Civil-military relations in Pakistan: a case study of Sino-Pakistani relations and the port of Gwadar

Abstract

This article analyses how the dynamics of civil-military relations in Pakistan have ensured policy continuity towards China. By looking at the development of the port of Gwadar, which represents the flagship project of Sino-Pakistani cooperation during the last 15 years, this article contends that the continuity in Pakistan’s policies towards China in the post 9/11 period is explained by a broad-based consensus among the Pakistani elites, in which, however, the military plays a dominant role. Civilian control over the military is a concept that was never fully absorbed in Pakistan and, as the analysis ascertains, most of the policies introduced by General Pervez Musharraf have been adopted by the subsequent civilian regimes under indirect control from the military establishment. The ultimate aim of the Pakistani leadership, civilian and military alike, has therefore been to provide a safe ground for the Chinese investments in the country because of the key role that China plays in Pakistan’s strategic posture. Organised around semi-structured interviews conducted in Pakistan in early 2015, the article is grounded in the relevant literature on civil-military relations and assesses the level of civilian control in three key decision-making areas pertaining to the port of Gwadar: economic policy, internal security and foreign policy.

Keywords:

• civil-military relations
• Sino-Pakistani relations
• Gwadar

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the anonymous peer reviewer for the constructive feedback provided on this article. I am grateful to Katharine Adeney and Bettina Renz for their comments on earlier drafts of this paper. I would also like to thank the participants to the NORIA Graduate Conference on South Asia, in particular Avinash Paliwal, as well as the attendees of BASAS Conference 2016 for their comments. All errors are of course my own.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 It is still unclear whether China is willing to use Gwadar for energy transhipment. However, according to official sources quoted in media reports in June–July 2016, works on the construction of an oil pipeline linking Gwadar with Kashgar will start in 2017, for a total project length of five years; the project is going to be funded by the Chinese government and implemented by the Frontier Works Organisation (Bhutta, 2016; Yousafzai, 2016).

2 For a general overview of the literature on civil-military relations, see Boene (1990); and Feaver (1999).

3 For a comprehensive analysis of the 18th amendment, see Adeney (2012); Hamid (2010).

4 If we extend this picture to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, there is further evidence for the military’s role in this area. For instance, speaking at a public event in October 2015, the Director General of the FWO Maj. Gen. Muhammad Afzal said that his organisation had already completed 556 km of the 870-km road works to be carried out in Balochistan, as part of the CPEC Western Route (Pakistan Observer, 22 October 2015).

5 See also Bodirsky (2015).

Additional information

Funding

Financial support for fieldwork in Pakistan was provided by the Institute of Asia and Pacific Studies (IAPS) and the Centre for Conflict, Security and Terrorism (CST) at the University of Nottingham, and the School of Politics and International Relations, University of Nottingham.