News of the People’s Republic of China’s $46 billion pledge of foreign direct investment in Pakistan has sparked debate among economic and security analysts around the world. The question on everybody’s minds is about how this news affects the United State’s sphere of influence in that region of the world. On the surface America seems to be encouraging this show of investment as hard diplomacy. The Obama administration hopes that an increased Chinese ground presence and the economic development that comes with it will continue to stabilize the region sandwiched between Afghanistan to the west and disputed Kashmir territory in the East. On the other hand, others are worried that this show of economic might could signal China’s desire to supplant the United States’ position as influential ally and powerbroker in the region. This is especially troubling due to the seeming distrust of anything Western in many of the North Western Tribal areas long known to be a safe haven to extremists and a source tension between the Americans and Pakistani government during the Afghanistan war.
What will be interesting to see is how this battle for influence plays out over the next decade or two, especially in the city of Lahore. Located along the path of China’s planned $46 billion economic superhighway, Lahore is Pakistan’s second most populous city, and the capital of the Pakistani Province of Punjab. Lahore is also the home of a uniquely different experiment in American style soft diplomacy. Harvard professor Joseph Nye developed the concept of soft diplomacy in 1990. Nye’s theory was that a country attracts diplomatic influence by building credibility with the citizenry through actions of good will attracting interest in their systems of values and stressing commonalities over differences. This is markedly different than traditional showings of old style stick and carrot diplomacy method of coersion. This philosophy of soft diplomacy was the inspiration behind Pakistani born American philanthropist Dr. Munr Kazmir’s dream to build the American International School System’s flagship campus in Lahore.
At the 12 acre suburban campus, Dr. Kazmir’s team built a world class educational institution completely unique in that part of the world. Currently the school has 600 students and aims to double enrollment in the next few years. The school features a technology center, a swimming pool and gathering place in the center of campus modeled to look like the General Assembly Hall at the United Nations Headquarters in New York City. What is distinctly American about AISS Lahore Campus is not just the American style curriculum, but how the institution embodies Dr. Kazmir’s vision to become a part of the fabric of the community. AISS is a place of equal opportunity for all, over two thirds of AISS’s students are on some form of financial aid with many receiving full scholarships. The school is non-elitist and promotes gender equality where boys and girls compete academically side-by-side. On weekends local children are invited to use the school’s library whether they are enrolled in AISS or not. What is truly remarkable is that the campus has the look, sound and feel of a normal American elementary school, even though it is located half way around the world. The focus is on the children, and parents are impressed.
While the effects of this soft diplomacy approach may not be as easily or immediately visible as China’s grand commitment for investment. If AISS is able to foster a value system within the next generation of Pakistani leaders holds dear the life changing benefits of a progressive, open and free society, there is no telling how far reaching the impact of the school will be. Pakistan has been at war with itself over these values for years. It is the home of the late former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, Pakistan’s first female prime minister, who was tragically assassinated in 2007. As well as the most recent Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai, who miraculously survived a violent attack by extremists seeking to punish her for the crime of daring to earn an education while female. Dr. Kazmir hopes that his school can make a long lasting impact on this inner struggle in the country of his birth. For all citizens of Pakistan to live in a truly free, modern society, there will have to be a radical change of values, and he feels that leading by example will succeed where economic aid has failed in the past.
This is why it is so important that we, the American people support experiments like AISS. In a region marred by separatist struggle and a generations long border war with India, the American values of religious tolerance, multiculturalism, the value of education and equality amongst men and women could help them usher in a new, peaceful, modern Pakistan within this current century that the average citizen most desperately wants. Because over the long term, Chinese hard economic diplomacy does nothing to further the respect for all human life, wonder and amazement about the world around us all the way a quality education can.
