Stirring unnecessary controversy
Even before the project has matured, wrangling has set in over “your share, my share” among the political elite of Pakistan about the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). Such unnecessary controversies can jeopardise the prospects of the $46 billion project. The squabbling over the pie-share can even lead to a diplomatic gridlock between the ‘all-weather’ friends — China and Pakistan.
It seems as if the ‘cat fight’ is largely for securing business interests. We are always good at proving to the world how mismanaged we are on national issues.
Dancing to the tunes of ‘nationalism’, we played with the Kalabagh Dam. We also tried to stir a controversy over the Diamer-Bhasha Dam. Since both those projects were related to water sharing, the controversy was comprehensible.
Now we are doing the same again by creating unnecessary controversy over the much-awaited and desired CPEC. On one hand, we have the so-called ‘nationalists’ who have time and again failed to serve their people better but now are making noise over the CPEC – just to stir ethnic sentiments among masses as sanity is always the first victim of ethnicity. On the other, we have to deal with the ambitious Sharif family, who want to keep their hands full with the lucrative CPEC projects.
Since there are grants, preferential and commercial loans are involved in CPEC, there is a dire need to complete these projects within agreed upon timelines.
Pakistan needs to understand that the CPEC is a pilot project of the One Belt and One Road vision of Chinese President Xi Jinping. We don’t know the fact that the CPEC needs early implementation so as other phases of the road could be started. If we don’t deliver on connecting Kashgar with Gwadar through CPEC, China may turn towards India to help connectivity through Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar to connect Kunming with Kolkata.
Sourajit Aiyer, an Indian columnist, has an interesting analysis over the two corridors – the CPEC and BCIM. I am using a chunk of the article for my readers:
The BCIM Project is a multi-modal economic corridor. China has been its most vocal supporter, pitching it to its South Asian partners at several forums in recent years. Bangladesh is another supporter, as it gives it a cost-effective trading route to the region’s two largest economies. However, Indians are complacent though.
India-China trade has shot up exponentially, and China became India’s largest trading partner in 2012. The consumer market of both countries and their production capabilities in complementary sectors means that the potential for deepening trade is still enormous.
Cost-effective access to the huge Indian market is a major incentive for China. The project also gives it access to Bangladesh and Myanmar. Bangladesh is a 150 million large consumer base, while Myanmar’s 60 million are emerging from economic isolation. Add to this India’s 1.2 billion and one sees the numbers China accesses with one single corridor.
Cost-effective access to the huge Indian market is a major incentive for China. The project also gives it access to Bangladesh and Myanmar
China has almost developed the road network in Yunnan, almost to the Myanmar border. A Chinese engineering company is also upgrading its stretches within Myanmar.
But the onward-markets to which these corridors give access are also important. Gwadar was built to enable China’s access to the Middle East for oil and trading, by using the land route. This shows that China sees value in land-sea transfers. Even BCIM can serve as a gateway for onward-transit of Chinese products into the Indian Ocean, SAARC and Middle East markets.
Goods can be shipped from Kolkata/Haldia in India or Chittagong/Mongla in Bangladesh to onward countries, as long as the modalities of duty-free access and recordings are worked out. Moreover, the BCIM corridor can also be inter-connected with India’s Golden Quadrilateral National Highways to enable the goods’ transfer to India’s western seaboard to the ports in Gujarat or Mumbai. That would minimise shipping freight costs for Middle-East bound goods almost comparable to that from Gwadar.
One needs to look at the geography involved, and the investments needed for that terrain.
Yunnan is in proximity to the developed provinces of Guangdong and Hubei in southern/central China. So goods can move point-to-point from China’s industrialised regions to South Asia much faster. In comparison, the Karakoram highway to Pakistan is reachable only after traversing several thousands of miles through scarce-developed Xinjiang, Tibet and Qinghai.
BCIM does not have the severe mountainous terrain of the Karakoram since this route geographically bypasses the rougher sections of the Himalayas, except for around India’s Manipur-Assam provinces or Myanmar’s Shan province.
The Kashgar-Gwadar corridor involves extensive tunnelling and upgrading of the highway, which would be more time and capital intensive than construction over a smoother terrain. The $18bn tunnelling deal was signed during Prime Minister Sharif’s 2013 trip to Beijing, but the project itself would be time consuming to complete.
The planned scope of economic activity possible on the BCIM is significant, when compares the investments involved in the projects. BCIM is not just about trading goods between four countries. It would also facilitate power distribution via inter-connected grids into power-deficit Bangladesh and energy-consumer China, hydrocarbons, gas and oil movement from resource bases in Myanmar/Bangladesh, mineral, ore and coal movement from the provinces of Jharkhand, Odisha and West Bengal for industrial projects in Myanmar and China.
Even the planned scope of the Kashgar-Gwadar had been extended to include rail network, oil pipelines, optic-network, industrial units, apart from trade. Trade from Gwadar port is still largely centred around importing Middle East oil, even after the Chinese took control of it in 2013.
There is a significant opportunity for the network to facilitate deeper Pakistan-China trade or Middle East-China trade, but it would really depend a lot on the construction in the Karakoram stretch.
China is looking to invest approximately $500 billion of its approximately $3 trillion forex reserves into overseas projects over the next five years. A major chunk of the approximately $100-300 billion can be possibly expected for India for its railway infrastructure and industrial parks. Nobody wants to disturb the hand that feeds it, and this feeling is mutual between India and China now.
Now Pakistan has to decide whether it can allow it’s bickering to jeopardise CPEC. Pakistan needs to understand that China developed its part of CPEC around one and a half years back.
A new economic city named “Kashi” has been established on modern trends near old Kashgar involving billions of dollars. China is developing airports, bus terminals and railway stations there to enable trade through CPEC.
We need to know that the world doesn’t like controversies in economic planning. We need to learn how to rise up to welcome the mega projects under CPEC. Unnecessary delays and hiccups in implementation can even affect the mutual trust and the capacity of the Pakistani government in the eyes of the Chinese leadership. There is a need for institutionalisation of decision-making regarding CPEC implantation.
We need to understand that $46 billion is mere a seed-money and more investment would soon be on the way to help modernise Pakistan
So if this $46 billion jumps to $66 billion, the number of projects would be the same. In case of delays, the Pakistani nation would bear the brunt in terms of loan payments. There is another possible scenario that the total number of projects is reduced but the cost may still escalate. This would also leave its strategic partners thinking twice before banking on it in terms of future strategic planning.
It is time for political elite to learn how issues can be settled on the table. One should not only hold responsible the opposition for stirring the controversy over CPEC projects. The blame needs to be shared by the ruling party itself.
While opposition parties are raising questions over ambiguities in the CPEC plan, it seems that neither the opposition nor the cabinet ministers involved with the $46 billion project have been taken on board completely.
We need to understand that $46 billion is mere a seed-money and more investment would soon be on the way to help modernise Pakistan. No province or part of the country would be left underdeveloped once CPEC becomes operational.
Politicians and bureaucrats involved in CPEC are concerned that it is being used for political mileage by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his core family members. Instead of pushing forward CPEC as a national project aimed at achieving strategic goals for the future of the country, the flagship project was kept under wraps, which triggered doubts and concerns.
This resulted in questions raised by not only the leaders of the allied parties of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), the members of treasury benches also share the same concerns.
The suspicions over CPEC are not limited to the opposition only as some ministers also view the control of close Sharif aides over all CPEC projects with mistrust. Moreover, opposition’s lawmakers are also getting jittery over how the federal government is concealing CPEC details.
CPEC implementation is becoming a major challenge for Pakistan and China. Despite some messages of concern sent from China into Pakistan, nothing has changed on ground. The energetic and prudent Chinese Ambassador Sun Weidong has been very active in visiting Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and Balochistan and meeting politicians to understand their doubts and concerns.
However, since the federal government has almost lost vigour and zeal to meet the opposition and address their concerns, it is about time for the ambassador Mr Sun Weidong to put his foot down and open the doors of his embassy for all the stakeholders.
