Following Pakistani tradition, President Asif Ali Zardari made his first state visit to China from 14-17 October. In late September, Pakistan's army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Kayani too had made his first official visit abroad to China.

What exactly have these visits delivered for Pakistan? Alongside the usual rhetoric, China reaffirmed its commitment to advance strategic partnership with Pakistan, promised to help its cash-strapped neighbour ward off financial disaster, and signed about a dozen bilateral agreements during the Zardari visit, covering several trade, space technology and energy among others. While an agreement was apparently reached on China giving Pakistan new civilian nuclear reactors, such a deal is highly unlikely to pass muster at the NSG. With a rising global profile and concomitant responsibilities and expectations to be fulfilled, there are clearly limits to what China will or can do to befriend a Pakistan that is increasingly unable to deal with domestic instability and is under rising international pressure to act against terrorism.

"A strong China means a strong Pakistan," declared Zardari during his visit, but the reverse is probably truer. Right now, however, Pakistan is far from being strong, and its domestic chaos is particularly anathema for China. What then does the future of Sino-Pak relations hold? Zardari's sought to give Sino-Pakistan economic relations a fillip by saying that he was "the first businessman president of Pakistan" but this is perhaps double entendre at its best given his soubriquet back home of being "Mr. Ten Percent."

At any rate, for China, it is not trade with Pakistan that is the most important consideration as it is the latter's geostrategic location. In this context, China has concerns that the instability in Pakistan can threaten its plans of building up Gwadar port as an access point for West Asian crude and an alternative outlet for goods and commodities from the Chinese mainland. Gwadar's location in the troubled province of Balochistan apart, Islamic radicalism spreading to the heart of Pakistan can also put paid to any plans for linking up Gwadar with the Karakoram Highway, itself a vital and strategic lifeline between China and Pakistan.

Beijing realizes, no doubt, that its traditional goals with respect to Pakistan cannot be achieved if the latter continues to be unstable. Not only will the US be increasingly involved in the region and by extension in Central Asia, but the continuing ethnic and religious disaffection in its Xinjiang province, mean that China must pay close attention to the growth and spread of religious radicalism elsewhere in the region. Beijing must worry about the possibility eventually, of Islamic militancy being funnelled northwards from Pakistan or Afghanistan towards China.

During his visit, Zardari stated that Pakistan and China would cooperate closely on anti-terrorism. Such cooperation already exists to the extent that Pakistan has assiduously tried to apprehend radical Uyghur elements from Xinjiang who have fomented trouble back home using Pakistan as a base. While there is no popular anti-China sentiment in Pakistan as there are anti-American feelings, China has nevertheless, in recent times, paid close attention to terrorist incidents in Pakistan, including the Marriott Hotel bombing that came on the eve of Gen. Kayani's visit.

A major irritant in the bilateral relationship has, in fact, been Islamabad's inability to ensure the safety of Chinese citizens in Pakistan - there are about three times as many Chinese working in the country as there are Americans - and they have frequently been the victims of kidnappings and killings. In early September this year, for instance, two engineers working with a Chinese telecommunication company were abducted in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province (NWFP).

Remember too, that one of the triggers for the Pakistan army's siege of Islamabad's Lal Masjid in July 2007 was the kidnapping by militants and madrassa students in June, of Chinese nationals running a massage parlour in the city. During the siege, itself militants in NWFP retaliated by killing three Chinese nationals near Peshawar. Throughout the crisis, China is believed to have kept up the pressure on the Musharraf regime to take strong action against the "terrorists."

Meanwhile, it is interesting to note that China has made very little comment about US presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama's views for a more proactive American approach on Pakistan, including cross-border attacks, if necessary. Perhaps, Beijing understands that there is no other way around the Pakistani state's inability (or unwillingness) to tackle Islamic militancy? Alternatively, an Obama administration could also be just the spur for China to pre-empt such possibilities by using its influence with Pakistan's military to force the latter to pay more attention to the war on terror.

Whatever the path China adopts, it seems evident that it will have to walk a fine line between persuading the current Pakistani establishment to take the necessary action and pushing it into a corner. It certainly would not like to go the way of the US which despite being a powerful ally of Pakistan for decades, is now hated so much on the Pakistani street. Whoever said being an "all-weather" friend was easy?