Sino-Pak relations flourish to new highs as CPEC picks up steam

By Shafei Moiz Hali

China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is the buzz word in Pakistan ever since Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Pakistan and formally announced the $56 Billion plus deal in April 2015. The CPEC is an integral part of the Belt and Road initiative, which aims at connecting the natural deep seawater Gwadar port in the south of Pakistan with the Xinjiang region of China. For China the CPEC would reduce the traveling distance, for its huge volumes of trade with the Gulf countries, from existing 13000 kilometers to mere 2500 kilometers. While it will cut down the traveling time from the existing 45 days to only 10 days, it will also reduce the cost of freight by one third. For Pakistan it will help build and improve the much needed infrastructure to flourish the economy and boost trade. 

Relations between Pakistan and China have remained strong over the years and CPEC has ensured that this bond of friendship becomes ironclad. Last week Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Khawaja Asif visited Beijing on an official visit and held a meeting with the Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and discussed a wide variety of topics to review bilateral relations and regional developments, including the situation in Afghanistan. The meeting ensured and strengthened confidence between the two nations which is evident from Wang Yi’s remarks, “The relationship between China and Pakistan remain rock firm and unbreakable, and China will continue to play its role in Pakistan's progress and development.” 

A cargo ship sits berthed next to a crane at Gwadar Port in Gwadar, Balochistan, Pakistan, on Tuesday, Aug. 2, 2016. [Photo: vcg.com]

The real change of economic progress to which Mr. Wang Yi alluded to is not only going to be experienced at the macro level but will be experienced by people on the local level as well. Pakistan suffers from an acute electricity crisis, which has not only crippled the economy of the country but has tremendously disrupted the daily lives of the people. Keeping backup power supply equipment at homes, shops, and businesses is a necessity. During summers when the scheduled power outages are increased most of the backup power supplies also start to fail. No one is exempt from these power outages not even schools and hospitals. Ever since work on the CPEC began things have started to change for the better. Roughly 60% of the funding within the CPEC is allocated for energy projects in Pakistan, some of these projects have become operational, while work on others is underway and the issues of the electricity crisis will be resolved soon. The common people will be able to stow away their backup power supply systems. Due to the electricity shortage in Pakistan candles and various forms of flashlights have been a significant part of every household but once CPEC backed energy projects kick in Candles will mostly be seen on birthday cakes only.  

One has to keep in mind that Pakistan is an agrarian developing country whose economy has been drastically held back from registering the requisite levels of growth due to lack of technology and funding from abroad. Even today agriculture sector is the mainstay of Pakistan’s economy as it contributes around 20 percent in the overall gross domestic product (GDP) but the poor farmers in Pakistan lack the modern technologies for farming to enhance their yields and for handling the supply chain of the agriculture goods. The agriculture sector provides employment to 42.3 percent of the country’s total labor force. The year 2015-16 saw dismal performance of the agriculture sector in Pakistan when it registered negative growth of 0.19 percent against 2.53 percent of the same period in last fiscal year. The plan for the CPEC lays out that, thousands of acres of agricultural land will be leased out to Chinese enterprises to set up “demonstration projects” in areas ranging from seed varieties to irrigation technology. Ahmad Saleem a poor farmer stated “due to dearth of cold storage facilities available to the farmers, half of agricultural products go bad during harvesting and logistics, meaning 50% of produce never reaches the local markets, what to talk about exports.” Similarly another important aspect restricting high yields of agriculture produce in Pakistan are poor quality seeds. Khalid Mehmood a farmer from Punjab stated, “Expensive inputs like prices of fertilizers, fuel and electricity charges for agricultural purposes, the lack of provision of high quality disease-resistant seeds are chief reasons for low agriculture yields in Pakistan.” With the agriculture exchanges planned under CPEC, poor farmers will be equipped with modern technologies and modern techniques of farming and this will not only benefit the common farmer folk like Ahmad Saleem and Khalid Mehmood but will also help ensure food security at a macro level in Pakistan and in return bolstering agriculture exports of Pakistan. 

Recently various western media outlets have been propagating stories to spread ill will in Pakistan and abroad against the CPEC, but such stories are not garnering traction within societies because positive changes owed to the CPEC are being felt by the local populace of Pakistan and the Chinese. The local people in Gwadar are happy because of the developments in the region by Chinese companies. A security guard named Qadeer Hussain stated; “I have 5 children and because of the work under the CPEC now our community has a hospital which is catering to our health needs even small surgeries and emergency cases are being treated, right next to the same hospital the Chinese people have also built a primary where my children get to study in new classrooms with freshly painted desks.” Similar stories to Qadeer Hussain’s and  praises for the CPEC are reverberating through the areas where work on the CPEC is underway, construction workers and even engineers working alongside the Chinese are benefiting from learning to man new technologies and equipment plus gaining knowledge of new techniques for executing mega projects.  Similarly the economy of Xinjiang region in China is also witnessing positive change. The Chinese people are benefiting from the open trade. People of Xinjiang now have access to deep sea food from the Arabian Sea, as it now takes 34 hours for fresh sea food to reach Xinjiang from Gwadar. Sixteen types of deep-sea edibles items including lobsters and black sea bass are now being supplied to Xinjiang via the route of the CPEC. 

Among the examples of advancements and benefits, Alipay is another major change which the people of Pakistan are going to benefit from. There are no secure online payments platforms like that of Alipay and Paypal in Pakistan. It is expected that soon Alipay will be launched in Pakistan, thus bringing a revolutionary change in the lives of the people. Apart from Alipay even work is underway to launch 5G telecommunication networks in Pakistan through Chinese companies, which will massively boost the communication infrastructure and services  in the country. 

Lastly apart from economic problems Pakistan has suffered immensely due to terrorism. The CPEC will help curb the menace of terrorism in the region as rising economic activities will create jobs. China has been busy in creating channels for peace to the region in tandem with the CPEC. Recently China initiated a trilateral Foreign Ministers Forum between China, Pakistan and Afghanistan. The forum has earned traction as it helped ease tensions between Pakistan and Afghanistan earlier this year. The next meeting of the forum is expected to be held by the end of this year. Mr. Wang Yi stated last week after his meeting with his Pakistani counterpart; “We have identified three priority areas which are strategic communication, security dialogue and practical cooperation. And on that basis we will work on the trilateral cooperation starting from the easier matters, and with a goal of establishing a new platform for regional cooperation.”

The CPEC has been termed as a game changer for Pakistan. For China it is important for invigorating economic development in its Western regions. The two countries have a lot to gain. After last week’s meeting between the two foreign ministers, the Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif’s statement clearly summarizes the Pakistani sentiments towards China and CPEC when he said, “China and Pakistan have enjoyed friendly relations based on history, mutual trust, equality, harmony, non-interference and common agenda of socioeconomic development, and the people thank China for the China-Pakistan-Economic Corridor (CPEC), a flagship project of One Belt One Road Initiative announced by President Xi Jinping.”

(Dr. Shafei Moiz Hali studied at George Mason University, Virginia, USA and specialized in the field of International Commerce and Policy. He did his PhD from Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China specializing in Chinese foreign policy focusing on the Belt and Road Initiative, security issues and energy issues. Currently Dr. Hali is an Assistant Professor with the Faculty of Contemporary Studies at the National Defence University (NDU), Islamabad, Pakistan.)