Islamabad, Pakistan – Pakistan entered a new year , in a state of relative calm after tumultuous 30 months, marked by volatile politics, a controversial election, and an economy teetering on the verge of collapse.
Foreign policy and security issues are likely to become the nation’s most pressing issues this year as domestic politics stabilize and the economy recovers in South Asia’s second-most populous country.
Analysts predict a tough 2025 for Pakistan, as it manages ties with its immediate neighbours, allies and adversaries across the world, as well as with the United States, where Donald Trump is set to return to power later this month.
The majority of Pakistan’s foreign policy and security issues are caused by its neighbors, particularly Afghanistan in the west and India’s neighbor, India.
After the Afghan Taliban seized Kabul in 2021, armed groups and rebels fought more violently throughout Pakistan. In 2024, armed attacks claimed the lives of nearly 700 law enforcement personnel, making it one of the deadliest years in a country of 240 million people.
The Pakistan Taliban (Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, TTP), an armed group that views the Afghan Taliban as its ideological rival, predominated in the attacks. The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a $ 62 billion megaproject that has brought Islamabad and Beijing closer than ever as political and economic allies, was the target of separate rebel attacks that targeted sites.
Christopher Clary, a non-resident fellow at Stimson Center, a US-based nonprofit, and an associate professor of political science at the University at Albany, says Pakistan faces its “most severe” national security challenge “in at least a decade and possibly since the 1990s”.
Pakistan’s only other major strategic choices are to repair its relationships with other world powers and regional neighbors, and get its economic house in order. It’s unclear whether Pakistan will have years to complete that work before the house tumbles in, according to Clary.
Here’s a lowdown on the countries that will be the focus of Islamabad’s foreign policy this year:
China
Pakistani authorities frequently tout their “deeper than the oceans, taller than the mountains” friendship with China. But 2024 revealed cracks in that relationship.
Attacks on Chinese citizens and interests culminated, forcing a rare public rebuke by Beijing’s envoy to Islamabad. At an event in Islamabad in October, Jiang Zaidong said, “It is unacceptable for us to be attacked twice in just six months.”
China’s expert on foreign policy Muhammad Faisal warns that Pakistan’s potential expansion of the CPEC project in the nation is unaffordable despite China continuing to provide financial aid.
Pakistan must masterfully navigate Beijing’s growing pressure to establish a “Joint Security Mechanism,” which would in turn make Chinese security personnel targeted and cause militants to undermine existing security measures, Faisal said in an interview with Al Jazeera.
The presence of Chinese soldiers operating Pakistani projects would reveal Islamabad’s security problems, make it more likely that Chinese citizens will be targeted, and make it even more politically sensitive for Chinese fighters to kill Pakistanis.
Meanwhile, experts worry that Trump’s antagonistic rhetoric toward China may compel Beijing to demand Pakistan’s support, which will then be forced to walk a diplomatic tightrope in an effort to annoy Washington, an old ally.
Trump has consistently taken a harsh stance on China, with a trade war between the two economic powers occurring during his first term. The US leader has pledged to impose tariffs on Chinese imports of up to 60% during his second term.
“But since Pakistan isn’t high on Trump administration’s international agenda, there is a silver lining. Yet, uncertainty is the common denominator of both of Pakistan’s challenges with China”, Faisal said.
China’s dissatisfaction with Pakistan is attributed to its extensive investment in the CPEC, which has yielded scant results, according to Kamran Bokhari, senior director at the US-based New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy. He added that China’s predicament could work to the US’s advantage.
“China already has a lot of disappointment with Pakistan, and the relationship has been stale for some time.” But Beijing is in a fix because it is knee-deep in Pakistan, thanks to CPEC investment of billions, without getting any benefit from it. Therefore, the US benefits from China’s situation in Pakistan, Bokhari said.
The United States
Pakistan’s relations with the US date back to 1947, when it was free of British rule and reunified. But Islamabad-Washington ties have mostly pivoted on how Pakistan aided US policies in the region, mainly in Afghanistan, which saw the Soviet invasion in the 1970s and 1980s, or the US-led “war on terror” following the 9/11 attacks in 2001.
With the Afghan Taliban back in power in Kabul, the Pakistan-US strategic partnership in the South Asian region has dwindled. While the US is now less invested in Afghanistan, Pakistan has gradually moved towards China for economic, military and technological needs.
Hassan Abbas, professor at the National Defense University in Washington, DC, believes Pakistan must “carefully navigate” its ties with the US amid tensions with China and India. He says “while nervousness is evident” on Pakistan’s part, dramatic changes in the relationship appear unlikely.
“Security issues and regional challenges, such as instability in Afghanistan”, Abbas told Al Jazeera, “are likely to dominate bilateral interactions”. The author of The Return of Taliban: Afghanistan After Americans Left is Abbas.
Bokhari argued that Pakistan is still the US’s top priority because it has more pressing global issues to address, including the Russia-Ukraine war and the numerous Middle Eastern conflicts.
“Pakistan is playing its cards very safely,” said the statement, “I don’t see any tensions rising to significant levels between the two countries right now.” According to him, the general perception of Pakistan is that it is a weak, dysfunctional state that needs to figure out its own business first.
India
Pakistan’s biggest international policy baffling is still India.
Relations have been practically frozen for years despite the limited interaction that occurs at multilateral forums. After New Delhi deposed Kashmir, India’s only self-governing body, in 2019, the tensions over Kashmir grew even more severe, causing Pakistan to vehemently denounce it. Both India and Pakistan rule over parts of Kashmir, but claim the Himalayan region in its entirety, making it one of the world’s longest and bloodiest military conflicts.
According to analyst Clary, “India’s relationship with India is increasingly stark, and Pakistan has few options to compel India to take it seriously that don’t endanger other Pakistani foreign policy objectives,” adding that Narendra Modi, the prime minister of India, “sees it as impractical during a period of domestic instability” in Pakistan.
Abdul Basit, a former Pakistani envoy to India, views the Kashmir issue as a continuing deadlock requiring behind-the-scenes diplomacy. “India has shown no willingness for flexibility after the constitutional amendment”, he told Al Jazeera, referring to the Modi government’s scrapping of Article 370, the law that granted Indian-administered Kashmir its partial autonomy.
Basit believes that Islamabad must find ways to engage with New Delhi as India increasingly closes its ranks to the West, primarily the US.
Without this, we will never be able to put our relationship on a course that will lead to normal relations and continue to move from one impasse to the next. That, for me, is the crux of the matter when it comes to India”, the retired envoy said.
However, Bokhari of the New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy believes that India could find itself under pressure from China over its rivalry with the US this year.
“India and Iran are developing a port, which is much closer and more practical. It is also buying oil from Russia, which is waging a war in Ukraine. So they]India] have a bigger chance of being put under pressure by the incoming]Trump] administration”, he said.
For Pakistan to attract US attention, according to Bokhari, it must offer a strategic value as it did during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and during the post-9/11 US wars.
“If you want US attention, you have to offer them something that could significantly generate an interest for the US, and only then you can get attention”, he said. “It wasn’t that the US liked Pakistan or became best friends, it was just that Pakistan provided a purpose”.
Iran
Iran experienced a cataclysmic year in 2024 as its geopolitical and Middle Eastern interests suffered significant losses, and Israel even launched direct attacks on its territory on several occasions.
However, Iran began its attacks on Pakistan’s Balochistan province, citing an armed group called Jaish al-Adl as a threat to the country’s border security. Pakistan immediately launched a military retaliation in response to the attack. Tehran used diplomacy to calm the conflict, but the tensions between the predominantly Muslim neighbors did not worsen.
Umer Karim, researcher at the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom, foresees the “uneasy rapprochement” continuing, as well as the emergence of new challenges with Trump’s return to the White House.
Karim warns against strengthening Pakistan-Iran ties, which could weaken border security, putting pressure on Baloch separatists who are rumored to have hidingouts there. For a separate homeland, the Baloch rebels have waged decades of fighting.
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