Donald Blome, the US Ambassador in Islamabad, has demanded that all investments in Pakistan, whether American or Chinese, should be transparent and subjected to the same scrutiny.
The call comes only three days after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken urged Pakistan to seek debt relief from China.
Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, who met Blinken in Washington DC earlier this week, told Foreign Policy magazine’s Ravi Agarwal that Pakistan would rather be a bridge between China and the United States than “being a geopolitical football”.
However, Ambassador Blome in an interview with Pakistani daily The News said that while Washington never asked Pakistan to join a bloc or to choose a single economic partner it was important that “international trade and investment should be based on international standard of transparency.”
Blome was responding to a question about Pakistan’s need to diversify its economic relations with prosperous countries of the region, including China.
The ambassador admitted that Pakistan’s economic relations with other countries were a question for Islamabad to decide and “not necessarily our issue.” However, he was quick to add that the United States had seen the “problems” that had risen “in the region and the world where sustainability and debts have become an issue for many countries.”
Blome said that the US was concerned not only about Pakistan but also other countries where China had invested.
“The issue really is that what kind of investment is being made in Pakistan. Is it being made in fair and equal basis? I think all investments being made here should be subjeccted to same scrutiny, whether it is American, Chinses or any other investment in Pakistan.”
In the wide-ranging interview, Ambassador Blome also discussed Imran Khan’s allegation that the United States was behind a regime change conspiracy in Pakistan.
He said there was absolutely no truth in the allegations and the United States wanted to get past this episode to work together with Pakistan.
In response to a question, Blome said that the United States never discussed the use of Pakistani air bases after its withdrawal from Afghanistan. “I can tell you that there were no discussion about air bases, one way or another.”
