Corridor Calculus

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Corridor Calculus : China Pakistan Economic Corridor & China's Comprador Investment Model in Pakistan Islamabad, the Chinese President Xi Jinping finally managed to visit Pakistan in April 2015. While all visits by Chinese leaders are invariably termed 'historic' and are accompanied by over-the-top verbiage to reaffirm the 'higher than Himalayas, deeper than oceans, sweeter than honey and stronger than steel' relationship between the two 'Iron Brothers', President Xi's visit was, by all accounts, going to be very special. The much anticipated agreement between China and Pakistan for the mammoth Economic Corridor project that would connect Kashgar in the troubled western Chinese province of Xinjiang through the Khunjerab pass to Gwadar in the troubled western Pakistan province of Balochistan was finally going to be signed. The CPEC is the shortest outlet to the sea for western China and provides China access to the markets in the Gulf region and beyond and, at the same time, provides an alternate access to the energy supplies from the Middle-East that would help China address its Malacca Dilemma. Or does it? The CPEC agreement is expected to catapult the Sino-Pak relationship to an entirely new level by giving it an economic dimension that is quite incidental, even marginal, to their otherwise robust bilateral ties. Not only will the CPEC give the much-needed economic heft to the relationship, it is also seen as the glue that will bind the two countries into a mutually dependant strategic compact. This, at least, is how the Pakistanis generally perceive the CPEC. How much of this is true and how much is hype is another matter because as with everything involving China, and even more Pakistan, what appears on the surface (headline making announcements) is quite different from what is below the surface (the numbers that underlie the headlines). It is this subterranean reality that puts question marks on not just the spin being given to the CPEC being a 'game changer' in the region, but also on the heroic assumptions that underpin this entire project. Of course, when big numbers like $46 billion are being discussed and milked for both domestic and international audiences, the details of how these numbers will play out tend to get swept under the carpet, more so when the man bearing the 'gifts' is the Chinese President. A few noises were made advocating caution and raising questions about how much benefit would flow Pakistan's way, as also whether the numbers were going to add up, not just for Pakistan but also for investors. Sceptics also asked if the whole spin 2
Corridor Calculus : China Pakistan Economic Corridor & China's Comprador Investment Model in Pakistan of Chinese investment being something of a game-changing, destinydefining development would end up in a replay of a similar hype over 5 Turkish investments a few years earlier. Pakistan had dreamt of being the gateway to Central Asia and China nearly a quarter of century earlier — soon after the exit of the Soviet occupation forces from Afghanistan and the subsequent collapse of the Soviet Union 6 that led to the emergence of independent Central Asian Republics. But it was only after the Chinese decided to invest in the CPEC and make it a part of the much grander and ambitious 'One Belt One Road' project that Pakistan's dreams of being the pivot and the land bridge between Central Asia, China and the Middle-East had any chance of coming true. The Fine Print The negotiations on the CPEC started in right earnest in May 2013 after the formal handing over of the Gwadar port to China to coincide with the visit of 7 Chinese Premier Li Keqiang to Islamabad. This was followed by Nawaz Sharif's visit to Beijing in July 2013 just a couple of weeks after assuming the 8 office of Prime Minister. It was during this visit that China and Pakistan agreed to set up a Joint Cooperation Committee on the long-term plan for CPEC and nominated the National Development and Reform Commission of China and the Planning and Development Ministry of Pakistan as the leading ministries to develop the CPEC plan and also decided to set up secretariats in the two nodal ministries for this purpose. A number of proposals for 9 projects under CPEC were floated during this visit. The proposal started crystallising in 2014 with projects being identified and the scale of investments required for operationalising the mega project started to steadily go up from around $20 billion to over $46 billion at the time of 5 Sakib Sherani, 'Evaluating CPEC', DAWN 01/05/2015, accessed at http://www.dawn.com/news/1179169/evaluating-cpec; also Cyril Almeida, “Chinese Whispers”, DAWN 19/04/2015, accessed at http://www.dawn.com/news/1176805/chinese-whispers 6 Nasim Zehra, 'Achievements of ECO conference', The News International 14/02/1993 7 Shoiab A Raja, 'China to help end Pak energy crisis: Li', The News International 23/05/2013, accessed at http://www.thenews.com.pk/Todays-News-13-23033-China-to-help-end-Pak-energy-crisis-Li 8 Khalid Mehmood, 'Nawaz's Beijing visit: Trade corridor tops MoU bonanza', Express Tribune 06/07/2013, accessed at http://tribune.com.pk/story/573220/nawazs-beijing-visit-trade-corridor-tops-mou-bonanza/ 9 Joint Statement on Common Vision for Deepening Pakistan-China Strategic Cooperative Partnership in the New Era, 05/07/2013, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Government of Pak, accessed at http://mofa.gov.pk/pr-details.php?mm=MTMwMQ,, 3
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