Ever since CPEC was announced I have maintained that CPEC is
not about the concrete, steel, tarmac, roads, bridges etc. Those are just
enablers and exposition of something bigger,
far bigger. Nearly 2000 years ago what is now Northern Pakistan specifically Taxila
adjacent to the modern capital Islamabad was the intellectual nursery from which Buddhism spread to China. It was meeting of the great
Indus River Basin which was one of the
four rivers that were cradles of civilization with
Yellow River Basin. Today Pakistan is the modern
iteration of that ancient civilization on the Indus and as you know Indus still is the heart of Pakistan today. Without it our great irrigation system would
dry up and our dams would go silent. Similarly Yellow Basin continues to be the fulcrum of China. Much as our predecessors in
Taxila and the wider region that is coterminous to Pakistan made a major impact on Chinese civilization in bringing
new ideas and in particular Buddhism I think today Pakistan is placed to get the "gift"
back from China. Whereas before ideas went up
north along the Silk Road to China from coterminous Pakistan today we are at cusp of
recieving ideas that will bring about tectonic
change in Pakistani society - only this time the ideas will head
south to Taxila/Islamabad along the Karakorum Highway. This is what CPEC is
really about. Bringing change by introducing
fresh ideas and thinking. A cultural
change that will
reinvigorate the stale and static Pakistani society. We helped China to transform 2000 years ago. Today it is our turn to change. Map below.
Green - Buddhism travels north to China from Taxila.
Red - CPEC brings fresh ideas from China that will bring profound ideas that have turned China from famine central to hyperpower in two generations. Ideas
change the world. People are mistakenly looking at CPEC as money generating toll station with fees etc. It's
not about that. It is about something far, far, far bigger. Ideas. Mindeset. Outlook.
Indus River and Yellow River Basins were both
two of the
four cradles of civilization. Today they are about to get
linked for the second time in history. The first time was the Silk Road and Gandhara/Taxila link with China and Buddhism. Today the two geographies in the form of Pakistan and China are about to go through a
second compact via the CPEC and this should bring equal fundamental change to the recipient country - Pakistan. It re-nurtures a 2000 year connection. Then China was the
recipient. Today it is
Pakistan.
The CPEC is in fact the
linking of the Indus Basin which is what
sustains most of Pakistan's 200 million people and the historical heartland of Chinese civilization the Yellow River Basin. Both rivers have nurtured two great
civilizations and today underpin two great friends - Pakistan and China.
As I said at the intro of this thread the CPEC should not be looked as tarmac or concrete or electricty or bridges. Look at it like planting a fruit orchard. You can't start asking what profit your going to get out of it next or even the year after that. You have to water and nourish it. Eventually it will start bearing fruit. That fruit could be basis of a canning industry, drinks industry maybe even the chemicals might be feedstock to chemical industry. The point is the original planting of the orchard offers the succeeding generations
infinite possibilities of how they can leverage that resource. What can be done is only
limited by ideas.
One hundred years ago the British built canal colonies in what is now Pakistan. Today what was once barren desert has farms, roads, cities and industries on it. But it all began by building the canals. In the similar way CPEC is not concrete. It
offers the possibilty of
unlimited ideas. If Pakistan can accept those influences from China then the
sky is the limit. If it can't and acts like a narrow minded village oaf then a historic opportunity will be lost.
I read this article by Dawn and it is what preciptitated this post as you know I have backed off from contributions to PDF but so important is this that I felt I needed to comment on it. The article is crying and complaining that the government is not being
open about the Chinese
Long Term Plan [LTP] for CPEC.
For once I agree with those in government. The officials who are dealing with the Chinese full well will be
aware that the Chinese are not about to
spend $60 billion on roads, bridges, power stations, airports, ports so that they can walk away and
let the mullahs have plenty of electricity to air condition their madaris, more electricity to scream down loudspeakers, more TV stations to pollute young minds, more roads for the mullahs to gather their supporters from more areas and airports for them to export their jamaats. Not a
cent in the $60 billion being spent by the Chinese is intended to in any way
advance the mullahcracy or ummahdom - a
failed recipe that has been peddled inside Pakistan for decades at the behest of USA and Saudia Arabia with equal funding from both.
The CPEC is about bringing in
Chinese way of doing things, Chinese way of
thinking and bringing about a sea change in Pakistani society over the next decades. This of course by definiton entails going
against the
failed recipe we have inside Pakistan and replacing it with dynamic Chinese way of thinking and doing. The problem is if the government fully exposes the Chinese Long Term Plan there will bring
protests from the status quo. The
corrupt status quo that is made of the parasites in the form of mullahs, so called industrialists and small time traders who have the economy hijacked so that they can feed off it and prevent
any change happening. Offer the poor paradise
hereafter while the vested elite in the
hereto jet off to London or Dubai and enjoy life's luxuries.
The fact is CPEC LTP poses a challange to the social, economic and political order inside Pakistan as it will bring in Chinese cultural change. Those who think that cultural change will not come on back of CPEC live in fools paradise. If the real remit of CPEC takes place Pakistan is about to go through a economic revolution and as we all know economic revolutions impact culture and politics.
"The basic point here is simple: we have all been led to believe that CPEC is about connectivity, roads and power plants. In reality, it is about much more than that. It is about preparing the country to receive massive amounts of Chinese investments, personnel and culture"
Those who have read parts of the CPEC Long Term Plan policy document will know it goes into some detail and gives direction as to where CPEC will go after the roads, ports etc have been built. It talks about have tourist resorts on the Arabian Sea, massive industrial estates, huge housing estates for Chinese and huge agro concerns to rejuventate the stale Pakistani economy. In short it is aiming to make Pakistan look similar to Hong Kong and not some medieval village from in the calipha era.
That entails changing to the modes of modern world as can be seen in Hong Kong, Shenzhen, or Shanghai. This is not about west or westoxification that the mullacratics love shouting. Shanghai is is not western but is modern. The fact is there are aspects of modern economy that play out the same in Shanghai, Hong Kong, London, Paris or New York. Just because New York, Paris or London were first to arrive in the modern era does not equate the aspects of life associated with it to 'western'. They are modernisms and when applied in Shanghai has created similar contours to what you see in London or New York.
Even UAE know this. That is why despite having oil resources which gives UAE significant immunity to cop out of aspects of modernism it does not like but even then UAE is far more relaxed then say Karachi. Even the Saudis now are aware that oil is not going to always offer them a way to buy out from aspects of modernism, have began to plan for the new megacity NEOM which will relax religious rules and will be more liberal in it's laws.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/travel/477...ize-of-new-york-where-women-jog-in-crop-tops/
So the reality is Pakistan is going go through tectonic economic, social, cultural and political change over the next few decades. The ruling elite know that after having
duped the half educated masses with
Pakistan ka matlab kia, La Illaha Illallah can't exactly now begin singing "
Pakistan ka matlab kia, Chini athiest consumerism". Thus the reluctance to make public all the details to CPEC LTP. And frankly I entirely understand with them. If Jinnah and Allama Iqbal had spent all their time on convincing the theoretical basis of a nation state with village mullahs in 1940s they would have got no where. If the real consequences and scale of CPEC are revealed mullahcrats will
declare jihad and be on the streets against the Chinese 'kaffirs'.
So I say to the Pakistani elite and in this I include Pakistani Army GHQ and COAS just get on with it please. Keep it to
yourself and your Chinese
counterparts and get the job done. But we know your going to gouge out large chunks of money as corruption but as long as it is not too much and you get the job done of making Islamabad, Lahore, Karachi look, feel like Shenzhen, Shanghai, Beijing we don't mind.
Just
do it.
I strongly suggest people read the full Dawn Article here. > https://www.dawn.com/news/1367767/cpec-long-term-plan
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