In the run-up to recent local elections, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan announced he had granted “provisional” provincial status to Gilgit-Baltistan, a semi-autonomous state that India also claims as part of the disputed region of Kashmir.

Khan’s designation was declared soon after a closed-door meeting in September between the Pakistan army’s top brass and opposition parliamentarians, and has raised widespread speculation that China tacitly supported the potentially explosive announcement.

Pakistan Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa, chief of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Lieutenant General Faiz Hameed and other senior military generals apparently advised opposition leaders on the decision, which threatens to spike tensions and possibly armed conflict with India.

Significantly, most of those who met the military’s leadership are part of the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM), which is currently spearheading a campaign against the military’s outsized role in politics under Khan’s elected administration.

While Khan’s announcement, made on November 1, did not indicate a timeframe for formally establishing Gilgit-Baltistan into a Pakistani province, potentially the nation’s fifth, the move would help to secure the US$60 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), which passes through the heart of the disputed region.

How India will respond is a wild card, but analysts suggest New Delhi could opt for new ceasefire-breaking surgical strikes in the territory as it did in September 2016 across the Line of Control in Kashmir, then reputedly to hit militant launch pads.

A future strike, however, would likely be on Pakistani security forces as they move to consolidate Islamabad’s control on the territory.

Khan’s governing Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party is now poised to form a government in Gilgit-Baltistan after outpacing the main opposition Pakistan People’s Party and PML (Nawaz) at Nov 15 local polls.

Opposition politicians have since said that the issue should have been tabled and deliberated in parliament before making what they say is a hasty decision to change Gilgit-Baltistan’s status, a move some see as a counter to India’s August 2019 withdrawal of Jammu and Kashmir’s special status.

Critics say that the top brass meeting with opposition leaders, just weeks before Khan’s formal announcement, shows that the “deep state” was pulling strings from behind the scenes and that Khan’s civilian government is fronting a military-devised design. Significantly, the military is leading the China-backed, multi-billion dollar CPEC.

Predictably, India rejected Pakistan’s designation, claiming it was an attempt by Islamabad to hide its “illegal” occupation of the territory. Indian media reports have suggested that China has pushed Pakistan to integrate the region and thus consolidate Beijing’s foothold in the contested region.

Those reports have suggested Islamabad can not likely resist Beijing’s pressure at a time it seeks to roll over a $3 billion Chinese trade finance facility that Khan’s government uses to repay maturing debts.

If China does not extend the financial facility when it expires, the reports suggest, Pakistan would find it extremely difficult to repay the sum, both because of the nation’s dire finances and current poor relations with traditional rich patrons in Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

Selig Seidenman Harrison, an Asia scholar with the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, a senior fellow at the Center of International Policy and expert on South Asian affairs, has noted in his research that anywhere between 7,000 to 11,000 People’s Liberation Army (PLA) personnel have been stationed in Gilgit-Baltistan to construct railroads, the Karakoram Highway, dams, expressways and other infrastructure projects.

Harrison has written in the past that China plans to extend its hold in Gilgit-Baltistan to develop unhindered road and rail access to oil-rich Gulf States via Pakistan, thereby bypassing sea routes that could potentially be blocked in a conflict with the United States.

—–By FM SHAKIL in Asia Times, Nov 25, 2020
https://asiatimes.com/2020/11/china-quietly-fuels-india-and-pakistans-next-conflict/