boil back over into military conflict? Last May, India launched a wave of missile attacks into Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir, claiming it was targeting terrorist infrastructure. After four days of dangerous escalation, both sides accepted a ceasefire, putting an end to the most serious military crisis in decades between the two rival nuclear states. On GZERO World, former Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Khar joins Ian Bremmer to discuss Pakistan’s perspective and where the conflict stands now.
Khar argues India didn’t provide credible evidence to justify the attacks and that Pakistan’s response challenged the narrative of India’s conventional military superiority. She sees China as a stabilizing force in the region and says it’s important for Pakistan to maintain broader strategic relationships within southeast Asia and the West, including the United States. Though the conflict has cooled, nerves are still on edge in Delhi and Islamabad. Now, more than ever, Khar says, it’s crucial for Pakistan to continue to strengthen its military capabilities, including nuclear deterrence, to defend its sovereignty.
“The India-Pakistan region is home to one fifth of humanity, and to put them at stake because of political engineering happening in your own country is very callous,” Khar says, “The moment one nuclear state decides to attack another, you do not know how quickly you go up the escalation ladder.”
GZERO World with Ian Bremmer, the award-winning weekly global affairs series, airs nationwide on US public television stations (check local listings).
New digital episodes of GZERO World are released every Monday on YouTube.Don't miss an episode: subscribe to GZERO's YouTube channel and turn on notifications (🔔). GZERO World with Ian Bremmer airs on US public television weekly - check local listings.
Pakistan needs to stand up to India, says former Foreign Minister Hina Khar
After nearly eight decades of on-again-off-again conflict, India and Pakistan neared the brink of all-out war last spring. The intense, four-day conflict was an unsettling reminder of the dangers of military escalation between two nuclear-armed adversaries. Though the ceasefire was reached and both sides claimed victory, Delhi and Islamabad are still on edge and tensions remain high. On the GZERO World Podcast, former Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Khar joins Ian Bremmer to discuss Pakistan’s response to India’s strikes, which she believes were unjustified, and why Pakistan needs to defend itself from further aggression.
One fifth of the world’s population lives on the Indian subcontinent, and Khar says putting them at stake because of a political conflict is dangerous because “you do not know how quickly you can go up the escalation ladder.” Bremmer and Khar also discuss the US role in mediating the conflict with India, Pakistan’s domestic and economic challenges, its strategic partnership with China, and the dangers for global security if the world abandons a rules-based international order.
“As someone who was representing this country as foreign minister, I used to wonder, why were we reduced to eating grass to become a nuclear power?” Khar says, “And now, that is the only thing providing deterrence and security against a country which feels it can attack us anytime, any day.”
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Imran Khan: “The Poster Boy for Populism"
Weeks after a chaotic general election, Pakistan’s political parties still struggle to form a coalition to move the country forward. GZERO’s Tony Maciulis sat down with Pakistan’s former Foreign Minister Hina Khar at the Munich Security Conference for her take on how the nation’s imprisoned ex-Prime Minister Imran Khan maintains a hold over supporters and remains a powerful political force.
Independent candidates mostly aligned with Khan’s political party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), won the most votes on February 8, though they fell short of a majority, setting off a power struggle between Khan and his political rival, former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.
Comparing Khan to former US President Donald Trump and India’s leader Narendra Modi, Khar said, “He really represents what populist leaders are all about. He’s able to get everybody to rally around what all is wrong and the great injustices. However, when he comes to power, he doesn’t have any to plan to sort it out.”
Khar explained that Khan’s popularity flows from his ability to tap into the frustrations of his base, who are deeply concerned about rising costs of living, including food and energy prices.
While she hopes the political parties will be able to come to a resolution that respects the voters' mandate, Khar says “the jury is out” about whether Khan will ultimately bow out of the process.
Khar also addressed the ongoing tensions between Pakistan and neighboring India. In a past interview with GZERO, she had described India as a “rogue nation,” a claim she stood by once again in Munich. Modi’s popularity, she said, “is based on anti-Muslim, anti-Islam” sentiments that resonate with Hindu nationalist supporters.
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Hina Khar: Pakistan must solve its domestic problems and step back from a global role
With Washington ready to downgrade its relationship with Islamabad, Pakistan's PM Imran Khan, looking to form new friendships to protect Pakistan's strategic interests visited Moscow as Russian forces invaded Ukraine. In a GZERO World interview, Ian Bremmer talks to Pakistan’s former Foreign Minister, Hina Khar, about Afghanistan, Pakistan’s future choices, and India.
Khar argues that the West needs to accept its responsibility for starving Afghans. Military interventions like the US-led war in Afghanistan, she adds, cast a “deep shadow on the entire democratic value system.” She also thinks that the best way to help end the humanitarian crisis is to talk to the Taliban.
Pakistan's former top diplomat believes Pakistan should focus on its domestic problems like reducing Pakistan's huge dependence on foreign aid, build on its strengths, and secure its borders from threats from Afghanistan. “Our first role should be to our own people,” she states.
Khar, who previously called India a “rogue state” and a bully in the neighborhood, elaborates on India’s undemocratic gestures like the Citizenship Amendment Act and the end of autonomy for Indian-controlled Kashmir, a Muslim majority region long claimed by Pakistan.
The former Foreign Minister further explains that India's anti-deomocratic trends are ignored by the West because "everything that is happening in our part of the world has to do with containment of China."
Watch the GZERO World episode: As democracy erodes: Pakistan’s Hina Khar on “supremely dangerous” global trends
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Talks with Taliban won’t legitimize them (US already did that)
Want the Taliban to form a more inclusive Afghan government? Talk to them. Otherwise, don't complain about millions of starving Afghans.
That's the advice of Hina Khar, Pakistan's former foreign minister, to Western nations who say they don't want to "enable" the regime.
Khar told Ian Bremmer in a GZERO World interview at the 2022 Munich Security Conference that dialogue with the Taliban won't legitimize their human rights abuses and oppression of women. The US already did that - by inviting the group to the negotiating table in Doha.
What's more, she said, the Americans have not really exited Afghanistan because they're still holding onto the Afghan government's cash reserves.
Watch the GZERO World episode: As democracy erodes: Pakistan’s Hina Khar on “supremely dangerous” global trends
Pakistan’s Hina Khar: India’s policies are undemocratic
The last time Ian Bremmer and Hina Khar met at the Munich Security Conference, in 2020, she called India a “rogue state” and a bully in the neighborhood.
Two years later, she argues that the Indian government has proven her right with undemocratic gestures like the Citizenship Amendment Act.
“Basically, you're saying everybody who is Hindu has the right to be an Indian citizen, and anyone who's Muslim has the least right, and anyone in the middle, we'll think about it,” Khar said.
“This is not a liberal India,” she added.
What's more, Khar points out, India is also endangering regional politics as a member of the Quad, whose sole purpose according to Khar is to contain China.
"India today can get away with murder, and the West would look away.”
Watch the GZERO World episode: As democracy erodes: Pakistan’s Hina Khar on “supremely dangerous” global trends
Pakistan's pivot towards Russia
Russia's invasion of Ukraine has left Moscow isolated through US-led sanctions and economic boycotts. Still, the Kremlin does have friends.
One of them is China. Another is Belarus. And now Vladimir Putin has a new country in his camp: Pakistan.
As Russian forces pummeled Ukraine, Pakistan's PM Imran Khan visited Moscow to discuss a new gas pipeline. Khan says he wants peace, but his trip did not go down well in Washington, Ian Bremmer explains on GZERO World.
Pakistan and the US have been allies for many years, with Islamabad playing a crucial war in both the Global War on Terror and the war in Afghanistan. But bilateral ties have soured lately.
Joe Biden has yet to call Khan since assuming the US presidency, while the Americans resent Khan for praising the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan.
With the US ready to downgrade its relationship with Islamabad, Khan is looking to form new friendships to protect Pakistan's strategic interests.
Watch the GZERO World episode: As democracy erodes: Pakistan’s Hina Khar on “supremely dangerous” global trends