Chinese President Xi Jinping launched the initiative in 2013.
China’s Belt and Road program has found new life in Pakistan with $ 11 billion in projects signed last month, spurred on by a former lieutenant-general who revived the infrastructure plan that has languished since the Prime Minister Minister Imran Khan took office two years ago.
Nations signed agreements on June 25 and July 6 for two $ 3.9 billion hydropower projects in the Pakistan-occupied Kashmir region and another to reorganize railways. Southeast Asian colonial era iron for $ 7.2 billion – the most expensive Chinese project in Pakistan.
Khan’s government appointed Asim Saleem Bajwa last year to head the Sino-Pakistan Economic Corridor Authority, which oversees more than $ 70 billion in projects ranging from power plants to highways.
He also joined Khan’s cabinet in late April, becoming one of more than a dozen former and current military officials holding important government posts as the military expands its influence in the country.
Chinese funding has helped rid Pakistan of an electricity deficit that prevented exporters from fulfilling orders and large cities without electricity for much of the day. However, the implementation of certain investments seems to have stalled since the coming to power of Khan, no new project being announced in 2018 and very few in 2019.
Since Chinese President Xi Jinping launched the initiative in 2013, the World Bank estimates that $ 575 billion in power plants, railways, roads, ports and other projects have been built or are in the works. in the whole world. Its progress has slowed recently, blamed on accusations that China is luring poor countries into debt traps for its own political and strategic gain.
“The reality is that much of CPEC, like the Belt and the Road in general, has been paralyzed,” said Jonathan Hillman, senior researcher at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, referring to the Sino economic corridor -Pakistani. Pakistan “is a flagship for China’s belt and road, so the need to show progress is even more important.”
In a tweet last month, Bajwa said that some critics had given the “false impression” that the CPEC had been slowed down. Not only has the pace of work on projects accelerated recently, but a lot of field work has been done to launch phase two of the project which also includes special economic zones to attract Chinese manufacturers, agriculture, science , technology and tourism, wrote.
“The Prime Minister has made great efforts,” Khan’s trade and investment advisor Abdul Razak Dawood said by telephone. “We think we need to get more and more hydroelectricity in our energy mix.”
A spokesman for the Bajwa office said he was not immediately available for comment.
Little progress
The Pakistani military is already responsible for securing all of the Beijing-funded projects scattered across the country, from the mountains near the Chinese border to the Gwadar desert where the Chinese operate a port. Its role has become even more important following the terrorist attacks on three projects linked to China in the past year.
“There is no doubt that the arrival of Prime Minister Khan has slowed the pace of CPEC projects,” said Mosharraf Zaidi, senior researcher at the Islamabad-based think tank, Tabadlab, and former senior adviser to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. . “The renewed energy and approval that we are seeing now is almost entirely due to the fact that the President has taken office and has been added to Prime Minister Khan’s office.”
Indeed, the capacity of Islamabad to honor its debts under the program is of increasing concern. The Center for Global Development has ranked Pakistan among eight countries facing potential debt sustainability issues as a result of the initiative. The country has to reimburse China more than double the amount it owes to the International Monetary Fund over the next three years, according to an IMF report last year.
For its part, Beijing says its projects in Pakistan have made significant progress over the past six years. “China strongly supports the development of CPEC and stands ready to work with Pakistan,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said at a regular press briefing in Beijing on July 7, adding that future cooperation will focus on social development, livelihoods, industry and agriculture in addition to building infrastructure.
Regional conflict
The hydroelectric projects are both based in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. India and Pakistan have fought three wars – two in Kashmir – and last year a terrorist attack in Jammu and Kashmir caused the most serious military escalation in more than a decade.
Kohala’s $ 2.4 billion hydroelectric project is under construction on the Jhelum River in Muzaffarabad, just 100 kilometers (62 miles) from where the two armies exchange gunfire. The Azad Pattan project – which will cost $ 1.5 billion – is being built on the same river.
“China and Pakistan could also upset India,” said Hillman. The two hydropower projects are in Kashmir, and the railway is part of a much longer and far-fetched plan to connect China and Pakistan by rail, also through occupied territory, said Hillman.
Several countries have had problems with belt and road projects or have had to revise their plans after complaints of corruption, padded contracts, heavy debts, environmental damage and dependence on labor Chinese work imported compared to local hires.
Pakistan has renegotiated plans to reorganize its old rail system from the British era. It was originally estimated at $ 8.2 billion, but has been reduced to $ 6.2 billion, according to the country’s Minister of Railways. The final amount is higher than the revised cost but remains $ 1 billion lower than this initial estimate.
The three new projects have been under discussion for some time before this month’s announcement.
“Although these are difficult projects to overcome compared to low hanging fruits like the coal and LNG electricity projects that were announced at the start of the Chinese funding projects,” said director Samiullah Tariq from research at Pakistan Kuwait Investment Company, “China. is a vital ally for Pakistan to continue growing.”
