There are few points that need to be cleared.
1. Pakistan does not have any "industry" to speak off as understood by most of the world. Therefore there is nothing to "kill". And if there is any real industry somebody please tell me where it is? And who are these "industrialist"? India for example has "Tata" etc
2. Pakistan economy stands on two legs.
(a) The gross raw production (mostly agriculture) and the export thereof with minimal value addition. For example grow rice, slap it into gunny bags and export it. The "industry" in this case being slapping into gunny bags and exporting it. The so called exporters have even failed to build a premium brand. Half of the rice exported in gunny bags ends up being reprocessed by third party (mostly Indian) brands who do the real value addition. This can also be seen in the cotton exports. All Pak does is grows the crop. Most of it is then exported with minimal value addition. Lot of it goes to Bangla who then add value addition to by turning it into shirts, trousers, suits etc to be sold in the West. In short all Pakistan does is depends on what nature has endowed with minimal value addition - this speaks lot about the so called industialists in Pakistan.
(b) The gross labour production - again this is mostly under educated, under skilled workers exported to Middle East and rest of the world who work in semi slavery to earn some money part of which is sent home as remittances. The annual remmitances are probably greater then all other exports combined. Thus in a way the biggest industry in Pakistan is labour export.
Exactly how Chinese are going to have impact on the two legs that the Pak economy stands on is beyond me. As stated above there is no industry or industrialists in Pakistan as understood by rest of the world. So which begs the question why all this song and dance?
Well we have a parasite rentier class in Pakistan. They are not businessmen or industialist like in rest of the world. They are class of people who have used their connections with the ruling elite (often they are the same - example being Nawaz) through family or clan connections to extract money out of licence rackets. The state places restrictions on free trade and then gives out licences to allies who then become importers to service the internal demand for modern consumer products. However in the early days this was "open racketeering" where the licence holders just imported products and made a profit by selling the imports at mark up to the consumer in Pakistan.
Over time a false fig leaf of "industialist" was given by setting up foreign join ventures, So for example from simply importing Nissan cars the licence holder set up a so called "production plant" in Pakistan jointly with Nissan. All this involved now was import of ready made parts and assembling the vehicles. Over time maybe a few pieces of plastic might be "made" in Pakistan but rest continued to be imported. Even with this minimal real manifacturing (as vehicle was designed, built abroad) the quality drops as most Pakistani consumers know.
Worse the price is higher then international prices. Such a "plant" is parasite. It could not survive without government licence and restrictions. Most car plants in the world produce over 300,000 cars per year and even then struggle to make profit as the efficiency favours plants that make over 500,000 cars a year. Yet in Pakistan there are 5 so called manufacturers with some producing less than 10,000 vehicles.
This licence parasites apply across the spectrum in Pakistan. What they do is get licence or patronage from the ruling elite and then import or set a joint venture with external party. Then they just make massive profut because the consumer has no choice to go anybody else. The result is Pakistan has built a huge parasite class that just gouges the helpless Pakistani consumer.It is this parasite class that is going to be wiped out by Chinese industry and about bloody time too.
This can be even seen in the service industry or transport. Take PIA. The only reason people fly with it is because there is no other choice. It is a government monopoly. The only reason why most people fly is because they are either migrants, migrants children (like myself) or workers in Middle East. Very few are tourists or businessmen coming to Pakistan. 85% are are airline users fit in the category i described. PIA of course is their to leach of this hostage market and we see the result.
So what is needed? Entire total decimation of rentier class and their crappy so called "endustri". Only by clearing and burning this forest of weeds will new healthy saplings be planted. Over time will grow into Pakistan's versions of Tata, Birla, Hydundai,Honda etc.
Don't blame the Chinese for the exposing the disease. Instead cure it.
Ps. To the Indians - What industry do you think the Chinese will kill in Pakistan? Please enlighten? Newsflash - there is non.
India had its version of license raj. But your domestic industry will never develop by opening to China. Your only hope is that some of these parasite industrialists develop into larger entities
