Corridor Calculus

Corridor Calculus : China Pakistan Economic Corridor & China's Comprador Investment Model in Pakistan
VI. THE STRATEGIC DIMENSION
The economic utility of the Karakoram highway (KKH) connecting Pakistan
and China through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir has always been
questionable. Until around 2010, when the KKH was blocked by a landslide
at Attabad, which caused submersion of around 25 km of the highway, only
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around 7–8% of Sino-Pak trade was conducted through the KKH. Of
course, given the fact that the development activity in Xinjiang was still low
key, this was understandable. This number will most likely go up
considerably once Xinjiang becomes an economic hub, which for the
Chinese is one of the objectives propelling the OBOR plan. Even so, it is
highly unlikely that all of Pakistan's trade with China will be routed through
Khunjerab once the CPEC is ready. And it is beyond the realm of possibility
that China will divert all or even a significant proportion of its trade to and
from Europe and the Middle-East from Malacca Straits to the CPEC.
While the CPEC will certainly have an economic dimension, it is really the
strategic dimension that is probably more important. In fact, even when the
KKH was being built, the then Pakistani military ruler, Ayub Khan, had said
that “in order of priority the first urgency was strategic and one of
immediate significance” and that the “economic and commercial
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importance of the highway” was only “the second objective” for Pakistan.
The former Chinese President, Li Xiannian, has been quoted as saying that
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the completion of KKH “allows us [China] to give military aid to Pakistan”. It
is, of course, an altogether another matter that the KKH is far from being the
most reliable route to be used in the event of hostilities. For instance, it took
five years and $275 million to get around the Attabad landslide in January
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2010 that blocked the Hunza river and submerged a portion of the KKH.
During this time, goods and traffic had to be ferried by boats across the lake
created by the landslide. Even otherwise, the Khunjerab pass is closed for
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Op. cit. (Andrew Small pp 100)
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Andrew Small pp 106-07
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Ziad Haider, “Comments: Clearing clouds over Karakorum', Daily Times 04/04/2004, see POT Pakistan Series Vol. XXXII No.
127 pp 2475-76
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Jamil Nagri, 'Attabad road link with China restored', Dawn 15/09/2015, accessed at
http://www.dawn.com/news/1207061/attabad-road-link-with-china-restored
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