A recent twitter spat between a Chinese diplomat and Pakistani journalist over the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) highlights leadership sincerity in implementing multi-billion dollar project across the board in letter and spirit.
The CPEC is poised as one of the flagship projects of China’s Belt and Road initiative, which has significant economic, political and strategic implications for both China and Pakistan.
According to officials, the two countries cannot afford for the project to fail or be aborted, and both Beijing and Islamabad need to lay out strategies to prevent the quality and progress of the project from being compromised by scepticism and conspiracy.
Among other alternatives, a feasible model should be developed by China to make the CPEC more inclusive and transparent to prevent the project from being derailed by internal conflicts in Pakistan and conspiracies that take advantage of the widening wealth gap and clashing interests between different political groups and over regional development in Pakistan.
In the recent public spat, Charge d’Affaires at the Chinese Embassy in Pakistan Zhao Lijian responded to accusations of corruption, unequal distribution of projects under the CPEC and using prisoners as labour to save costs from a journalist with the Pakistan newspaper.
According to Wang Dehua, director of Institute for the Southern and Central Asian Studies at theShanghai Municipal Center for International, Zhao’s reaction to the baseless allegations is understandable given the strategic stake of the economic corridor for both China and Pakistan and the tremendous resources China has pooled to help the intended benefits materialised.
The sheer size of the project and complexity in coordinating the different groups and regions that have various interests means that the project will never be plain-sailing. Criticism and suspicion about the economic corridor have not ceased since it was announced in 2013. Rumours about China using prisoners for its overseas projects aren’t even new.
The possibility of some Pakistanis being bought to defame the CPEC and China cannot be ruled out. The seeds of scepticism might also have been sown by different political or regional groups in Pakistani wrestling for a bigger role in the CPEC.
Despite the rumours and problems, there is widespread consensus in Pakistan that the CPEC could generate huge gains for the country and so far no political party in Pakistan has openly opposed the project. At the moment, China is the largest investor in Pakistan and is its largest trade partner.
According to the report published in the Chinese media, the CPEC, which connects China’s Kashgar in Northwest China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region and Gwadar Port in Southwest Pakistan, has the potential to become a game changer for Pakistan.
With a total investment of $51 billion, expanded from the initial commitment of $46 billion, the project is designed to address the bottleneck in Pakistan’s economic development through infrastructure projects such as bridges, railways and pipelines and will bring stability and peace to the conflict-torn state.
A US-based consulting firm Deloitte & Touche, the CPEC is expected to generate 700,000 direct jobs in Pakistan from 2015-2030 and raise its GDP growth by up to 2.5 percentage points.
Meanwhile, the CPEC will also serve as a new trade route for China to export its goods to West Asia and Africa, as well as become the quickest avenue to import energy resources from the Middle East. The fact that the project aligns with the political, economic and strategic interests of both countries means that the challenges and risks facing the project that arise from rumours and conspiracies should not be overlooked.
To address these challenges, for China’s part, efforts should be made to enhance the inclusive and transparency of the CPEC to allow its various projects to be evenly distributed across different regions inPakistan, especially poorer areas. China should also explore the possibility of employing local workers to capitalise on the huge labour market in the country.
By creating more jobs and boosting local income, the CPEC has a greater chance of bringing immediate and tangible benefits to Pakistan’s economy as well as easing mistrust and doubts concerning the project.