News

On Thursday, 11 April 2014, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, addressing the Boao Forum for Asia Annual Conference, called for a collective approach for addressing common challenges and laid stress on "enhanced connectivity for success". He said Pakistan was on the confluence of China, the Eurasian land-bridge and the Middle East, placing the country near the three-pronged economic corridor between China, Central Asia and the Middle East. "This is the triangular dimension of our relevance to the Silk Road," he added.

Comment

Mr. Nawaz Sharif has been reaching all corners of the world showing his nation that he is passionately working to present Pakistan as a business friendly country abroad and to bring foreign investors, so that the economy of Pakistan will once start moving in an upwards direction. Attending and addressing Boao Forum for Asia Annual Conference was part of that struggle. The Raheel-Nawaz regime is claiming to make Pakistan a regional hub for regional and international trade, as part of the phenomenon of globalization. That is the justification that the regime is using to declare India as a Most Favored Nation (MFN) and support Afghanistan peace process, under the guise of a limited US withdrawal from Afghanistan. The regime claims that these two initiatives will bring the whole region, from Central Asia to India, closer and will boost economic activity. It claims that not only the people of Pakistan, but also the people of the whole region will benefit immensely.

However, this limited vision for the region, where only economic objectives determine the course of foreign relations, is erroneous and dangerous. In most of these regional economic cooperations, only one or two of the larger countries snatch most of the benefits. They use the markets of neighboring less developed countries to boost their own economies, flooding them with their goods and demolishing local industry. The under-developed countries get a share like a peanut in a camel's mouth, if that. Whether it is the European Union or NAFTA or any other economic treaties, big players always have the big share at the expense of other countries. Mexico has provided a growing market for meat for the US, leading to a surge in sales and profits for the US meat industry. The US Chamber of Commerce credits NAFTA with increasing US trade in goods and services with Canada and Mexico, from $337 billion in 1993 to $1.2 trillion in 2011.

Developed countries produce large amounts and varied types of goods because of their industrial superiority, whilst under-developed countries do not have developed industry, so they only produce limited goods. Therefore, under-developed countries are never able to get the most out of this so-called economic cooperation.

Denied proper industrial development for well over six decades, Pakistan is already seeing the negative effects of this so-called regional economic cooperation. Our markets have been converted to a dumping ground for low priced Chinese goods, to an extent that local manufacturing units cannot compete with them. And the large Indian manufacturers are salivating at the chance of doing the same as the Chinese. Our local manufacturers eventually close down their business and start importing, which results in local job losses and economic dependency on foreign countries. Moreover, such economic dependency opens the doors for foreign pressure on other national issues.

The Raheel-Nawaz regime does not see except what their masters sitting in Western capitals and international financial institutions headquarters say they should see. They are blind to the true potential of Pakistan, if it becomes the seat of the second Khilafah "Caliphate" Rashida. If Pakistan becomes a Khilafah "Caliphate" state, the implementation of the Islamic economic system will lead to massive economic prosperity, as it focuses on distribution of wealth, rather than the accumulation of wealth in a few hands, as the capitalist system does.

Moreover, when the Muslims lands from Central Asia to India, East Africa to the Arabian Peninsula and Indonesia to Malaysia become part of the Khilafah "Caliphate" state, Muslims will not need the markets of other nations. Their own market will be so immense that their goods will be consumed domestically quite easily. On the other hand, every nation on the earth will seek us out, so as to allow them to sell their goods in our huge market, eager to make their own fortune as well. So instead of confining ourselves to artificial borders created by colonialists, we must eliminate them, turning ourselves into a single giant Ummah of 1.6 billion Muslims and the world's leading nation.

Written for the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir by
Shahzad Shaikh

Deputy to the Spokesman of Hizb ut Tahrir

in Wilayah Pakistan