“The strike would never have taken place if there were any prospects for peace talks coming together in the near term,” said Andrew Small, a fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States. “The fact that it happened is a reflection of how much people had given up on this coming together this year.”
“Beijing has a history of blocking sanctions against Pakistan-based militants at the UN. So although the Masood Azhar case has attracted a higher profile, it’s of a piece with what China has been doing for years. The same is true of the NSG,” Andrew Small from the US-based German Marshall Fund said.
Andrew Small, an expert on China Pakistan relations at the German Marshall Fund, said it was reasonable to expect some sort of basing arrangement “Having crossed the threshold with the Djibouti [in the Horn of Africa] deal, Pakistan would be a very obvious choice, and it appears that the PLAN (People’s Liberation Army Navy) views it that way.”
The harsh U.S. political rhetoric isn’t lost on Chinese leaders, said Andrew Small, a China expert at the German Marshall Fund. But he said Beijing knows the criticism is as much noise as substance. „China is an easier target to blame for job losses,“ Small told FP.
Its latest moves go further, said Andrew Small, a research fellow at the Washington-based German Marshall Fund and author of The China-Pakistan Axis: Asia’s New Geopolitics. „Military aid and military cooperation with Afghanistan is a step above their previous diplomatic and economic support,“ Small said. „If the situation there does not stabilize, the direct threats from Afghanistan look more concerning, in addition to the implications for China’s broader security and economic interests in the region.“
China is also deploying infrastructure firepower elsewhere in Africa, the Middle East and Asia. But the Pakistan initiative is the most ambitious in scale and complexity, said Andrew Small, author of “The China-Pakistan Axis.” “The question is whether China can pull off the same trick away from home turf,” said Mr. Small.
„…A fully operational and connected port in Gwadar would allow China to import oil and natural gas from the nearby Middle East while bypassing thousands of miles of potentially vulnerable sea lanes. “This is a vastly ambitious effort to reshape the strategic economic geography of Eurasia and beyond,” said Andrew Small, a China expert at the German Marshall Fund and author of The China-Pakistan Axis: Asia’s New Geopolitics.“
“The Chinese have been willing to continue this level of coordination with the U.S. despite other irritants,” said Andrew Small, author of “The China-Pakistan Axis” and fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the U.S. “Particularly with the Taliban talks process,” he added, “the sense is that the two sides have very specific roles to play in pushing various parties along.”
„Their close, longstanding security relationship gives China unique leverage but there are also positive incentives,“ said Andrew Small, an expert on China’s relationships with Pakistan and Afghanistan, and author of „The China-Pakistan Axis.“ China’s multi-billion dollar development plans for Pakistan, through the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, require a „stable neighborhood,“ Small said. „China’s presence at the talks is also a reassurance that Pakistan’s interests will be looked after in any settlement — they’re a trusted partner and it reduces the Pakistani anxiety about deals being done behind their back.“
Andrew Small, in his book The China-Pakistan Axis: Asia’s New Geopolitics, tells the story few in Pakistan know.
Andrew Small, in his book The China-Pakistan Axis: Asia’s New Geopolitics, tells the story few in Pakistan know.
„In just two hundred beautifully written pages, Andrew takes the reader behind the scenes of this relatively opaque relationship to explore not only the traditional issues of India and nuclear politics but also the emerging intricacies of the relationship…Given the ever-growing importance of both China and Pakistan in world affairs, understanding the nuances of their relationship should matter to people well beyond the narrow realm of Asia scholars and analysts. Andrew’s book is a brilliant and bargain tutorial.“
„The scheme is very large and very ambitious, so it is unsurprising that some provinces want to ensure that they get as much benefit as possible. None of China’s previous investments were on this scale so there simply wasn’t as much to fight over.“
„Beijing is looking to work more closely with the countries that have influence over the situation on the ground [in Syria]“, noted Small.
Small added, China is still cautious about taking on a serious political role in the Middle East, and this is „neither a situation where the two parties involved in the feud are soliciting Beijing’s help as a broker, nor one where it has much leverage to do so either.“
“If they had their choice, I think the Chinese side would rather that Xi wasn’t going at a time of such sensitivity, but it was getting to a point where the trip could just end up being delayed endlessly”.
„In his superb discourse of the relationship in his recent book, The China-Pakistan Axis, Andrew Small gives a detailed account of the Chinese role in forcing General Pervez Musharraf to withdraw troops during the Kargil war (1999), its push for peace during Operation Parakram (2001-2002), and its Vice Foreign Minister’s “shuttle diplomacy” after the Mumbai attacks.“
“Afghanistan sees a virtually unique alignment between the U.S. and China on a traditional foreign policy issue,” said Mr. Small. “That’s based on a clear sense of mutual interests.”
„Dans ce contexte, beaucoup pensaient que le processus de paix sous l’égide du Pakistan était mort et enterré. Le fait que les deux pays s’assoient autour d’une table pour relancer le dialogue avec les talibans est déjà un succès“, juge Andrew Small, auteur d’un ouvrage remarqué sur l’axe sino-pakistanais
„Despite a standing invitation, Chinese President Xi Jinping has yet to visit Iran, partly because of the political sensitivities about heading to Tehran before a trip to Saudi Arabia,“ Andrew Small, a fellow with the Asia program of German Marshall Fund of the United States, told DW.
The writer of „The China Pakistan Axis: Asia’s New Geopolitics“ talks to Archis Mohan about China’s engagement with Taliban and why huge Chinese investment in Pakistan is good news for India
China has long had the capacity to operate as an important strategic actor in what India perceives to be its backyard in South Asia,” Small told me. “China is still ahead—as a far larger economy and military power—but the tendency is towards a growing mutual capacity to influence the other side’s strategic environment.”
„In his book “The China-Pakistan Axis: Asia’s New Geopolitics,” the Central Asia specialist Andrew Small describes how China has skillfully kept Islamic militants across the border at bay, in spite of its harsh treatment of its Muslim minority. China’s pitch to them, he writes: “Don’t bother us and we won’t bother you.”“
„The subject of the discussion was “World Order and Conflict” and the three keynote speakers were Andrew Small, Hina Rabbani Khar, and Vladimir Boyoko … Andrew Small commented on the US-China relations and shed some light on the ongoing contest between the two countries over East Asia.“
“ISIS really is the most serious new terrorist threat that China has had to face, arguably for decades,” said Andrew Small, a Transatlantic Fellow at the George Marshall Fund of the United States. “They are clearly worried in a very different way and I think that is echoed in their public statements and in private from a lot of their CT [counter-terrorism] people.”
“It is probably the most comprehensive push by any Western country on commercial ties with China, at the expense of any of the other considerations,” says Andrew Small, a transatlantic fellow in the Asia program at the German Marshall Fund in Washington.
As the German Marshall Fund’s Andrew Small notes in his book, The China-Pakistan Axis: Asia’s New Geopolitics, the Karakoram Highway “would have been killed off quickly if its economic value had been the only thing going for it [and] . . . its direct military utility is questionable.”
Andrew Small talks about Pakistan’s relationship with China under the umbrella of China’s One Belt One Road policy at Asia Society Texas Center on Monday in Houston – talk write-up.
China’s aloof approach to the country since the U.S. and NATO intervention began, as Andrew Small has noted, has been dictated by a conflicted mindset: “China sat out the conflict in Afghanistan. It wanted neither a Western victory that might entrench a U.S. military presence in its backyard, nor a Taliban victory that would pose risks to Xinjiang and the wider region. As a result, its financial and political contributions to Afghanistan were at best tokenistic, the minimum necessary to avoid alienating anyone.”