CPEC: China's Gift to Pakistan Is Becoming Too Hot to Handle
For Pakistan, caught in the crossfire between China and the West and mired in debt, choosing sides is not easy.
President of Pakistan Arif Alvi (2nd R) presented the 'Crescent of Pakistan' state decoration to Chinese Deputy Prime Minister Hu Lifing (L) for his role in promoting relations between the two countries at a ceremony at the Presidential Villa. Photo by Anadolu Images
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f you’re traveling in Pakistan, you’ll have come across long stretches of road that the locals call CPEC (pronounced see-pack, short for China-Pakistan Economic Corridor). In fact, you may hardly have to leave the CPEC during intercity travel. The average travel time between Lahore and Karachi, Pakistan’s two largest cities which are about 1,200 km apart, has dropped from 20 to about 13 hours, on what represents just one part of the 3,000-kilometer-long road.
Thanks to the CPEC-related power projects, electricity outages have been reduced significantly. Tens of thousands of Pakistanis are employed in projects related to the CPEC, itself a part of China’s grandiose Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) for the seamless connection of Eurasia.
Yet, if you ask a common person how the CPEC has changed life in Pakistan, they’d probably be evasive, if not dejected. They would tell you about the crushing inflation, inflated bills, the dismal status of law and order, and there being no sign of respite, exacerbated by the confusion surrounding delayed elections. There would be no mention of the CPEC or its magic.
Yet, the CPEC and the heat of the New Great Game that Pakistan faces may be behind much of what is rattling Pakistan these days.
Backdrop: The Dragon and the seas
A decade ago, the CPEC—a combination of roads, railways, special economic zones, and power and energy projects—was anticipated by many in Pakistan as a game-changer for the heavily indebted South Asian nation, comparable with the Marshall Plan, according to some analysts.
The original promise of $46 billion over 15 years came as serendipity for Pakistan at a time when the outlook was otherwise bleak—the figure has since risen to $62 billion.
The expertise and investment from a country that had the distinction of creating thriving port cities like Shenzhen out of virtually nothing garnered much fascination in Pakistan.
In turn, the deep-sea, warm-water port of Gwadar, situated in Pakistan’s Balochistan province, near the Strait of Hormuz, offered China the closest access to sea from its landlocked easternmost province of Xinjiang. It’s now the gateway of the CPEC, the BRI’s main artery, to the oceans and a commercial hub in the making.
Gwadar offers China a much faster trade route to Europe and the Middle East, reducing travel time by 10-20 days, in addition to providing an alternative route for its energy needs. It has reduced the 12,000 km sea distance to less than 3,000 km on land. Considering that Saudi Arabia is among China’s top two oil suppliers, the importance of Gwadar to China is clear.
What’s more, in case of conflict with Washington, the U.S. may be able to tighten the noose on the choke points in the Strait of Malacca where the U.S. Navy patrols regularly. Then, it is assumed, Gwadar may be able to offer free passage for China’s energy needs and may even be leveraged for naval purposes should a need arise.
Understandably, China has been heavily investing in Gwadar, often dubbed as the “Crown Jewel of the CPEC,” and the port is already leased to the China Overseas Ports Holding Company Pakistan (COPHC) for 40 years.
This has stirred worry in the West: a country that had largely been reliant on U.S., UK, and EU assistance historically could end up drifting closer to China. Losing influence over Pakistan also means a looser grip on Afghanistan, and, thus, a consequential gain of the Russia-China axis over the U.S. in the New Great Game, i.e., South and Central Asia, facilitated by Pakistan.
In other words, all was well until Pakistan’s friendship with China was “higher than the mountains, deeper than the oceans, and sweeter than honey”—as often celebrated in official rhetoric—until it began to materialise as such in the form of the Corridor.
Politics in the line of cross fire
Much that has transpired in Pakistan in the political arena over the last year may be the burden of the CPEC that Pakistan is finding hard to sustain. Imran Khan, the former prime minister, now behind bars in relation to one of the more than 150 cases against him directly accused the U.S. of overturning his government, the veiled instructions for which allegedly were conveyed by the U.S. in a diplomatic cable after his visit to Russia.
Khan had flatly declined to provide air bases to the U.S. for striking Afghanistan a few months before this and even praised the Taliban for having broken the “shackles of slavery,” shortly after the U.S. exit from Afghanistan.
However, the possibility of revival of Pakistan-Russia relations, reinvigorated by the Russian offer to export wheat and oil to Pakistan on concessional terms when the U.S. and EU were looking to isolate Russia, was the last nail in the coffin for Khan’s government, who seemed to have visited Russia without the assent of the powerful Pakistani military establishment.
Several articles in Chinese government-aligned media published after Khan’s ouster were critical of the regime change in Pakistan. The Khan administration, though initially suspicious of the CPEC agreements signed with China under the previous government, had developed a better understanding with the Asian heavyweight over time.
Still, perhaps given the scale of the country’s investment in Pakistan and the imperative to continue working with any government, China avoided an official reaction. The Russian Foreign Ministry minced no words, however, accusing the U.S. of “shameless interference” in a plot to remove the “disobedient” Khan.
As the new government assumed power in Pakistan, relations with the U.S. improved significantly. A package worth $450 million was approved for the maintenance of Pakistan Air Force’s F16 program. The much-needed IMF Standby Arrangement was signed. And most recently, Pakistan renewed a security pact with the U.S., namely the Communications and Information Security Memorandum of Agreement (CISMOA), after a lapse of three years.
Reports of Pakistani munition supplies to Ukraine mediated by the U.S. have emerged as well, reflecting Pakistan’s considerable warming up to the West after Khan.
Meanwhile, the U.S. showed complete aloofness to the overthrowing of Khan and the virtual dissolution of his party domestically. The Western media coverage of Khan’s ouster mostly depicted Khan as an anti-freedom enemy of the West.
Turbulence in perspective: The Dragon-slayers
It’s not just politics that is becoming a victim of the New Great Game. Pakistan is facing a resurgence in terrorism. India has often been accused of being present in Balochistan, supporting separatist insurgencies, and in the Pakistani tribal belt in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) province, where it is blamed for backing the insurgent group, Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).
Pakistani officials have repeatedly linked India to attacks on Chinese workers employed at CPEC projects, which includes the infamous case of Indian spy Kalbushan Yadav tasked with sabotaging the CPEC.
Being a counterweight to China, India is now a close U.S. ally. This has resulted in a situation where Pakistan’s stance on Indian involvement in its territory is largely ignored by the West.
For India, the Gwadar port is a competitor to its investment in Iran’s Chabahar port, just 76 nautical miles west of Gwadar, and the recently announced grand India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC). That may mean even more trouble for the CPEC and its host country.
Between two fires
For Pakistan, caught between the Chinese and Western cross fire, and ensnared in debt, choosing a side is not easy. China alone owns slightly less than a third of Pakistan’s external debt. The rest, including commercial and private debt, is mostly owed to multilateral institutions and the Paris Club countries, where the West calls the shots.
The unprecedented political instability, the resurgence of terrorism, and mounting debt reflect how Pakistan has ended up unsuspectingly and unprepared in a geopolitical quagmire. While Islamabad seems to be thinking that sitting on the fence is an option, the battle between the Dragon and its hunters is burning the ground beneath.
