Rawalpindi Espresso, Pak-style 'autostrat'

Pakistan's 'strategic autonomy' is, one must admit, as intriguing as it's amusing. With Asim Munir having lunch in Washington with Donald Trump in June, his tea with Xi Jinping in Beijing on Tuesday - as part of prime minister Shehbaz Sharif's entourage - has raised eyebrows. As the Joni Mitchell song goes, this is China's 'all-weather friend' and the US' 'major non-Nato ally' looking at clouds from both sides now.

As a policy approach, 'strategic autonomy' has been getting bad press, especially from countries like the US that prefer everyone comes inside its tepee. Its advocates - autostrats? - come in for much criticism. When France talks of it, it's brushed off as an ineffective effort to get out from under Washington's shadow. In India's case, it's downright scandalous, amounting to bankrolling the 'other side's war'. But even as Pakistan's quite the hunter with the hounds and runner with the hare - never mind its questionable democratic values that seem to bear fruit in Washington and Beijing with Rawalpindi openly stepping out of Islamabad's shadow - its litany of economic hardships, and its willingness to host groups with a propensity for terror is hosted by the two largest economies in the world.

The Rawalpindi Espresso can sup with Trump and have a cup with Xi without worrying about choosing sides because it's not, say, India. As the fourth-largest economy, the rumours of its death exaggerated, India is a threshold power. Acting the burr under New Delhi's saddle, Rawalpindi-Islamabad is a strategic tool for both Beijing and Washington - to keep India from not getting too big for its kolhapuris, and to gain better leverage. So, even as Munir hops from luncheon to lunch, all that wooing shouldn't matter much. It's gastro-ptics.