That might not work out as well as the Pakistanis think it will:
A deadly weekend attack in China's restive Xinjiang region was masterminded by "terrorists" trained in Pakistan, the local government said Monday.
Fourteen people were killed in two attacks at the weekend in the ancient Silk Road city of Kashgar, and five alleged attackers were in turn shot dead by police in the wave of violence.
The Kashgar authorities said in a statement on their website that initial investigations found that the perpetrators of one attack learned explosive-making skills in terrorist-run camps in Pakistan.
"The heads of the group had learned skills of making explosives and firearms in overseas camps of the terrorist group East Turkistan Islamic Movement in Pakistan before entering Xinjiang," the online statement said.
Unless the Pakistanis think that periodic mass murders in a critical (and restive) western province is a price that China is willing to pay for the friendship of a Pakistan that sends murderous scumbags like this out into the world, I don't think that China will play ball.
But as I noted, Pakistan believes a lot of strange things. What's one more?
UPDATE: This article hits Pakistan with the reality stick on the issue of whether China would want Pakistan, especially in light of Pakistan's fingers in the killings in China:
"Pakistan wants to play its own game by creating a front against the United States," said Hasan Askari-Rizvi, an independent political analyst.
"That will not happen. ... Now China has the same complaint which the United States has with Pakistan."
Barry Sautman, a professor at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, said that China, like the United States, wanted Pakistan to help it control Islamist militancy. But it is frustrated by the chaotic nature of Pakistani governance, and its inability to control militants or militant-friendly elements in its security agencies.
"I would think the Chinese government would want to have its military and security apparatus liaise with Pakistani authorities to come up with a common plan, but the U.S. found that very difficult to do," he said. "And I am sure China will find it difficult as well."
Furthermore, Pakistan's usefulness to China is only in South Asia, where it competes with India. But China has global ambitions; it is unlikely to sacrifice them for an ally that has proved a headache to the United States, which has its own deep relationship with China.
"Being seen to take a provocative stand alongside Pakistan comes at a substantial cost, but provides little strategic benefit," Urmila Venugopalan, an independent analyst and former Asia editor at Jane's Intelligence Review, wrote last month in Foreign Policy.
But other than all those reasons that China won't replace America, Pakistan's plan to replace us as their main ally will work out just swell. Do read the article.
China is happy enough making our relations with Pakistan difficult and less productive. Gaining ownership of that basket case with a UN seat is another question altogether.
