As India mourns the dozens of tourists murdered in Kashmir this week by jihadists and Prime Minister Narendra Modi vows to pursue them and their backers “to the ends of the earth,” India and Pakistan are at daggers drawn. New Delhi has already closed the land border and suspended a key water-sharing agreement, and the two nuclear-armed militaries are preparing for war.
Any nuclear showdown is concerning, and in this case, the strategic stakes for the United States are high. India is the only Asian country that could conceivably counterbalance China, and the more it focuses on Pakistan, the less it can thwart Beijing. Pakistan is now at the forefront of a partnership that will bedevil Americans in the years to come—the unhappy marriage between radical Islam and communism.
In many respects, these two movements are strange bedfellows. China’s Communist Party is hostile to any religious entity that it does not control and it is bulldozing—in some cases, literally—its country’s Islamic heritage. Radical Islamists are equally determined to extinguish non-Islamic beliefs, and in many cases, the people who hold them. Nonetheless, across much of Asia, an increasing number of countries are welcoming both.
Pakistan is the classic example of this nexus. Its intelligence services allegedly supported the Taliban and many of the terrorist groups that attacked India in Kashmir for decades. This Easter marked the 10th anniversary of Pakistan signing up for the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, which is one of the foundations of Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative. As Islamabad sees it, jihadists are just as useful for fighting India as the communists are for economic development.
China is picking up other Islamist partners too. Yemen’s Houthis have made the Red Sea crossing between Europe and Asia perilous, but Chinese ships sail through serenely. Chinese companies have been caught sending the Houthis dual-use equipment, and last week the State Department accused a Chinese satellite company of helping the Houthis find targets.
In other parts of South Asia, hatred of Israel goes hand-in-hand with love of China. The Maldives were one of ISIS’s most fertile recruiting grounds, and its government just banned people with Israeli passports. Its current president’s first trip abroad was to Beijing, and it now welcomes China’s “military assistance.”
Bangladesh’s government also changed their passports so that they are valid everywhere—“except Israel.” Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, Bangladesh’s “chief adviser,” recently pointed out in China that India’s northeastern region—much of which China claims—can only reach the ocean through Bangladesh. “This opens up a huge possibility,” Yunus said, “so this could be an extension of the Chinese economy.”
During the Cold War, the communists and Islamists were usually at each other’s throats. Muslims from all over—including a young Osama bin Laden—flocked to Afghanistan to fight the Soviets. Hatred of Soviets did not create any love for America, however. Al Qaeda easily switched from attacking Soviets to bombing U.S. embassies.
There are a few reasons this one is shaping up differently. The Soviets dreamed of militarily dominating the Middle East and imposing atheistic dictatorships like the Central Asian Soviet “republics.” Beijing does not play the great game that way. For now, at least, it is making Washington pay the costs of keeping the Middle East from careening off course while undermining those efforts. The first Trump administration determined that China’s Uyghur Muslims are facing a genocide, but so far Beijing is not duplicating that campaign abroad.
They share, moreover, enemies. New Delhi is Beijing’s largest rival in Asia and jihadists dream of reconquering much of India.
The Gulf monarchies’ interests have also changed. They funded many of the anti-Soviet fighters in Afghanistan, but they are friendly with China. The Soviet oil industry was a major competitor, and China’s energy-hungry manufacturers are great customers. The Gulf states are also trying to diversify and modernize their economies, and China is happy to supply the needed infrastructure and offer technologies to invest in.
That said, this marriage will probably end in divorce. Muslim groups that feel more threatened by communism, such as Indonesia’s Nahdlatul Ulama, are wary of China. To the extent that China succeeds in its ambitions to dominate Asia, it will trigger fears of onrushing atheism and persecution. Al Qaeda and the Pakistani Taliban already occasionally attack Chinese citizens abroad.
The good news is that Washington has cards to play. Pakistan is not likely to give up China or terrorism, but many of the Gulf states are trying to deradicalize Islam and cut off funding for the more harmful strands of the faith. Americans cannot lead that effort, but they can encourage it. And the more Gulf states diversify by investing in American companies, the closer our countries come.
The Gulf states also rely on Washington for security. That is a powerful card to play—unless we give it up.
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