CPEC has raised fears in Pakistan |
The sudden announcement in November that Pakistan had withdrawn its proposal to include the long-stalled Bhasha-Diamer Dam as part of the Chinese-financed China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) caused quite a stir in Pakistan. Both the World Bank and the ADB had refused to fund this project without a `No Objection Certificate` from India. Of course, Pakistan would not approach India for this. Assuming that their all-weather friend would agree to help, Pakistan approached China in May and Beijing agreed to get this project off the ground after it had languished for 15 years. There were preconditions about ownership, maintenance costs and collateral security. Apparently, these were unacceptable to Pakistan. This perhaps marks the first chink in the CPEC, a far cry from the euphoria seen two years. The Chinese investment plan for an economic corridor from Kashgar through Gilgit-Baltistan to Gwadar promised twice as much FDI that Pakistan had received since 2008. There was a military-political consensus on the CPEC. In their euphoria, and with eyes constantly fixed on India, the Pakistani establishment failed to neither read the fine print nor do their math. They did not factor in that the billions the Chinese were going to invest was about 20% of Pakistan`s $270 billion economy.
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