Connecting the Chinese city of Kashgar and the deep-water Pakistani port of Gwadar, the Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif inaugurated a new trade route known as the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). The creation of this modern day “silk road” is an indicator of China’s growing desire to increase its influence in the Middle East and Pakistan’s shift closer to China.
The first convoy of Chinese trucks, carrying goods to be shipped abroad, arrived a day before this week’s opening at the newly-renovated port of Gwadar, after travelling more than 2,000 kilometers from Kashgar in Xinjiang province in western China. Gwadar, which is located some 300 miles from the strategic Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf, is a fuel hub as 20 percent of the world’s petroleum passes through the port city.
“CPEC is currently touted as a game changer for Pakistan, as it has the potential to forever alter the country’s economic trajectory,” Zeeshan Salauddin, Senior Research Fellow at Pakistan’s Center for Research and Security Studies, told The Media Line. “The $46 billion China has pumped into this pilot project for their much larger One Belt, One Road (OBOR) initiative not only indicates their confidence in Pakistan to start the massive process, but also relies on CPEC to be an unmitigated success.”
Costing $46 billion, the “One Belt, One Road”, otherwise known as The Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st-century Maritime Silk Road. is Chinese President Xi Jinping’s linchpin project, aiming to affirm China’s paramount position in Asia and the Middle East. The CPEC part of it, expected to be completed in the next 15 years, also includes plans to create roads, rail and oil pipelines links, and will boost Pakistan’s economy, which is currently grappling with an acute economic crisis.
“This joint project represents a major shift in Pakistani policy,” Dr. Gareth Price, Senior Research Fellow at the Chatham House think tank in London, told The Media Line. “For decades Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have been the closest of allies.”
“But the tipping point came when Pakistan decided not to join the Saudi-led coalition fighting the Iranian-supported Houthi rebels in Yemen,” Price added.
Pakistan, a Sunni-majority country which shares a 600-mile border with Shiite Iran, is the only Muslim nuclear power. The Saudis believe that if they ever felt threatened by a nuclear Iran, Pakistan would come to their aid. Saudi Arabia also gives Pakistan cheap oil and cash infusions in times of need.
The world powers’ nuclear deal with Iran, which possesses huge hydrocarbon reserves, has been a big game changer. Pakistan is going through a serious energy shortage and preserving good relations with a nuclear-constrained Iran in a rapidly shifting diplomatic environment is a strategic move.
Analysts say that Pakistan might be cozying up to China in an effort to reduce its dependence on support from the United States, especially as the India-friendly US President-Elect assumes office in January 2017.
CPEC is also a way for the world’s second largest economy to expand its influence in the Middle East and counter both US and Indian influence. China is the biggest importer of Middle Eastern oil, and its dependence on imported oil and natural gas fueled the Chinese President’s visits to Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Iran last earlier this year.
As Chinese ships now use the Strait of Malacca, a narrow passage between the Malay Peninsula and Indonesia, China is seeking convenient and reliable access to the Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean. The proposed new route would give China the access it wants.
“Pakistan will inevitably need to improve diplomatic and trade ties with the Middle East in order to facilitate this plan (OBOR),” Salauddin said. “Gwadar city, for instance, already runs on electricity imported from neighboring Iran.”
“Pakistan will also need to present its case not as a competitor, but as an additional market, specifically catering to Central Asian states, as well as China and Russia, thereby opening doors and creating an interdependent system of inter-state economy with China-Pakistan at its core,” Salauddin added.
A serious problem threatening the success of CPEC is the fact the Gwadar port and many of the roads of the CPEC run are located in Baluchistan, the province where an Islamic State suicide bomber attacked a Sufi Shrine in November killing 52 people.
“China has problems with Islamic radicals in Xinxiang province,” explained Ailiya Naqvi, an analyst at the Pakistan Institute for International Affairs, to The Media Line.
According to Naqvi, both Xinxiang and Baluchistan are underdeveloped regions and this new economic partnership will not only create new infrastructure but also encourage investment and job opportunities, known to “put a lid on radicalism.”
For Price, CPEC is win-win for all those involved, with the exception of Pakistan’s long-time foe, India. “Part of CPEC’s infrastructure goes through the hotly contested Kashmir province. Things look okay now, but India is worried about what will happen if China decides to deploy military forces in the region to help Pakistan.”
Analysts are in agreement that massive Chinese investment will boost Pakistan’s economy but worry that Pakistan will become China’s client state, feeling like it has to align its policies with the economic giant.
http://www.themedialine.org/news/chinas-game-changing-route-middle-east/