Don’t put all eggs in one basket

There is no gainsaying the fact that of all the countries, particularly among our neighbours, China is the only country which can be trusted upon as it has always stood by us in our difficult times. It is an open secret that in 1965 Indo-Pak war the then Chinese premier Chou-en-Lai had, as a goodwill gesture, placed at our disposal, the use of the Chinese air force planes in case of need. PIA was the only carrier among the world airlines which used to be given preferential treatment by the Chinese and when the Americans wanted to mend fences with Beijing they used Pakistan as a go-between in their parleys with the Chinese leadership.
Beijing’s open support to Pakistan on the Kashmir dispute has been a matter of extreme satisfaction for us. The massive investment of Beijing in the economic corridor speaks volumes for the sound economic ties between us and the Chinese. All this is fair enough but we should not put all eggs in one basket. We should go the whole hog in improving our ties with Moscow also, another big neighbor of ours, with whom our relationship is not as good as it should have been. It is a pity that successive governments in this country have ignored Moscow in their quest to appease Washington with the result that Russia still looks upon our leadership with distrust and suspicion. Development of bilateral ties with other countries is extremely essential because in international relations ground realities do change with the passage of time and the possibility that our friendly countries might change their loyalties tomorrow cannot be ruled out altogether.
POSTSCRIPT: We do frequently come across such cases of negligence of surgeons in which they leave scissors in the stomach of the patients during the course of surgery. One such incident occurred the other day in Larkana where a surgeon while carrying out kidney operation of a seventy year old woman left scissor in her stomach which was detected in an x-ray when she complained of pain after a couple of days of operation. The medical degree of the accused doctor be cancelled forthwith.