Due to its historical partnership with Washington and Beijing, Islamabad has the potential to promote cooperation over competition.
The US Indo-Pacific Strategy (IPS), launched by President Joe Biden's administration in February 2022, is moving quickly to surpass the age of a toddler.
In these two years, IPS has offered a range of opportunities for member countries. At the same time, China and some other countries are surprising in considering this as an encirclement of the region.
Pakistan – a long-term ally of the United States – is not an official partner in this framework. However, due to its historical partnership with Washington and Beijing, Islamabad has the potential to promote cooperation over competition.
This fact was apparently acknowledged by American Major General (Ret.) Suzanne Vares-Lum, who visited Pakistan earlier this month. As of January 2022, she serves as president of the East-West Center, an institution established by the United States Congress in the 1960s.
It is worth mentioning that since the establishment of this centre, several Pakistanis have participated in CEE programmes. However, it was the first visit by a president of this institution to Pakistan.
This is probably because Vares-Lum had previously advised the highest-ranking officials of the US Indo-Pacific Command in this regard.
The trip was therefore part of its “mission to promote understanding and relationships among the peoples and nations of the United States, Asia, and the Pacific through cooperative study, research, and dialogue.”
In a speech to a gathering of CEE alumni in Karachi, Vares-Lum said: “The Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean are like two arms that embrace the rest of the continents.”
Spreading his arms and forming a circle, he further said: “And who is here on this point, it is Pakistan and you have Hawaii here hugging each other.”
Stressing cooperation, Ms Lum commented: “If we think about it that way, it makes a lot of sense for us to come here and embrace the rest of the region.”
Similar views were previously expressed by US Undersecretary for South and Central Asian Affairs Donald Lu.
Two years into the Indo-Pacific strategy, Lu clarified that “the president's strategy is not directed at any particular country or group of countries. “It is an affirmative view of the United States' commitment to its allies and partners in this strategically important region.”
It will not be wrong to say that Vares-Lum and Lu's statements are an extension of the “Indo-Pacific” idea first mooted by Japan's late Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in India.
Addressing the Indian Parliament in August 2007, former Prime Minister of Japan Shinzo Abe said: “Now, as this new 'Enlarged Asia' takes shape at the confluence of the two seas of the Indian Ocean and the Pacific, I feel that the democratic process Nations located on opposite sides of these seas must deepen friendship between their citizens at all possible levels.”
The Biden administration has added economic and security dimensions to this framework. At the same time, India has been assigned a pivotal role in this region.
It is not surprising that China sees this strategy as a means to dominate and dictate the region. After all, important nations in the Pacific region have become force multipliers for most Indian Ocean nations.
Wang Yi, China's Foreign Minister, says Washington is devising tactics to suppress Beijing.
At a press conference on diplomacy, Wang Yi said: “If (Washington) only wants to prosper but denies the legitimate development of other countries, where is international justice? If you persistently monopolize the upper end of the value chain and keep China at the lower end, where is the fairness in competition?
Yi also warned Washington of “reaching bewildering levels of unfathomable absurdity.” He said: “The challenge for the United States comes from itself, not from China. “If the United States is obsessed with suppressing China, it will eventually harm itself.”
These simmering tensions have alarmed Pakistan, as it cannot afford a possible conflict between the United States and China.
Pakistan's former caretaker foreign minister Jalil Abbas Jilani openly addressed this issue during his engagements at the 'Third EU Indo-Pacific Ministerial Forum' in Brussels.
Jilani called for “opposing divisive geopolitical contestation that could further aggravate global and regional tensions.”
He stressed that “restrictions on trade and investment and new forms of protectionism were antithetical to the goals of shared prosperity, sustainability and inclusion.”
Simply put, the Indo-Pacific Strategy has so far served as an aligning force and also as a reason to alarm those not included in this framework.
Making it more inclusive and addressing the concerns of regional nations can surely achieve the stated objectives of this strategy. The reason is that optimism has not taken over pessimistic ideology.
As Wang Yi said: “We hope (the US) will work with China to return the relationship to the path of stable, sound and sustainable development.”
And according to Suzanne Vares-Lum, embracing Indo-Pacific nations from both corners of the region is a path to prosperity.
