Andrew Small, a western author and we all know what the west thinks of Pakistan and China, as well as how their media portrays these two countries. First and foremost, we must acknowledge that the author conducted extensive study on each and every incident in the China-Pakistan relationship. To write this book, he researched every facet of the narrative.
The author attempted to create the impression that Pakistan has stolen technology from the West, particularly the United States (For Reference: Pakistan's Babar Cruise Missile is a result of reverse engineering being done on a United States Tomahawk Cruise Missile that Pakistani agencies stole from Africa and brought to Pakistan via Balochistan, and then it was taken to China for further research).
Almost every country on the earth is engaged in “Technology Theft.” The US stole nuclear technology from the Germans, the Russians took it from the Americans, and, strangely, it was the US that somehow gave nuclear technology to China in order to maintain the balance of power in the area and to prevent the Soviet Union from dominating Asia.
When discussing Indo-Pak relations, the author appears to be heavily prejudiced in favor of India. He has stated several times that the Pakistan Army and ISI were playing both sides of the court, that they had friends and ties in the Taliban while also attempting to neutralize them with the support of the US and China. However, the author did not shed any light on how Pakistan was used and discarded like tissue paper by the West in fighting against the Soviet Union, and how we were dragged into a war that was not ours. At the same time, India was receiving benefits and assistance from the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and other countries.
He also attempted to convey the argument that the Pakistan Army is inefficient, deploying old defective weaponry with no strategic studies, so on and so forth. That is simply opposite to the reality. He neglected to note that the Pakistan Army is the only army in the world which has won the “War on Terror” in less than a decade, and that wars aren't only about weapons; if modern equipment was the guarantee of winning a war, the United States would not have wasted two decades and trillions of dollars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Middle East.
Author attempted to emphasize that China was unsure about investing billions of dollars in CPEC, China's largest investment outside of its own country. The author stated that China had serious concerns and disagreements with Pakistan, such as Pakistan's internal security, political instability, and an increasing number of Uighurs fleeing their country and seeking refuge in Pakistan, mostly on the outskirts of Rawalpindi, the home of the Pakistan Army.
Concerns he wrote about were somehow genuine, but he failed to explain why China would take such an uncalculated risk and put all of its eggs in the same basket by investing in Pakistan. In the book's epilogue, the author sounded more hopeful about Pakistan-China ties, highlighting the need of Pakistan's civil and military leadership in removing any obstacles that may jeopardize this All Weather Friendship. Mr. Andrew Small, interestingly, referred to Pakistan as "China's Israel." In the same manner that the United States gives preferential attention to Israel, China gives special attention to Pakistan.