Under pressure, the Democrats are cracking. On both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, there is a realization that Nancy Pelosi’s hold on the speakership is in true jeopardy; that losing control of the Senate is not out of the question; and that time, once the Democrats’ best friend, is now their mortal enemy. Since January, when Scott Brown won Ted Kennedy’s Massachusetts Senate seat, the President’s party has tried to downplay in public what its pollsters have been saying in private: that Obama’s alienation of independents and white voters, along with the enthusiasm gap between the right and the left, means that Republicans are on a trajectory to pick up massive numbers of House and Senate seats, perhaps even to regain control of Congress.

Evidence of the pervasiveness of this view: Sunday’s New York Times op-ed page, which featured a series of short essays from leading Democratic and Republican strategists about how Obama could go about staging a political comeback, focused not on November’s midterms but on 2012 - an indication that Washington conventional wisdom has already written off prospects of Democrats sustaining a majority in the legislature. (See 10 health care reform ads.)

What has kept the easily panicked denizens of Capitol Hill from open revolt until now was a shared confidence that there was still plenty of time to turn things around, and that the White House had a strategy to do just that. (Comment on this story.)

The two-part scheme was pretty straightforward. First, Democrats planned a number of steps to head off, or at least soften, the anti-Washington, anti-incumbent, anti-Obama sentiment that cost them the Massachusetts seat. Pass health care, and other measures to demonstrate that Democrats could get things done for the middle class; continue to foster those fabled green shoots on the economy, harvesting the positive impact of the massive economic stimulus bill passed early in the Administration; heighten the contrast between the two parties by delivering on Wall Street reform and a campaign-funding law to counteract January’s controversial Supreme Court decision. Use all of those elements to contrast the Democrats’ policies under Obama with the Republicans’ policies under Bush, rather than allow the midterms to be a referendum on the incumbent party. (See portraits of the Tea Party movement.)

The second strand of the Democrats’ plan was more prosaic and mechanical. Recruit strong candidates for open seats. Leverage the White House and congressional majorities to raise more money than the other side. Make mischief by playing up the divisions between the Tea Party and the more traditional elements of the Republican Party, in part to increase the chances that more extreme, less electable candidates edge out moderates in GOP primary battles. Do extensive opposition research and targeted messaging in the fall to delegitimize Republican candidates in the minds of centrist voters. Coordinate below the radar with labor unions, environmentalists and other allies on get-out-the-vote efforts, focusing on young, nonwhite and first-time voters who came out for Obama in 2008.

Robert Gibbs’ now-famous acknowledgement on Meet the Press on July 11 that Republicans were in a position to win back control of the House sparked a notable outbreak of hostility between the White House and congressional Democrats for two reasons. First, it forced Pelosi & Co. to recognize that the first part of their plan is failing. Public and private polling suggests that anxiety over the lack of jobs and anger over the big-spending ways of the Administration will trump the merits of the stimulus spending, health care reform and the financial regulation bill in voters’ minds. Neither the economy nor voters’ perceptions are likely to be turned around by Election Day. Congressional Democrats were aware of this hard reality before Gibbs opened his mouth, but having him say it out loud was apparently too much for those on the Hill to bear. (See pictures of Sarah Palin campaigning at a Tea Party rally.)

Democrats also fear that Gibbs’ admission will impact the flow of donations from corporate interests and lobbyists, who tend to want to bet on the party more likely to win the majority. Open musing about a speaker John Boehner, House Democrats believe, will drive mercenary donors to shift their support to the GOP. The huge fundraising hauls by GOP Senate candidates just reported for the second quarter of the year were not, of course, the result of Gibbs’ statement, but the momentum suggested by those figures could be hypercharged by White House pessimism.

To be sure, the White House plans to continue to try to impact the national environment by touting its accomplishments, blaming Republicans for stopping other measures, and railing against the Bush legacy. They will also continue to work aggressively on the mechanics of victory, hoping to save their incumbents with their customized, race-by-race tactics. Vice President Joe Biden on ABC News’ This Week crowed about Senate majority leader Harry Reid’s back-from-the-dead strength in his Nevada race, credited largely to Reid’s shaky Republican opponent, who landed her nomination in part because of Democratic shenanigans. Democrats hope to replicate that micro-success to save other seats. (See TIME’s political covers.)

After days of public intraparty acrimony, a cold peace has been restored, with Democrats all around saying they share the same goals and strategy for November. But if the party’s poll numbers stay bad and it loses big, expect a fundamental difference between the White House and congressional Democrats to emerge in sharp relief after Nov. 2.

Even if the midterms end the Democrats’ one-party rule, the President may well believe that his accomplishments during his first two years in office were worth it. But it’s a sure bet that the vanquished House Democrats who lose their jobs and their gavels won’t share that assessment.

Thirty years old and new to politics, she has in short order become director of the Northern Colorado Tea Party and state coordinator of the national Tea Party Patriots, leading some of the had-it-up-to-here conservatives who have flipped the Senate race in this swing state upside down.

Now the Tea Party-favored candidate in the Aug. 10 Republican primary, Weld County District Attorney Ken Buck, has gone from long shot to front-runner in his race against former lieutenant governor Jane Norton, who is backed by the Republican establishment.

On the Democratic side, Sen. Michael Bennet, appointed 18 months ago, faces his own primary drama. Bennet, endorsed by President Obama, is being challenged by former state House speaker Andrew Romanoff, endorsed by former president Bill Clinton. Their rivalry reflects unease among Democrats.

So in a state many hailed in 2008 as the nation’s new bellwether, the Senate race has become a primer of the politics of 2010: A Republican Party driven by Tea Party activism, for one, and a Democratic Party trying to rally its base despite concern about the lagging economy and disappointment over the pace of change since Obama’s election.

Buck’s rise is particularly notable in a state like Colorado, not the most natural Tea Party territory. In 2008, Obama easily carried the Rocky Mountain State, which has a Democratic governor and two Democratic senators.

Even so, dismissed as a serious candidate at the beginning of the year, Buck now leads Bennet and Romanoff in an automated. Rasmussen poll taken July 8. The survey of 500 likely voters has a margin of error of +/–4.5 percentage points.

Findings like that fuel Republicans’ hopes that they could win control of the Senate this fall. To do that, the GOP needs a net gain of 10. seats, including pick-ups in swing and Democratic-leaning states such as Delaware, Illinois and Pennsylvania.

And in Colorado, where the race is rated a toss-up by the non-partisan Cook Political Report .

“It’s a very topsy-turvy year,” Romanoff says.

In most campaigns, a political résumé has been a plus. This time, it looms as a toxic asset among the most energized voters — conservatives outraged by the growing power and cost of government.

“She has more establishment ties,” Hollywood says disapprovingly of Norton as the Tea Party organizer surveys the Boulder County Republican Summer Social. Buck wins applause when he addresses the crowd, but Norton cancels at the last minute and the young aide who fills in for her is heckled.

“Look at her ties to John McCain and her ties to Bill Owens,” Hollywood says disapprovingly, referring to the Republicans’ 2008 presidential nominee and Colorado’s most recent GOP governor.

Among voters aligned with the Tea Party movement, she says, “They look at those and say, ‘Those people were part of the problem.’”

Getting ready for November

Norton has been moving to the right, at least in her rhetoric, while Buck seems to be sliding to the center.

In an interview, Buck sidesteps some of the furors that have trailed other Tea Party-backed Senate contenders, including Rand Paul in Kentucky and Sharron Angle in Nevada. Both won GOP primaries only to become enmeshed in controversies over whether their views were out of the mainstream.

Before the Boulder picnic begins, Buck outlines positions he calls more “nuanced” than those attributed to him in the past, when he said his views had been “distilled” and shorthanded by reporters.

He embraces Social Security as an important commitment to seniors, though he once questioned whether the government should be administering the program. He says he doesn’t want to eliminate the Department of Education, though he would like to convert its programs into block grants that preserve more local and state control.He says there is “no question in my mind” that Obama was born in the United States — an explosive issue among some Tea Partiers — but also says he “wouldn’t have a problem” with legislation requiring presidential candidates to produce a birth certificate.

Then there’s immigration, an issue that has helped energize his support. As a prosecutor, he authorized a raid on a tax preparer who had been sanctioned for helping illegal immigrants prepare returns. Nearly 5,000 files were seized in an effort to locate stolen Social Security numbers.

A district court called the raid “inappropriate.”

Buck supports Arizona’s tough new immigration law but says the limited resources of law enforcement should be directed at securing the border and arresting illegal immigrants who have committed crimes. It’s unrealistic to try to deport all illegal immigrants, he says in the interview. Once the border has been secured, he doesn’t rule out considering a path to legal status for those who are here illegally.

A half-hour later, however, his tone is sharper, his voice louder and his emphasis different when he stands on a makeshift stage to address the crowd. At 6-foot-3. and with close-cropped silver hair, he is an imposing, plain-spoken presence. As a young lawyer, he was hired by then-congressman Dick Cheney to work on the Iran-contra investigation.

“People are sick and tired of the answer coming out of Washington, D.C., always being more government,” Buck shouts into the hand-held microphone. The problem isn’t just Democrats, he says: “We send Republicans to Washington, D.C., to change Congress and those Republicans are changed by Washington, D.C. It is time that Republicans start acting like Republicans again.”

He defends the Arizona law as an effort to complement federal efforts to protect U.S. citizens and ridicules the Justice Department’s lawsuit challenging it. “The federal government isn’t suing the cities that have declared themselves a sanctuary (for illegal immigrants) and have thumbed their nose at federal law,” he says. “Does that make sense to any in this room?” The crowd boos in agreement.

For Buck, 51, walking a line between energizing conservative supporters in the primary and appealing to more moderate voters in the fall can be complicated. That was apparent when former Colorado congressman Tom Tancredo. addressed a rally for Buck in Denver the other day.

Tancredo catalogued perils the U.S. has faced, from the Civil War to al-Qaeda, then declared that “the greatest threat to the country that was put together by the Founding Fathers is the guy that is in the White House today.”

Buck didn’t applaud the line on stage, and he distanced himself from it as soon as the rally was over. “I love Tom; don’t always agree with him,” he told reporters. “I don’t think the man in the White House is the greatest threat to this country at all.” In a conference call later, he said he respected Obama.

Then Norton, 55, weighed in. “There was a real measure of truth in what Tancredo said,” she wrote on her Facebook page, saying “Obama’s brand of big government is a threat to America.”

Two days later, at the Conservative Western Summit, Buck said there was “a lot of truth in what Tom Tancredo said,” though he added that “the greatest threat, folks, is not a single man, but rather the progressive liberal movement that is going on in this country.”

Starting at the top

The least experienced candidate in this race is the Democratic incumbent.

Bennet, 45, had never run for office when Gov. Bill Ritter appointed him to fill the Senate seat vacated by Ken Salazar, who became Obama’s Interior secretary. Bennet was born in New Delhi, where his father worked for the U.S. ambassador. He grew up in Washington, D.C.

After graduating from Yale Law School, Bennet worked in the Clinton Justice Department, then became managing director for the Anschutz Investment Company. in Denver. He served as chief of staff to Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, who then appointed him as the city’s school superintendent.

“He’s not someone those of us on this side of the Continental Divide had heard of,” says Bruce Christensen, mayor of Glenwood Springs, in western Colorado. He and about 30 other local residents are waiting in Anita Sherman’s back yard for a chance to chat with the senator at a $25-a-head fundraiser. Bennet arrives with wife Susan Daggett and their three young daughters, casually dressed for a hot afternoon.

The senator, conciliatory and low-key, apologizes for his limits as a novice campaigner, makes his political pitch and then fields friendly questions for an hour.

Afterward, sitting on Sherman’s front deck as his daughters get drenched playing on an inflatable water slide in the yard, Bennet says the primary challenge was unwelcome — the White House talked to Romanoff about accepting a job in the administration instead — but in some ways has been helpful.

The campaign has been forced to spend money and launch TV ads “earlier than we intended and probably would have wanted,” he says. “But on the other hand it’s made us sharpen our game. …We’re better than we were as a campaign. I hope I’m getting better as a candidate. I think I am.”

Bennet discounts policy differences between him and Romanoff and says he’s confident Democrats will unite in November.

At a $50-a-head fundraiser that night, however, Romanoff ticks off his differences with Bennet on policy, from health care to climate change, and hammers at the campaign contributions Bennet has taken from corporate interests, including in the banking and oil industries. “We need a senator for the rest of us,” Romanoff tells about 100 supporters sipping wine in the Space Gallery, an art gallery in Denver’s funky Santa Fe neighborhood.

Romanoff, 43, trounced Bennet at the state’s Democratic caucuses in March but has been far outspent by him since then. The senator’s 6-point. lead in one statewide poll in March had widened to 17 points in a Denver Post poll last month.

Bennet acknowledges he has had to build a political organization from scratch — and at a time some Democrats are disenchanted and Republicans energized. The percentage of Colorado voters registered as Democrats has been almost static since the 2008 election while the percentage of Republicans has gone up a bit.

Steve Bieringer, 63, a former field representative for the AFL-CIO attending the Space Gallery fundraiser, says Romanoff “has a very, very strong base among Democrats who are unhappy with the direction of the Democratic Party,” including what he sees as a growing orientation toward business. If Bennet wins the nomination, Bieringer says, “I’m going to think long and hard” about what to do.

He might write in a name or just not cast a vote, he says: “I’d be sending a message that the Democrats are off track.”

What message are Colorado voters trying to send? In separate interviews, the four Senate candidates use strikingly similar language to answer.

“We are so sick of the establishment,” Buck says of himself and his Tea Party backers.

“Angry, frustrated,” Romanoff says in describing the electorate. “They’re not just skeptical but cynical and hopeless.”

Norton, talking over coffee in a Denver hotel, calls voters “nervous, frightened, angry.” She adds: “They feel like their country is slipping away.”

When he addresses audiences, Bennet says, he hears concerns about the economy, the growing federal debt and the nation’s future whether the crowd is made up of liberal Democrats or conservative Republicans.

“Once you get past the first salvo of unhappiness and anger,” he says, “the content of the conversation isn’t really any different.”

U.S. lawmakers are increasingly questioning the course of the war. The number of soldiers from the U.S. and other countries in the international coalition in Afghanistan is on the rise. Corruption is a deep problem in Afghanistan, and members of Congress wonder about the utility of massive aid to both Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Clinton will attend an international conference in Kabul on Tuesday where the Afghan government is expected to outline plans to improve security, reintegrate militants into society and crack down on corruption. She also plans to stop in Pakistan to push greater cooperation between Islamabad and Kabul.

Clinton, who left Washington on Saturday, will meet up in the week ahead with Defense Secretary Robert Gates in South Korea, where tensions with the communist North have risen after the sinking of a South Korean warship that was blamed on the North.

She will finish her trip in Vietnam for discussions with regional leaders. Among the topics will be the upcoming elections in Myanmar.

At the Kabul conference, she will renew Washington’s commitment to support Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s government, but press him to follow through on reform pledges he made earlier this year.

Richard Holbrooke, President Obama’s special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, has said the conference “will be a very important international demonstration of support” for Karzai and his administration.

But Holbrooke acknowledges concerns that the war and the reconstruction effort are not going as hoped or planned.

He told Congress this past week that “there are significant elements of movement forward in many areas, but I do not yet see a definitive turning point in either direction.”

Last month was the deadliest of the war for international forces: 103 coalition troops were killed, despite the infusion of tens of thousands of new U.S. troops. So far in July, 54 international troops have died, 39 of them American. An American service member was killed by a blast in eastern Afghanistan on Saturday, and an American died in a blast in the south on Friday.

International troops working with Afghan forces say they have killed or captured dozens of senior insurgent figures since April as they aggressively step up operations against the Taliban leadership. But those successes haven’t slowed the pace of militant attacks, which continue daily, killing dozens of people each month.

The administration has said it will review its Afghan strategy at year’s end. The slow progress against the Taliban and the disruptive effects of the firing of the outspoken American commander there last month, have led to a growing unease among many in Congress, including leading members of Obama’s own party.

Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said it’s not clear that the administration has a solid strategy for prevailing. The committee’s top Republican, Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, decried “a lack of clarity” about U.S. war goals.

Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., who leads the Senate Armed Services Committee, has said that while there remains “solid support” for the war among Democrats, “there’s also the beginnings of fraying of that support.”

In the House, Rep. Nita Lowey, D-N.Y., has put a hold on nearly $4 billion in assistance to Afghanistan, asking that allegations of corruption be addressed and demanding that the Afghan government be held accountable.

Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama and Senate Democrats have settled on an agenda for the final weeks before Congress’ summer recess that could force Republicans to take tough votes on populist issues like unemployment insurance and a small business loan program.

It comes with Democrats clawing for advantage amid a nasty political climate and in the face of continued high unemployment heading into crucial November midterms.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Obama and Senate Democratic leaders agreed at a meeting Tuesday to try to hold votes in the next couple weeks on a financial regulation overhaul bill, extending unemployment insurance and a measure providing for increased lending to small businesses. The Senate breaks for recess Aug. 6 for a month of campaigning.

Gibbs said senators will have to decide whether they’re for new rules for Wall Street, whether they’re for helping the unemployed and whether there should be increased lending for small businesses.

“I think the message is going to be fairly clear,” Gibbs said.

“Those are votes that will be important and a conversation that will be important as we move into the fall,” he said.

The approach is consistent with the White House’s strategy of trying to tie Republicans to the problems that caused the economic crisis, and arguing that Obama and Democrats are the ones fixing it.

Legislation enacting a sweeping overhaul of financial regulations is expected to come up for a final vote on Thursday in the Senate, having already passed the House. Gibbs said he expected the Senate to take up extending unemployment benefits next week and that he expected it to pass, even though the extension has been stuck in the Senate for weeks.

Democrats also hope to confirm Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court before the August recess and bring energy legislation to the floor. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Tuesday he hoped an energy bill would be introduced in the final week of July.

How does a political protest movement that encompasses some 30 percent of Americans sit on the national stage? Not always so comfortably, it turns out.

U.S. Senate candidate Sharron Angle of Nevada, a tea party favorite who is running to unseat Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid, has been trying to pull off this awkward balancing act since she won the GOP primary last month. In her latest entry in national political debate, liberal political websites including the Huffington Post have picked up on a radio interview Angle gave last week detailing her opposition to abortion in cases involving incestuous rape. The hypothetical example that KXNT-AM host Alan Stock presented to Angle was a 13-year-old girl impregnated by her father. Angle replied:

“My own personal feelings — and that is always what I express — my personal feeling is that we need to err on the side of life. There is a plan and a purpose and a value to every life no matter what its location, age, gender or disability. … I think that two wrongs don’t make a right. And I have been in the situation of counseling young girls, not 13 but 15, who have had very at-risk, difficult pregnancies. And my counsel was to look for some alternatives, which they did. And they found that they had made what was really a lemon situation into lemonade.”

Angle’s comments reflect an institutional dilemma for candidates like herself and fellow tea party favorite Rand Paul, the Republican nominee in Kentucky’s open Senate race. Both candidates are mounting major statewide campaigns in nationalized races without the full benefit of their own national party’s support.

[Video: Rand Paul’s controversial civil rights remarks]

After suffering some unwelcome scrutiny for his libertarian critique of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, Paul has tried to reassure GOP establishment figures that he’s ready for prime time by edging toward the mainstream.

[Tea Party America: A special report on Yahoo! News]

But Angle has so far tried a different, split-screen approach to her campaign, continuing to pitch campaign appeals to her conservative base while avoiding the national mainstream press. As a result, her campaign has suffered a series of difficulties that may serve as cautionary tales for future tea party candidates. Here’s a review:

• Angle is threatening to sue Democratic opponent Harry Reid for reposting the website she used for her primary campaign, which displays stances Democrats have labeled extreme. As Washington Post blogger Greg Sargent has noted, the move creates the odd effect of prolonging public attention to the political views that Angle is apparently hoping to prevent the Reid campaign from publicizing. If Angle makes good on her legal threats, Sargent writes, “it could end up drawing even more media attention to her original website than it otherwise might have received. It’s a curious strategy.”

[Photos: Who is Sharron Angle?]

• In a KXNT radio interview this week, Angle labeled BP’s $20 billion compensation program “a slush fund” and said Democrats were using the Gulf oil disaster to help jump-start cap-and-trade energy reform efforts, the Associated Press reports. Many observers blasted Angle for the remarks — including President Obama, who used Angle’s words to label her as “extreme.” Angle backtracked on the “slush fund” characterization, terming it “incorrect” in a statement on her website Thursday.

• In two separate interviews Wednesday on conservative radio, Angle said Reid’s campaign attacks were attempts to “hit the girl,” Politico reported. It quoted her as saying on Stock’s show: “It is also the corruption in Washington, D.C., that is characterized by Harry Reid — let’s-make-a-deal cronyism, politics as usual — and so we’re saying: ‘Dirty Tricks’ Harry is up to his dirty tricks one more time, and he’s just trying to hit the girl.”

• Angle gave an interview July 2 to conservative blog Hot Air in which she went on the defensive, clarifying that she is not aligned with the so-called birther movement, which questions the legitimacy of Obama’s U.S. citizenship. “In the past few days,” blogger Ed Morrissey wrote, “rumors have swirled that Angle is a crypto-birther. I asked her ‘flat out’ whether she believed Barack Obama was born somewhere other than Hawaii, and she replied, ‘No. Is that flat-out enough for you?’”

• This is all to say nothing of Angle’s past policy positions, some of which were featured on the web page that the Reid campaign resurrected. Democrats can be expected to exploit several of Angle’s stands as too extreme for mainstream or independent voters in the November ballot. Among them are her support for phasing out Social Security and Medicare; for repealing the 16th Amendment to the Constitution, which established the federal income tax; and for abolishing the federal Department of Education.

Correction: An earlier version of this post mischaracterized a June 29 TV appearance by Angle. She did not repeat her suggestion from earlier this year that Second Amendment supporters needed to “take Harry Reid out.” Rather, as the Associated Press reported, she used the June 29 appearance to clarify: “I meant take him out of office. … I changed my rhetoric.” We regret the error.

Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari is on a week-long trip to China where he is strengthening military ties between the two countries. His trip follows that of Pakistani Chief of Staff Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, who was in Beijing a week ago with the mission of strengthening counterterrorism cooperation. In an e-mail interview, Harsh V. Pant, lecturer in the Department of Defense Studies at King’s College of London, explains the context for China-Pakistan military relations.

WPR: Historically, what have been the driving priorities in China-Pakistan defense ties?

Harsh V. Pant: Based on their convergent interests vis-à-vis India, China and Pakistan reached a strategic understanding in the mid-1950s, a bond that has strengthened ever since. Sino-Pakistan ties gained particular momentum in the aftermath of the 1962 Sino-Indian war, when the two states signed a boundary agreement recognizing Chinese control over portions of the disputed Kashmir territory.

Over the years, China has emerged as Pakistan’s largest defense supplier, and has also provided extensive economic and technical assistance. Military cooperation includes joint production of armaments ranging from fighter jets to guided missile frigates, as well as Chinese assistance in establishing weapons factories. China has also played a major role in the development of Pakistan’s nuclear infrastructure, and emerged as Pakistan’s benefactor at a time when increasingly stringent export controls in the West made it difficult for Pakistan to acquire materials and technology elsewhere. Despite being a member of the NPT, China has supplied Pakistan with nuclear materials and expertise, and has provided critical assistance in the construction of Pakistan’s nuclear facilities. It is perhaps the only case where a nuclear weapons state has actually passed on weapons-grade fissile material as well as a bomb design to a non-nuclear weapons state.

WPR: How has that changed over the past few years?

Pant: The perception that India is now an emerging global power has further underlined the need for Beijing and Islamabad to cultivate their relationship. China is also concerned about deepening Indo-U.S. relations and India’s attempts to cultivate ties with states in China’s periphery. The resulting importance placed on the Sino-Pakistani relationship has been evident in Chinese polices toward South Asia.

As tensions rose between India and Pakistan in the aftermath of the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, China and Pakistan signed a new agreement on military cooperation, with Beijing agreeing to expedite the delivery of F-22 frigates to Pakistan’s navy. Beijing has justified its arms sales to Pakistan on the grounds that India was buying similar weapons systems from the U.S.

Chinese authorities have recently confirmed an agreement with Pakistan for two new nuclear reactors at the Chashma site — in clear violation of the Nuclear Suppliers Group guidelines that forbid nuclear transfers to countries that are not signatories to the NPT or otherwise subject to comprehensive international safeguards. China has justified the exports by citing “compelling political reasons” concerning the stability of South Asia, echoing Pakistan’s oft-repeated complaint that the U.S.-India nuclear pact has upset the regional balance.

WPR: How do defense concerns impact the broader bilateral relationship?

Pant: The two states have used defense complementarity to broaden their bilateral relationship on various fronts. A bilateral free trade agreement accounts for around 11 percent of Pakistan’s imports. Meanwhile, China’s “no-strings attached” economic aid to Pakistan is more appreciated than the substantially larger amount received from the U.S., which often comes with conditions attached. China’s economic cooperation with Pakistan is growing, with substantial Chinese investment in Pakistani infrastructural expansion, including the Pakistani deep-water port in Gwadar.