Pakistonomy

In this episode, Uzair talks to Ashok Malik about Modi’s visit to the United States and the future of US-India relations. We also talked about India’s foreign policy in the Middle East, and prospects of trade between India and Pakistan.

Ashok Malik is a Partner at The Asia Group and Chair of its New Delhi-based subsidiary in India where he leads the firm’s in-market business strategy and services.

Drawing on over 30 years of experience in government, media, and thought leadership Ashok is a recognized specialist on India’s policy landscape and the intersection of business and politics. Ashok advises clients on tailored strategies for market entry and expansion in India, enterprise level risk management and crisis mitigation. His areas of expertise include India’s foreign and trade policies and the government’s approach to international business, resilient supply chains and national capacities.

Prior to joining TAG, Ashok served for three years (2019-22) as Policy Advisor/Additional Secretary in India’s Ministry of External Affairs. In that capacity, he worked closely with External Affairs Minister Dr. S. Jaishankar and others in the senior leadership of the Ministry to help shape and explain India’s foreign policy in a crucial and eventful period for the international system.

Chapters:

0:00 Introduction

1:30 Key takeaways from Modi’s US visit

25:46 India’s foreign policy in the Middle East

39:20 Future of India-Pakistan relations

In this episode, Uzair talks to Mahim Maher about her career in journalism and digital media, what she found covering the problems of Karachi, and things that aspiring and young journalists should focus on.

Mahim most recently served as a digital editor at Aaj and has several years of experience across multiple news organizations in Pakistan.

Chapters:

0:00 Introduction

1:50 Mahim’s career trajectory

11:43 What ails Karachi?

32:04 State of digital media in Pakistan

48:40 Advice for aspiring journalists

Reading Recommendations:

For giving yourself permission to write detail:

White Noise by Don Delillo

A Sport and Pastime by James Salter Anything by Ian McEwan

For the nuts and bolts of journalism:

Breaking News: The Remaking of Journalism and Why it Matters Now by Alan Rusbridger who oversaw The Guardian’s digital transformation

Editor: An Inside Story of Newspapers by Max Hastings for what to look for in an editor or how to mould one’s principles to become one

For deeper study of writing and editing:

Storycraft: The Complete Guide to Writing Narrative Nonfiction by Jack Hart for an advanced study of how to approach longform in a sophisticated way

The Accidental Life: An Editor’s Notes on Writing and Writers by Terry McDonell for behind the scenes wisdom on editing writers

In this episode, Uzair talks to Dr. Tanvi Madan about how India is dealing with a rising China and the current state of India-China relations. We also talked about what tensions between India and China mean for the country’s relations with the United States.

Dr. Tanvi Madan is a senior fellow in the Project on International Order and Strategy in the Foreign Policy program, and director of The India Project at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC. Dr. Madan’s work explores India’s role in the world and its foreign policy, focusing in particular on India's relations with China and the United States. She also researches the U.S. and India’s approaches in the Indo-Pacific, as well as the development of interest-based coalitions, especially the Australia-India-Japan-U.S. Quad.

Dr. Madan is the author of the book “Fateful Triangle: How China Shaped US-India Relations during the Cold War”

Reading recommendations:

- How China Sees India by Shyam Saran

- The Long Game by Vijay Gokhale

- Smoke and Mirrors by Pallavi Iyer

- India’s China Challenge by Ananth Krishnan

Chapters:

0:00 Introduction

1:10 Current state of affairs between India and China

9:20 India’s diplomacy around Chinese debt

16:55 Modi’s trip to Washington

25:15 Anti-Americanism in India

35:06 India’s diplomacy in East Asia

42:30 Trends to watch out for

50:05 Reading recommendations

In this episode, Uzair talks to Dr. Hassan Abbas about his latest book, The Return of the Taliban: Afghanistan After the Americans Left.

Dr. Hassan Abbas is Distinguished Professor of International Relations at the Near East South Asia Strategic Studies Centre (NESA), National Defense University in Washington DC.

He has also authored The Prophet’s Heir: The Life of Ali ibn Abi Talib (Yale University Press, March 2021), and The Taliban Revival (Yale University Press, June 2014), which chronicles the Taliban’s survival and resurgence after 2001, through firsthand research and interviews in the area.

Chapters:

0:00 Introduction

1:37 Why did Kabul fall so quickly?

18:28 How did the Taliban evolve?

33:42 Pakistan’s role and impact on the country

53:26 Global impact of Taliban’s resurgence

1:04:57 Political instability in Pakistan and ethnic issues

In this episode, we dive deep into fiscal deficits in Pakistan and how they wreak economic havoc. In addition, we talk about the linkages between the fiscal deficit, higher interest rates, and external sector vulnerabilities.

Dr. Derek H. C. Chen joined the World Bank in 2000 where he has held a number of positions. Currently, he is the Senior Economist for Pakistan, based at the World Bank office in Islamabad. He oversees the macroeconomics and fiscal programs and leads the production of various economic reports at the Islamabad office, including the most recent Pakistan Federal Public Expenditure Review 2023.

You can read the Pakistan Federal Public Expenditure Review (PER) 2023 here - https://documents.worldbank.org/en/publication/documents-reports/documentdetail/099041223153536828#/P17507702d44490bd0bb660b4b60037e930

Chapters:

0:00 Introduction

1:30 Why are deficits so high?

8:50 Impact of these deficits

16:40 Links between economic instability and deficits

22:40 Government spending issues

26:10 Subsidies for the rich

32:20 Recommendations to solve this

In this episode, Uzair talks to Dr. Ilhan Niaz about what is going on in Pakistan today and what we can learn from history to understand the present and what may come in the future. We also talked about why the political class is morally bankrupt, how the judiciary has ceded space, and why the military has been able to reassert itself in the country’s political economy.

Dr. Niaz is chair of the history department at the Quaid-e-Azam University and author of several books, including The State During the British Raj: Imperial Governance in South Asia, 1700-1947.

Chapters:

0:00 Introduction

0:55 Understanding the present

8:10 How the military draws power

16:26 The supreme court’s role today

27:15 Maintaining unity among civilians

32:15 Has Khan awakened the masses?

40:37 Scenarios for the future

46:05 The role of geopolitical rents

50:54 Is Shehbaz the worst PM in history?

In this episode, Uzair talks to Dr. Ayyaz Malick about the ongoing crises in Pakistan and where he sees things going. Dr. Malick is a university lecturer, with research interests in Marxist and post-/anti-colonial theory.

He has recently written a must-read essay on the ongoing crisis which can be read at the link below.

https://jacobin.com/2023/05/imran-khan-arrest-pakistan-politics-crisis-military-alienation-ruling-class-oppression

Tweet on military lands for agriculture - https://twitter.com/Benazir_Shah/status/1660897023531585539?s=20

Previous discussion with Ayyaz - https://youtu.be/_Qv0GrxM0-Y

Chapters:

0:00 Introduction

1:40 Framework for understanding the crises

17:20 Shifting alliances and the importance of May 9

33:00 Why are PTI leaders leaving so quickly?

55:23 Role of the PDM parties in this and future scenarios

1:19:25 Can a savior like Khan save Pakistan?

Reading Recommendations:

- Antonio Gramsci - On the Southern Question (for understanding hegemony and how ruling classes rule)

- Aijaz Ahmad - Lineages of the Present (for understanding Bonapartism, Bhuttoism, and fascism in South Asian politics)

- Gyorgy Lukacs, History and Class Consciousness (for understanding structural blindness of ruling classes i.e. why elites cannot reform themselves)

We continue our special series on the US-China strategic competition this week by looking at Australia’s evolving foreign policy with Professor Jane Golley.

Professor Jane Golley is an economist at the Crawford School of Public Policy at The Australian National University (ANU). Jane is an ANU graduate (BEc, Hons, 1993). Jane's life-long interest in China began with a brief stint in the Asia Section of the Australian Commonwealth Treasury in 1993, before she left for the University of Oxford, where she wrote her Dphil thesis on 'The Dynamics of Chinese Regional Development: Market Nature, State Nurture'.

Chapters:

0:00 Introduction

1:50 The Australian view on China

11:08 Assessing Australia’s China policy

14:50 Technology and geoeconomics

23:15 Debt-trap diplomacy

31:30 Who wins this competition?

37:50 What should Global South countries do?

44:15 Key trends to watch for

48:20 Reading recommendations

Reading Recommendations:

- The China Choice by Hugh White

- Fear of Abandonment by Allan Gyngell

- No Enemies No Friends

- Six Faces of Globalization by Anthea Roberts

We continue our special series on the US-China strategic competition this week by looking at the deepening military ties between Pakistan and China with Sameer Lalwani.

Sameer Lalwani is a senior expert on South Asia at the U.S. Institute of Peace. He is also a non-resident senior fellow with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

From 2015 to 2022, Dr. Lalwani was a senior fellow for Asia strategy and the director of the South Asia program at the Stimson Center. He has also spent time as an adjunct professor at George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs and as a Stanton nuclear security postdoctoral fellow at the RAND Corporation.

Sameer recently published a report titled A Threshold Alliance: The China-Pakistan Military Relationship which is a must-read: https://www.usip.org/publications/2023/03/threshold-alliance-china-pakistan-military-relationship

Chapters:

0:00 Introduction

1:30 What is a threshold alliance?

4:50 Pakistan’s procurement of Chinese weapons

10:25 Where is the Pakistan-China relationship going?

19:30 China’s influence in Indian Ocean and Arabian Sea

29:40 Important trends to monitor

37:37 Reading recommendations

Over the next few episodes, we are going to be focusing on the US-China rivalry and what it means for the world. In addition, we will try to bring to the forefront a diverse set of views on this rivalry and what key actors are concerned about and trying to do.

To start things off, I spoke to Andrew Small on China’s rise, what are the key things concerning countries in East Asia, and where he sees things going.

Andrew Small is a senior transatlantic fellow with GMF's Indo-Pacific Program, which he established in 2006. His research focuses on U.S.–China relations, Europe–China relations, Chinese policy in South Asia, and broader developments in China's foreign and economic policy. He is the author of The Rupture: China and the Global Race for the Future, which was named one of the 2022 Financial Times Politics Books of the Year, and The China-Pakistan Axis: Asia's New Geopolitics.

Chapters:

0:00 Introduction

1:50 China’s rise and key concerns

10:00 Military escalation in East Asia

21:37 Assessing Washington’s approach

32:10 Emerging markets, debt, and Chinese influence

40:20 What should South Asia pay attention to?

48:06 Reading recommendations