While some hope for a thaw in relations between Washington and Islamabad in the wake of the emergence of a new prime minister of Pakistan, the more likely scenario is a deepening of the relationship between the Muslim nation and Communist China. 

Shehbaz Sharif was voted prime minister today by the Pakistani parliament after an earlier no-confidence motion deposed his predecessor, Imran Khan. A former cricket star, Mr. Khan recently sharpened his criticism of America, culminating in his assertion that Washington orchestrated his removal from power.

It would have been an understandable instinct, despite the lack of evidence for it. For Mr. Khan leaves behind a country suffering from up to 13 percent inflation, a burgeoning foreign debt, and a tradition of political instability often instigated by the military establishment. 

Last week Mr. Sharif said that good relations with America are “critical for Pakistan, for better or for worse.” The question among the chancellors of the region, though, is whether he can repair the ties Mr. Khan worked so hard to wreck — in the belief that bashing America is politically popular in Pakistan. 

Mr. Sharif heads the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz party, named after his older brother, Nawaz Sharif, who preceded Mr. Khan as prime minister. The younger Mr. Sharif lacks his brother’s charisma, but is widely seen as a highly capable administrator.

As governor of Punjab, Pakistan’s largest and most influential province, Mr. Sharif invested heavily in infrastructure — mostly relying on investments from Communist China. Now, debt to Beijing will weigh on Islamabad’s decisions on future relations with neighbors and world powers. 

“Pakistan is controlled by three things: the army, Allah, and America,” says the executive director of India’s Hindustan Times, Shishir Gupta. Now, he adds, China must be added to that equation.

Recently Beijing agreed in principle to grant Pakistan a debt rollover of $2.5 billion. Yet, as in the rest of China’s Belt and Road program, sooner or later the piper will come calling for payment. Pakistan’s external debt, mostly to Communist China, has ballooned to 104 percent of GDP in 2021 from 85 percent in 2019.

Pakistan, says Mr. Gupta, “can’t pay its debts,” and that will be a major factor in its politics. Mr. Khan will now demand a quick new election. “He thinks he’s very popular, but I don’t think so,” Mr. Gupta says, citing the deteriorating economy. Mr. Sharif, then, will likely delay the election, hoping to shore up the economy in the meantime. 

In a tweet, Prime Minister Modi today congratulated Mr. Sharif on assuming office. As Mr. Khan increasingly turned against America, he also started accusing Mr. Sharif of maintaining secret ties with Pakistan’s adversary in Delhi — likely referring to the ground-breaking meeting in 2015 between Mr. Modi and Nawaz Sharif. 

Now, according to Mr. Gupta, a renewed rapprochement depends on Pakistan. “Let them prove their credibility first,” the editor says. The same, he says, could be said about repairing relations between Islamabad and Washington: Pakistan must make the first move. 

Ties with America deteriorated after the 2011 operation that killed Osama bin Laden, who, many were shocked to discover, had been living in a city full of military personnel inside Pakistan. Things cooled further after President Biden removed all forces from Afghanistan.

It would not be much of an exaggeration to suggest that Washington all but lost interest in the region, the editor of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’s Long War Journal, Bill Roggio, says. Mr. Sharif, he adds, will have little say on relations with America.

“Pakistan’s foreign policy is dictated by the military,” Mr. Roggio says. “Imran Khan was a darling of the military until they threw him out.”

Before his ousting, Mr. Khan even attempted to fire the army chief, General Qamar Bajwa. Fights between elected officials and the deep state — the Army and intelligence services — have long been a staple of Pakistan’s politics. For decades the military has allowed no prime minister to serve a full term in office. 

Yet, as the prime minister is nominally charged with managing the economy, Pakistan’s debt is bound to emerge as a major issue in foreign policy: Islamabad will need to invest more in relations with Beijing than in repairing ties with Washington or Delhi. 

Unlike America, Communist China is unlikely to hector Islamabad about ties to extremists. The Pakistanis “ride the tiger” of terrorism, backing the Taliban in Afghanistan and other Islamist terrorists, Mr. Roggio says. As for the Communist Chinese, “as long as it’s not directed at them, they won’t care about terrorism,” he adds.  

India and America, along with Japan and Australia, are consolidating the “quad” in an attempt to weaken Beijing’s influence in Asia and beyond. Yet with Communist China’s boot on Pakistan’s neck, it will be difficult for the new prime minister — or for the deep state — to repair the fraught ties with Washington or New Delhi.