4 ms·

I don't know anything about this, but it seems quite surprising, given China's record of 'disappearing' millions of Muslims (and other citizens) right next door

• yumraj 7y ago
  China-Pak friendship is driven simply by their mutual enmity of India. Basically, enemy of my enemy is my friend.
  • hangonhn 7y ago
    Pakistan provides a very strategic route to the Persian Gulf for the Chinese. Even without the India-China rivalry (I hate using this term though because the relationship is quite a bit more complex than a simple rivalry), I think Pakistan would still be a valuable ally to the Chinese. During China's period of isolation, Pakistan also served as a diplomatic corridor to the other countries. Prior to the Nixon visit, China and the US met via Pakistan.
• hangonhn 7y ago
  People from the outside has a tendency to over estimate the unity of other groups. For a long time, the first world nations thought all the Communist countries were buddies but China had border wars with both the USSR and Vietnam. In the Islamic world, Muslim nations fought each other all the time as they still do today. In the Christian realms, the Crusades started with Western Christians sacking Constantinople and the wars of religion between the Catholics and Protestants were pretty brutal. France was at one point allied with the Turks during the period of the "Italian Wars". It tends to be that people think first of their own welfare and then maybe of their allegiance to the groups they belong to.
  • chillacy 7y ago
    A great essay on the topic: https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anything-except-the-outgroup/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anythin...