At the political level, the current intensification of the Western propaganda about the so-called Tibet problem of China has never resonated with the successive governments and people of Pakistan. In recent years, Pakistani opinion-makers have repeatedly criticised Western selectivity on the question of human rights. When it comes to Kashmir or Palestine the West argues that the doctrine of self-determination that sustained the great post-1945 struggle for decolonisation had become anachronistic or undergone a change of meaning. It did not, however, prevent the West from espousing this principle whole-heartedly in the case of East Timor and somewhat more cautiously in Kosovo.

So far as Tibet is concerned Pakistan's data base is simple and unequivocal. The central government of China has exercised sovereignty over it for 700 years. The British Indian Empire recognised Tibet as a "province of the Chinese empire" in formal notes. India's first prime minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru's views on where the border with China lay precipitated a brief border war in 1962 but he had earlier told the Indian parliament that no foreign country had ever denied Chinese sovereignty over Tibet. The arrival of Dalai Lama in India and the emergence of a vocal movement amongst Tibetan refugees in India for greater autonomy in Tibet have not led to any significant change in the official Indian position on Tibet being an integral part of China.

Autonomous region

An autonomous region of China since 1965, Tibet has enjoyed sustained development. During the last six years it has posted a GDP growth rate of 12 per cent; its literacy has increased from 10 per cent to 50 per cent, albeit still considerably lower than 85 per cent in the more developed part of China. There is deliberate exaggeration in the West about Han colonisation of Tibet which still has 92 per cent indigenous Tibetan population. When it comes to human rights, it is understood that China shares inequalities with many other Asian countries that have ethnic diversity and a heritage of unequal development during centuries of colonial domination.

As in Tibet's case, Pakistan opposes external encouragement to separatist groups in Xingjiang even though Uighur militants there often invoke Islam as a rationale for their activities. Since the American invasion of Iraq, the Asian fear of the West supporting fragmentation of existing states in pursuit of its global strategic and economic objectives has increased. Apart from this general distrust, Pakistan also stands by China in world forums on human rights issues because of its special relationship with it. While Pakistan's other major international partnership - with Washington - has run a most chequered course its relations with China since the border settlement of 1963 have remained immune to vagaries of international politics. When it comes to capacity building in sensitive fields such as defence production and nuclear power generation or major economic projects such as the Gwadar port, China occupies an unrivalled place amongst Pakistan's allies.

Musharraf's just concluded visit to China is part of the efforts made by the two countries to ensure that their bilateral relations are not affected by the new regional trends. Pakistan is now greatly reassured that the growing rapprochement between China and India, exemplified by forecasts that their trade turnover will exceed $40b in the next few years, would not downgrade Chinese engagement with Islamabad. Instead of turning away, China is willing to assist Pakistan overcome factors which constrain equally rapid growth in their bilateral trade.

Pakistan hopes to revive the Chinese interest in exploiting very large coal reserves in the Sindh province of Pakistan. In a futuristic leap of imagination Musharraf talked of jointly resolving formidable problems of terrain to turn the spectacular Karkorum road into a carrier of everything from optical fibre connectivity to energy. He thought that modern technology would be able to extend the proposed Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline to China. If such a marvel of engineering becomes feasible, it could also provide a secure alternative transit route for China-bound energy from other Middle East sources.

Pakistan has the onus of fully addressing Chinese concerns in two sensitive areas. Beijing will rightly expect that Pakistan's ongoing cooperation with Nato in Afghanistan would never carry any anti-China overtones. The ambiguity about the real intentions behind Nato's indefinite deployment in Afghanistan adds to such apprehensions. Similarly, Pakistan and China cannot ignore the fact that Xingiang separatists have in the past tried to secure support from the "badlands" along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border on which Pakistan does not exercise full control at the moment.

The pomp and show with which the Olympic torch was received in Pakistan on its way to New Delhi was symbolic of the determination to strengthen what remains Pakistan's best strategic option in a region beset with vast uncertainties.

Pakistani leaders would have earnestly hoped that the brilliant display of fireworks on April 16 in honour of the Olympic flame would be metaphorically watched by their Chinese counterparts.