aThe first flight landed on a fresh tarmac in Gwadar and was hailed by the Pakistani government as a step towards “progress and prosperity”. Built in Pakistan’s troubled Balochistan province, the newly opened airport, now the country’s largest, was a “symbol of cooperation between Pakistan and China,” said Defense Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif.
But the optics of this event told a different story. As the situation unfolded on January 20, the surrounding city of Gwadar was placed under strict security lockdown. And while several senior Pakistani government and military officials were in attendance, Chinese government officials were noticeably absent, even though China paid the $230 million cost to build the airport.
Gwadar is home to a Chinese-backed airport, deep-sea port and economic zone project, and is touted as the crown jewel of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), under which China will invest about $62 billion in infrastructure We are committed to building the project. It covers Pakistan’s cash-strapped airports, highways, railways, ports and power plants. CPEC began in 2015 as a flagship project of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, which aims to give China access to and influence over trade routes in Asia and Africa.
However, after a tumultuous decade, questions have arisen about the future of CPEC. In Pakistan’s impoverished Balochistan province, China has built an airport and controlled a deep-sea port, creating a full-blown security crisis and increasing tensions between the two countries.
The total unfulfilled promise to turn Gwadar into the “Dubai of Pakistan” has sparked intense anger among local residents against China, with China surrounding the city with high fences and dedicating it to Chinese workers. They have accused the country of turning the country into a kind of maximum-security prison with increased security. Checkpoints have been set up and police and military are present on the streets.
Among the projects in Gwadar that have sparked local backlash is a donkey slaughter plant, which is not yet operational, where up to 1 million donkeys imported from Africa are harvesting products containing ingredients for herbal medicine. He is to be killed for doing so.
Access to the sea is also restricted around the deep-sea port of Gwadar, which sends 90% of its profits to Chinese operators. Local fishermen say they are barely able to survive as they are no longer allowed to sail freely and their boats are attacked by security forces while out fishing.
“We have lost the entire ocean,” said Papa Karim, a 70-year-old fisherman. “When I go fishing, I feel like I’m a thief and I’m hiding. The sea no longer belongs to the fishermen, it belongs to the Chinese people.”
CPEC has made enemies with many terrorist organizations in Pakistan, including the Islamic State and the Pakistani Taliban. The Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), a regional separatist armed group, has launched a violent campaign to stop the escalating CPEC, accusing China of exploiting the region’s resources. In October, the BLA was involved in a terrorist attack that killed two Chinese nationals near Karachi airport, and before that it carried out several suicide bombings and gunfire attacks that killed both Chinese and Pakistani nationals.
The safety of Chinese workers has been a major hurdle for CPEC, with Chinese officials saying the second phase of the project has not yet begun and that some of the 26 projects currently underway will be scaled back from their original plans. He said there is a possibility. China is withdrawing large numbers of its labor force from Pakistan, and now the arrival of Chinese nationals in Gwadar will result in a military-level security shutdown.
In an interview in Islamabad, China’s political secretary for Pakistan, Wang Shengjie, offered an unusually candid criticism of Pakistan over the threats facing CPEC and the future of China’s multibillion-dollar investments in the country. expressed serious concerns.”
“If security is not improved, who will come to work in this environment?” There is hatred against Chinese people in Gwadar and Balochistan,” he said. “Some evil forces are opposed to CPEC and are trying to sabotage it.”
Analysts say some of CPEC’s biggest economic and security failures lie with Pakistan. In Pakistan, policymakers have pushed projects that make little economic sense onto China without providing the necessary infrastructure, meaning the public is struggling to understand the benefits of Chinese investment. I am doing it. In electricity and water.
Shengjie accused the Pakistani government of using “false rhetoric” regarding CPEC projects and giving unrealistic expectations to local residents. “We don’t work with fancy words like Pakistan. We only focus on development,” he said. “If this security situation continues, development will be hampered.”
There are also long-standing concerns that the real motivation behind Chinese investment may be military-strategic rather than economic. Many wonder why Gwadar, a city of about 150,000 people, with the majority living below the poverty line, would need Pakistan’s largest airport. Locally, people started calling it the commercial “white elephant”. The deep-sea port has also proven to have little commercial value since China took control of the port, with data showing only a small number of commercial ships have been unloaded at the port in the past five years. It is shown that most of the cargo was only transported on its way to Afghanistan. According to one Gwadar official, it is currently operating at a loss.
Several Pakistani officials working on CPEC in Gwadar told Observer that their experiences had led them to believe that the project was not a purely commercial endeavor on the Chinese side. Rather, it was widely assumed that China ultimately intended to use the deep-sea port as a strategic military base for its navy and the airport as a military resource.
Pakistani officials working with the Chinese side at the highest levels said on condition of anonymity that the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) troops could be sent to Pakistan to protect Chinese workers from attacks and protect the Chinese navy. He acknowledged that this is a “long-standing request from China.” Ships and submarines will be able to access Gwadar port.
“China wants to station the People’s Liberation Army to protect workers in CPEC-related projects. Moreover, they want to have Gwadar port for their navy. Gwadar airport is also related to this demand. “There are,” said a senior official.
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Officials acknowledged that Beijing has recently stepped up pressure on these strategic demands as Pakistan’s security situation becomes more precarious and China is “frustrated” with delays in CPEC. Ta.
They alleged that the Chinese government tried to corner Pakistan by threatening not to roll over loan payments or withhold future investments in CPEC if it did not materialize. This will be a serious blow to Pakistan. Pakistan continues to struggle with a devastating economic crisis and has few other sources of foreign exchange and investment.
China’s alleged ambitions to use CPEC projects for strategic military purposes have been a long-standing concern for both India and the United States, which view China as a direct security threat. The US government has expressed particular concern that Chinese investments in Pakistan “could be used for coercive influence.”
According to people with direct knowledge of the matter, what ensured that certain deals with China did not go through, such as the acquisition of a majority stake in Pakistan’s power company K Electric by a major Chinese state-owned power company, It was behind-the-scenes pressure from the United States.
Pakistan still appears to be struggling to balance its deep dependence on China for CPEC with its desire to maintain ties with the United States. In a move sure to infuriate Beijing, Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi, during a visit to the United States last week to drum up support for the Donald Trump administration, announced that I had a meeting with
Uzair Yunus, head of the Asia Group, said Pakistan “does not want to go down the path of a Chinese military presence unless it has no choice at all.”
“Pakistan is particularly mindful of the potential consequences of making its relations more hostile with the United States,” he said. “However, if China is really pursuing military bases, there is a non-zero possibility that they will do so in the future.”
Both military and government officials denied that any agreement had been reached allowing CPEC to be used for Chinese military-strategic purposes. Planning and Development Minister Ahsan Iqbal denied such an idea was being discussed. He said the recently signed joint security agreement between Pakistan and China was only about coordination and information sharing and did not mean that Chinese troops would be deployed on the ground. “I have never heard of China requesting Pakistan to bring in its security forces or the People’s Liberation Army. Such requests are not being considered. Chinese security forces will not come to Pakistan.” said Iqbal.
Nevertheless, the Pakistani government, led by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, is currently considered to be in a very vulnerable position in negotiations with China. Sharif gained little from his trip to China last year, with Pakistan’s request for an additional $17 billion for Chinese energy infrastructure projects receiving a lukewarm response in Beijing.
However, Asfandyar Mir, senior South Asia planning expert at the US Institute of Peace, said that while China may have scaled back its CPEC ambitions, it has no intention of fully withdrawing from Pakistan, which remains important to its geopolitical strategy. He said there was little room for doubt. .
“The Chinese now have very large interests in Pakistan,” Mir said. “They can’t afford not to make it work.”
