Why Gilgit-Baltistan is about to become a geostrategic Crown Jewel In the Region

 Pakistan, in a surprise decision last month, announced the elevation of Gilgit-Baltistan (G-B) to the status of its fifth legal ‘provisional’ province. The implications of this decision are far reaching and impact the interests of Pakistan, China, and India directly, and American interests indirectly. It’s partly a replay of the 19th century geopolitical and strategic wrangling known as the Great Game between Russia and British India in this very region. Even if Pakistan does not follow through with its decision to make it a province, G-B has acquired new and enhanced geopolitical importance. The region is disputed and under Pakistan’s temporary control under the United Nations Security Council resolutions. This geostrategic jewel had fallen to Pakistan during the chaotic 1947 partition of the Indian Subcontinent when the local Muslim army officers, irked by the Maharaja of Kashmir’s decision to join India, ousted the Maharaja’s governor in a military revolution, and invited the Pakistani government to take charge.

The Pakistanis responded by immediately turning the region into something like a colonial holding, telling the locals that their region is now disputed, and until and unless the United Nations resolves the Kashmir dispute through a plebiscite, it cannot be merged with Pakistan as its legal part. That decision had kept the region severely underdeveloped and made some of its people sorely resentful of Pakistan for 73 years now.

Last month’s announcement reverses that policy, effectively saying that the region is no longer disputed and is now a part of Pakistan – an act that mirrors Narendra Modi integrating Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh as Union Territories by scrapping the Article 370 of the Indian constitution that gave Kashmir its temporary special status until the resolution of the Kashmir dispute.

The policy change appears to be the result of a Pakistani estimation that global power has once again returned to G-B’s neighborhood: given the rise of China and India, and a resurgent Russia under Vladimir Putin. The most powerful of them all, China, recognizing G-B’s strategic position for the Belt Road Imitative (BRI), is reportedly behind Pakistan’s decision to make it a province.

To assess the implications of Pakistan’s decision, understanding G-B’s strategic position is important. We can do that by revisiting the centrality of G-B in the 19th century Great Game between Russia and British India, and then throw light on the contemporary strategic importance of the region for China and Pakistan on one hand, and the opponents of the BRI, including the United States (US) and India. This contest makes the region a critical strategic prize. In the final section, the article reviews the key interests of Pakistan, India, China, Russia, and the US in G-B.

China, the paramount power in the region, is no stranger to G-B’s strategic entanglements. In the 19th century it tried to control the region and found itself pushed out by stronger powers. So much so that it was forced to give up its suzerainty claims over Hunza and Nagar – G-B’s northernmost districts. It was up against Russia and British India, powers stronger than itself, which eventually prevailed over the region. China remembers that history lesson, that’s why it has moved swiftly and quietly to secure G-B for its economic and strategic interests. China is aided in this endeavor by the goodwill it enjoys among the people of G-B.

Traditionally, since ancient times, it has enjoyed an important geo-political position. From the Silk Route, the Great Game, to now the Western containment of Chinese efforts, it has attracted global attention. One route of the Silk Route passed the South of Yarkand along the Northern Eastern parts of high G-B, over the Karakoram Pass into Len, (now under India’s control). The energy rich Central Asia is just at its doorsteps separated only by a 35-km wide strip of Wakhan, the Afghan territory. Russia is also part of its larger neighborhood. In the renewed geo-political landscape, the region will host the geopolitical battle between China-Pakistan and the America-India alliance.

The British were suffering from Russo phobia, and felt that the Russians could invade British India by coming down through the ‘Roof of the World’ – the Pamir Mountains. The presence of a Russian captain Gromchevsky in Hunza irked the British military explorer Francis Younghusband. The British rested only after realizing that the passes were impossible for a large army to cross.

In 1877, John Biddulph tried in vain to convince the ruler of Hunza, Ghazan Khan, not to host the Russians and the Chinese. Some years later, another British officer, Francis Younghusband, however, was able to make an agreement with the Mirs of Hunza and Nagar not to allow the Russians and the Chinese in their states, in exchange for a monthly pension of Rs. 500. The Mir of Hunza was only allowed an interaction with Chinese Yarkand where he held estates. But the Chinese, for their part, considered this part of G-B as their feudatory. The British were determined to deny the Chinese even their nominal claim over the region as evidenced by a letter Viceroy Lord Dufferin sent to the India Office in London.

Of all the states, only British India had a true understanding of the strategic importance of G-B, therefore, some allege that as part of their world strategy, the British at their departure conspired to keep G-B in Pakistani hands to deny the pro-Soviet socialist Jawaharlal Nehru’s India from sharing a border with the socialist power, the Soviet Union. Not just that, the Soviets back then were believed to be on good terms with Mao Tse Tung’s Red Army, which was about to take control of the Xinjiang Province that borders G-B. India would never have allowed the British to use their territory against communism, but Muhammad Ali Jinnah had already agreed to cooperate with Britain on matters of defense. Also, it was argued that the pro-West Jinnah and his new Muslim-majority country would be naturally averse to the godless communists. As was later seen, the British assessment was right. During the Cold War, India remained nominally non-aligned, and actually enjoyed warm relations with the USSR, while Pakistan joined the West by entering the SEATO and Baghdad Pact.

Around World War II, however, all three powers were weakened and distracted. The British withdrew from India, the Soviets got entangled in the Cold War with the US, and China descended into a devastating and long civil war between the communists and the nationalists. This resulted in a steep fall of G-B’s strategic importance, because the region was important only in relation to its neighboring powers and had no intrinsic value of its own. Not only did G-B lose its strategic significance, it was divided up among themselves by India, Pakistan and China. Ladakh and the Valley of Kashmir came under Indian control, Muzaffarabad, Gilgit and Baltistan under Pakistan, and Aksai Chin had already been under China’s control from before the partition.