Whatever the Chinese equivalent is of Kool-Aid, Yusuf Raza Gilani, Pakistan’s prime minister, appears to have been drinking it. During his recent state visit to Beijing, from where he returned with a promise of 50 fighter jets, he lavished praise on China. “We are like one nation and two countries,” he said, comparing Pakistan’s “Islamic socialism” to the thoughts of Mao Zedong. China, he enthused, “was the only voice of reason in international affairs”.

Pakistan likes to call China an “all-weather friend”. The implication is clear: the US is a fair-weather one. Many Pakistanis have never forgiven the US for abandoning it after the Soviet Union left Afghanistan in 1989. China, by contrast, has remained a constant supplier of arms, even when the US imposed sanctions in the 1990s as punishment for Islamabad’s nuclear programme.

Only in 2001, after al-Qaeda jihadists brought down the Twin Towers, did Washington seek Islamabad’s co-operation once more. Assurances were made that, this time, the US was in it for the long haul. But it is a commonplace belief in Islamabad that, sooner or later, Washington will tire of the war in Afghanistan. Its withdrawal will leave Pakistan alone once more in a volatile and violent neighbourhood.