It lacks any importance outside of its immediate region, thus making interest in its affairs and what it has to say about developments elsewhere in the world niche, so it would be better for Pakistan to focus on targeted soft power efforts than invest enormous sums of money in English-language media.
By Andrew Korybko
The New York Times published a report in late March about how “Pakistan Dials Up Its Information War”, with the subtitle being that “New, friendly media operations and expanded state-run television are pushing Pakistan’s message while independent news outlets face repression.” The gist is that its de facto military dictatorship ramped up public funding for English-language media after last spring’s Indo-Pak clashes, but self-censorship is still a major issue, and it’s unclear how effective or viable these media are.
Pakistan will always face significant challenges in the soft power sphere, however, because it presently lacks any importance outside of its immediate region. The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, which is the flagship of China’s Belt & Road Initiative, has underperformed and disappointed honest enthusiasts. That in turn deprived Pakistan of the economic importance that it otherwise could have had in the world, not to mention West and Central Asia to where CPEC+ branch corridors could have expanded.
This resulted in expats, diplomats, experts, and its four neighboring countries being the only ones interested in what’s going on in Pakistan and what it has to say about developments elsewhere in the world. Even though it’s the only nuclear-armed Muslim country and the first modern state created on the basis of Islam, Pakistan still can’t convince its co-religionists that it’s the “Voice of the Ummah”. It’s also failed to tie its version of the Kashmir Conflict to the Palestinian cause for generating global support.
Despite its best efforts, Pakistan has struggled to equate Kashmir with Palestine and India with Israel in the minds of the global public, and it also doesn’t help any that Pakistan is closer to the US than India is as proven by its status as a “Major Non-NATO Ally” and the rapid Pakistani-US rapprochement under Trump 2.0. This narrative strategy was therefore doomed to fail from the get-go since average Palestinian supporters across the world won’t support a country that’s as close to Israel’s US ally as Pakistan is.
That’s not to say that this same group supports India, which is very close with Israel, just that they don’t conflate Kashmir with Palestine like Pakistan wishes that they would in large part for that reason. With these obstacles in mind, which have yet to be surmounted and in all honesty might never will be, Pakistan’s soft power efforts would be better spent on influencing diplomats, think tank experts, academics, and journalists, all of whom are in positions to tangibly advance its interests.
This can be accomplished through traditional diplomacy, conferences/forums, and organized tours, all of which can also be directed towards Alt-Media influencers so that they’re predisposed towards Pakistan and therefore promote it on their own whenever it’s in the news. That said, having English-language foreign media is a sign of prestige so it’s very tempting for Pakistan to keeping sinking enormous amounts of money into them even if they’re unsuccessful, thus making them vanity projects in this case.
All in all, while it’s understandable why Pakistan is pouring lots of money into English-language media, they’re unlikely to be effective given its lack of importance to anyone other than its neighbors and associated niche interest in its affairs. Average folks would rather invest their time in seeing what the US, Russia, China, Turkiye, the UK, and others have to say about global developments than Pakistan. Therefore, its soft power strategy is fundamentally flawed, and a whole new approach is required.
