By Ibrahim Nafie* On the morning of 11 July, we boarded the plane for our 22-hour return trip from Beijing to Cairo. It had been a hectic 24 hours. Our Asian tour came to an official end with our very fruitful meeting with the Chinese prime minister the previous day. In 21 days, we had covered 66,000 kilometres, landed in 13 airports and visited nine cities in five countries. We held 80 official meetings and countless working lunches and dinners. We met with one president, three prime ministers and numerous ministers, senior officials, journalists, businessmen and heads of financial institutions and study centres. Yet, although we travelled an immense distance away from Egypt, Egypt was ever present in our minds. At every stage of the tour, we were able to make comparisons with our region and determine what lessons the Asian experience holds for us. During the flight back to Cairo, I formulated several observations. First, the situation in South Asia is more strained and explosive than we had imagined. In Pakistan, India and China, bitterness and rancour run at least as deep as in the Arab world. The recent Indian and Pakistani nuclear tests acquired a far more concrete logic against the backdrop of these sensitivities than before our visit. In these three countries, we could sense the immediacy of 50 years of tension and seething conflict. It was as though the 1948 division of India occurred only yesterday, or as though the secession of Pakistan in 1971 had only just been aired on the news. In short, in spite of all the good intentions, no one we met seemed prepared to recognise the legitimacy of the hand dealt to their respective countries by history. True, India, Pakistan and China all profess a desire for a peaceful solution to all their problems, and none are ready to go to war for the sake of restoring what they perceive to be a legitimate right. There is no bilateral or regional framework to accommodate the current situation, however. Rather, the climate is charged with mutual incriminations. Pakistan accuses India of engineering in the disturbances in the south of Pakistan. India suspects Pakistan of meddling in Kashmir. And China accuses India of interfering in Tibet. If anything, the recent Indian and Pakistani nuclear tests have added fuel to the smouldering fire. True, officials in Islamabad, New Delhi and Beijing have reiterated reassurances that their nuclear weapons are for defensive purposes only, and that they would never initiate a nuclear exchange. Indeed, some told us that the nuclear balance of terror may actually help resolve their conflicts. We, on the other hand, saw no indication of such a trend. On the contrary, mutual suspicions are rife, Kashmir is turbulent and the Chinese-Indian border is fraught with anxiety. Moreover, the ruling elites in these countries are more apprehensive than ever of others' hegemonic ambitions. Perhaps the artillery exchange between Indian and Pakistani forces across the borders of Kashmir, and the killing of dozens of innocent civilians only two days after the prime ministers of these two countries met, best illustrate the extent to which tensions in the region have escalated. Egypt has strong and friendly relations with all three countries. We are linked to them by virtue of Islamic bonds, participation in the Non-Aligned Movement, and the commitment to national liberation in a world still run by the West and the former colonial powers. We also have behind us decades of diplomatic efforts to obtain their support in the problems we face in the Middle East. Any crises that erupt between them will place Egypt in a very difficult situation. I therefore urge our political and diplomatic institutions to reopen the files on the problems of South Asia so that we can prepare ourselves for the arduous choices ahead. We will then be in a better position to safeguard what we have built, to preserve the three powers as a force working for the developing countries and their struggle for autonomy in a highly complex world, and, more importantly, to forestall the attempts of other powers looking for trouble and carrying out their own plans to our detriment. Second, we observed that reverberations from the nuclear tests extended beyond India and Pakistan to include all of South and Southeast Asia. To officials and analysts in Singapore and Indonesia, the tests represented an affront to the conviction that security can only be achieved through rapid and sustained development, cooperation and regional assimilation. They appear as an indication that India is seeking regional hegemony. Of primary concern to us, however, is the fact that India, a country with which we have always been on friendly terms, may become a source of tension in an extended strategic area, from the Indian Ocean to the Pacific, an area that abuts on the Gulf, and which, by virtue of both past history and present exigencies, requires our constant attention and vigilance. My third observation concerns the economic crisis in Asia. The causes of the crisis are diverse and complex, involving high economic growth rates combined with a failure to address structural imbalances, particularly those related to high levels of foreign debt; weak financial institutions that violated strict loan codes; and the failure to address the imbalance between rapid economic liberalisation and assimilation into the global economy, on one hand, and the flexibility of the political system, on the other. Everyone we met during our tour agreed with this analysis. The determination to pursue effective reform was evident everywhere. Certainly, these countries possess the necessary ingredients for reform. It may take up to five years, however, for the countries of Southeast Asia to recover their former economic vitality. Until then, we too will have to deal with the spin-off effects of the economic crisis. The fall in economic growth rates and the austerity measures will necessarily affect these countries' demand for oil in particular. Indeed, oil prices, which for some time had depended upon rising Asian demand, are already reflecting the strain. This will affect not only Egyptian exports, but trade throughout the Arab world, where oil remains the backbone of the economy. If the Asian economic crisis has a silver lining, it is the lessons that we can derive from it. Although we have not attained the same levels of growth, our volume of foreign debt is not as large and our banking and financial policies remain relatively conservative, we must remain vigilant. For example, we must ensure that our system for granting bank loans conforms to the highest standards of transparency and observes the balance between encouraging investment for economic growth and securing the guarantees that these loans are indeed directed towards investment that will serve the national economy. At the same time, I feel that an excessive expansion in real estate investment may be detrimental to investment in production sectors, especially industrial production, which is at the core of economic development. Finally, wherever we went we found a large reserve of respect for Egyptian history and policy. Yet, however important this factor is, it alone will not serve us in a world where economics determine a country's relations with other countries. We were shocked by the weakness of our economic relations with the five countries we visited, although we encountered many who expressed the desire to develop stronger economic relations. If we are to make progress in this regard, we must address the problem of Egyptian exports, which will make up the primary asset in international relations in the coming century. A year ago, I mentioned that enhancing our export trade must head the agenda of our national concerns. Yet since then, the volume of our export trade has not only failed to increase, it has declined. Again, developing our exports and marketing is the key to our foreign relations in the future, not only with Asia, but the entire world. * The writer is Chairman of the Board of Al-Ahram Organization and Editor-in-Chief of Al-Ahram.
