Rolling Wheels on CPEC
Published in
Hilal English
Written By: Brigadier (R) Syed Wajid Raza
Pakistan and China’s proverbial friendship crosses another monumental landmark. The people of both the nations jubilantly recieved the news that the first ever CPEC-specific Chinese convoy has completed its journey from Xinjiang to Gwadar. This is the first drop of heavenly blissful rain of hope and prosperity. The CPEC is a shining glitter that will cover the skies of regions across Asia, Africa, Europe and beyond. Pakistan sees CPEC as corridor of peace and prosperity by binding regional countries together to bring about an economic transformation through enhanced connectivity and become a major arbiter to placate the superpower rivalries and promote trade cooperation among the regions. This is a daunting task that demands a matching sagacity, commitment and national resolve.
Recent years have seen a profusion of domestic discussion on economic road map connected to China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). Pakistan’s geographical advantage has been a source of Beijing's commitment to connect China by land with Europe, Africa, Southeast Asia and the Middle East. Chinese premier Li Keqiang proposed conversion of former
Silk Route into
Maritime Silk Road in May 2013 during his visit to Pakistan.
Beijing’s transnational economic narrative rests on its policy of connectivity
“One Belt, One Road (OBOR)”, envisioning three corridors passing through northern China linking Europe through Moscow, Helsinki, Rotterdam and Berlin. Central corridor is to connect China with Central Asia and eventually with Europe. The southern corridor passes through Chinese Xinjiang autonomous territory in northwest of China and passes through Pakistan till Gwadar and that connects it with sea routes in all directions. (Map 1).
The estimated cost of CPEC is approximately U.S. $75 billion, out of which U.S. $46 billion would be spent on Pakistan. In bilateral terms, the investment portfolio is more than four times compared to total U.S. economic aid to Pakistan in the post 9/11 years.
Geo-strategic importance of Pakistan impacts upon its geo-political significance due to influence on geographic factors of the state power, international conduct and advantages it derives from its position; making it junction of great powers of South Asia, West Asia and Central Asia and a way from resource efficient countries to resource deficient countries of the region. According to Stephen Cohn “While history has been unkind to Pakistan, its geography has been its greatest benefit. It has resource rich area in the north-west, people rich in the north-east.”
China needs energy resources, food and minerals; particularly for its land-locked Western China, which is not possible without altering geographical barriers necessary to connect China physically with giant markets of Asia, Europe and Africa. China in its own part is 4500 km away from Xinjiang compared to the distance of 2500 km from deep waters of Gwadar Port.
The CPEC shall have three corridors (eastern, central and western alignment) within the territories of Pakistan. The eastern alignment for example would pass through remote region of Gwadar, travel Makran Coastal Highway (eastwards towards Karachi), interior Sindh and connect southern, central and northern regions of Punjab before reaching Islamabad. Regional connectivity with India would be possible (if it happens) through the Hyderabad-Mirpur Khas-Khokhrapar-Zero Point link and the Wagah border in Lahore.
The corridors from Islamabad onward extend to Haripur, Abbottabad and Mansehra, a portion would run through Muzaffarabad, however main alignment connects Khunjerab through Diamer and Gilgit areas in northern Pakistan. The corridor runs through the Pamir Plateau and Karakoram Range after connecting especially constructed nodes to link all provincial capitals.
The western alignment would be running through Khuzdar and Dera Bugti in Balochistan, districts of Southern Punjab and D.I. Khan in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. A link from Taxila through Peshawar to Torkham would connect Jalalabad in Afghanistan with additional regional connectivity links through Chaman to Afghanistan and Iran through Quetta Koh-e-Taftan.
The CPEC would offer Central Asian regions the shortest route of 2600 km as compared to Iran’s 4500 km or Turkey’s 5000 km. In geo-economic terms CPEC would facilitate China with crucial links for transporting oil and gas from the Persian Gulf and minerals and food from Africa, besides opening opportunities for Gulf States and Africa to lift trade and business.
The connectivity is critical phase of the project; implying infrastructure development of 3000 kms road and 1800 kms of rail linking Kashgar in China’s western Xinjiang region with the port of Gwadar in Balochistan, with a network of oil pipelines, an airport and railway station in Gwadar, a string of energy projects, special economic zones, dry ports and other setups capable of creating more than two million jobs and reduce demand-supply gap in energy-starved Pakistan.
The South Asia is one of the world’s least economically integrated regions; plagued by conflicts to have kept its focus on “zero-sum geo-strategic posturing” rather than recognizing the benefits of integration. The southern corridor can bring greater cohesion in South Asia to serve as a driver of connectivity between South Asia and East Asia to benefit China, Iran, Afghanistan, and stretching all the way to Myanmar.
China faced with strategic issues in South China Sea and eastern seaboard needs alternative trade routes for the Middle East, Africa and Europe. CPEC affords China an alternative trade route, cutting distance and time from the present long and slow 10,000 km by ship from the Persian Gulf through the Strait of Malacca in the eastern seaboard of China taking approximately 10 days for Chinese shipments to reach the waters of Gwadar and few more days to various destinations along the Indian Ocean.
Through Malacca Strait, China imports 80% of oil and desperately needs a safe passage in the Indian Ocean to avoid its vulnerabilities in the Strait of Malacca controlled by India. Reduction of the Chinese reliance on the Malacca route is important being a potential flashpoint of blockade by the United States Pacific Command (USPACOM) in periods of major hostility.
The geographical disadvantage of landlocked West China region being home to Chinese Uyghurs and hotbed of East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) is becoming an instrument of instability for Chinese integrity. CPEC is therefore seen as addressing intricate issues of Chinese internal stability through much needed economic revival.
The strategic initiatives however are fraught with challenges in the rebalancing Asia. In the rebalancing environment of Asia, the position and postures of most southern countries would be determined by the growing threats of terrorism, regional conflicts and Indo-U.S. venture of containing China. Therefore, the challenges of rebalancing would confuse most key players to respond on factors of diplomacy, politics, security and economy.
CPEC would be facing political and geopolitical challenges (especially due to foreign powers), for example: unrest in most districts of Balochistan, and, Indian concerns on the alignment of routes in Azad Kashmir etc. Russia is under sanctions over its disputes with Ukraine. There are civil wars in Syria, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Other countries that the OBOR initiative is supposed to connect have been subjected to political instability, international sanctions, or both. CPEC would be faced with exploitable domestic, regional and international interests and therefore, Pakistan needs defining in narrow terms scenarios to be envisioned more broadly that could impact the project.
The domestic consensus building is important during every phase of project development as simmering domestic political disagreements can be a factor shaping position and postures on this initiative. There is also a need to address growing skepticism amongst the international strategic community as many mega projects in the region have been mired in security problems and political disagreements.
Pakistan has a history, where numerous opportunities of "turning points" in the past were missed. In the early 1960s Pakistan was doing so well that economists predicted the country to be one of the future leading economic powers of Asia. The gains were reversed after two wars and after the abandonment of free market policies that were replaced with inefficient, corrupt and badly managed socialist model in 70s.
The Pak-Iran pipeline is on hold, the World Bank-backed Central Asia to South Asian electricity transmission and trade project has to contend withpassage and security issues in Afghanistan and Pakistan. There are serious regional and international interests attached to these projects.
India apprehends presence of Chinese at Gwadar to checkmate their economic aspirations and maritime expansion. India contemplates that corridor would strengthen Pakistan and increase China's geopolitical and economic influence in the region. India has expressed its frustration frequently and therefore danger remains if India could succeed in creating a security situation for Pakistan through its agents. The capture of Indian officer serving for RAW speaks volumes of Indian negative intentions.
Western and regional countries may not be comfortable with the prospects of the corridor with Chinese presence at Gwadar Port for two reasons: one; they may not have interest in fostering greater Chinese independence of energy supply, and, fear of hampering smooth supply of oil to West through Gulf in case of crisis. Pakistan needs to secure its own national interests by becoming a diplomatic balancer, ensuring that its own economy doesn’t get trampled beneath.
The biggest challenge to the corridor can be foreign incited and funded threats of extremism, separatism and terrorism. Ostensibly, the deployment of terror network all along the corridor from the Chinese Xinjiang into Pakistani territory upto Gwadar cannot be a coincidence. There is growing evidence of foreign sponsorship and presence of hostile intelligence agencies in making it “terror ground” to disrupt the projects in the corridor.
The security of project is a critical issue, to be guarded from the spillover effects right from the outset. Pakistan Army has raised two Special Security Divisions (SSD) for the security of corridor: A sum of USD 250 million is kept for security needs of the project. SSD would be in addition to 8,000 security personnel already deployed by Pakistan’s security forces to protect 8,100 Chinese working on about 210 projects across Pakistan.
Pakistan’s capacity to handle such a mega project would confront another challenge. In the absence of experts, the project can confront governance issues, being complex in our case due to corruption, dysfunction and incompetence of Pakistan's governing structures and rampant culture of patronage. These problems for instance are reflected in the domain of transportation system in terms of trucking, rail services, port activities, pipelines, and related operations requiring trucks (especially long-haul trucks), railway stock, ships, airplanes, and all of the parts, maintenance, fuel, and servicing needed to keep them all operating.
It requires high level of skill, extensive international networks, and a huge amount of experience to tackle the challenges of operating and managing transport and logistics across the CPEC region. This is to be viewed in the context of Pakistan International Airlines, which has exaggerated grotesque figure of employees per aircraft; one of the highest rates in the world and railways is in shambles.
According to Anatol Lieven, professor at Georgetown University in Qatar and a visiting professor at King's College London, "Pakistan needs a huge outside investment in infrastructure to complement Chinese investment in order to boost outside confidence, raise indigenous tax-collection to a respectable level and technical base in order to benefit from the project."
All governments of Pakistan have suffered from chronic failure to raise taxes, currently there is barely 10 percent of GDP and lowest tax-collection ratio in Asia. Pakistan’s state-owned banks and industries are under influence and often used as a source of political patronage. Pakistan’s financial institutions are constrained to deal with highest profile institutions related to
OBOR, most notably the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), the New Development Bank (formerly “BRICS” Development Bank), and the Silk Road Fund, seen otherwise to fill a gap of multilateral agencies and compensate China’s lack of voice in existing multilateral institutions such as the World Bank, IMF, and Asian Development Bank.
The CPEC initiative will undoubtedly bring various parts of Pakistan closer together through physical, psychological, economic, cultural, and political linkages. It will improve infrastructure in places that need it and promote economic development along the way. However, the success of CPEC is connected with the government’s and institutional capacity and overall governance of project, implying dealing with intricate national security issues, forging domestic political consensus, safeguarding Pakistan’s industrial sector and above all preventing negative geopolitical influences in the region. The question however remains: is governance by chance or by choice? In presence of such challenges national unity and consensus is of vital importance.
We have a ‘Game Changer’ at hand and we must change the Game!
Email:
wajid741@gmail.com
1The concept of connectivity under OBOR:
Southeast Asia: Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Timor-Leste, Vietnam
South Asia: Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka.
Central and Western Asia: Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.
Middle East and Africa:Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syrian Arab Republic, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Yemen.
Central and Eastern Europe: Albania, Belarus, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia. Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Ukraine.
