It is now way past time that the United States withdraws its opposition to the IP Pipeline from Iran to Pakistan and India. We are creating enemies for no gain. We could be creating friends.
And we quibble over fixing crumbling bridges.
China on road to economic turnaround
August 17, 2016
Shahbaz Bhatti - The perception that strength of a state can be gauged with the volume of its military might has become part of the past in the present world.
The economic stability has dominantly replaced this thousands of years of notion.
The more a state has economic stability the more it is strong.
China has emerged as a leading potential state who puts economic stability as the top priority for national strength.
China though surfaced as a state on the world horizon in 1949, a very little age, yet it soon after inception made economic stability as a yardstick to make the world powers realize
its undeniable presence as a nation.
Passing through a trail of achievements in diversified fields from strong national defence, information technology, construction, science and technology, education, medicine, etc.
to the present times, China has come up with an ambitious plan of economic revolution with the revival of Silk Road Economic Belt.
Purpose of this unparallel initiative is to economically rope in all states in major parts of the world particularly Asia, South Asia, South East Asia, Middle East, Africa and Turkey (the only gateway to Europe), Italy, Netherlands, Germany and Russia.
Drafted in 2013 by the Chinese President Xi Pinging, the Silk Road Economic Belt was aimed to revive the sleeping borders of China along the old Silk Route to connect the states in four continents of Asia, Middle East, Africa and Europe.
The coverage area of this mega initiative is Asia and Europe encompassing about 60 countries with an anticipated cumulative investment of $4 trillion or $8 trillion.
Under the project, the Chinese government has planned to vigorously develop land, air and sea routes by constructing railways as well as roads networks, new airports and sea ports in these countries.
Through sea routes like South China Sea, South Pacific Ocean and Indian Sea, China is going to connect the states that come along these water channels with the aim of investing and fostering collaboration in Southeast Asia, Oceania and North Africa.
The CPEC enjoys a pivotal position in the overall Silk Road Economic Belt.
The project starts from Chinese border to Pakistan’s sea waters using the existing Karakoram Highway and constructing a roads network connecting almost big trade zones of the country.
The infrastructure under the CPEC comprises projects of Gwadar port, roadways, railways, energy sector projects particularly renewable energy operations, science & technology, oil and gas pipelines as well as projects financing.
Initial estimates suggest that once completed, the CPEC would connect China to Asia, Middle East and rest of the western states with Pakistan being the main beneficiary.
Considered as the game changer in the region due to the Pakistan’s geographical location in South Asia and its decades old time-tested friendship with China, CPEC is destined to play as the main trade artery of the ‘Belt and Road’ project.
Similarly, Gwadar deep sea port, being the front gate to Middle East and Europe, is set to be equipped with the international trade and shipping facilities.
The port will develop multi-layer operational mechanisms to accommodate high class ships carrying upto 18,000 containers, transport 500 million cubic feet liquefied gas to Nawabshah through 711-kilometer long pipeline which would be part of the Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline.
The Chinese leadership specifically is according high importance to the CPEC as Pakistan is the core of its vision about peaceful economic revolution across the world.
Currently, the Chinese leadership is aggressively engaged in holding high profile meetings with the leaderships from across the world and summit level dialogues to enter billions of dollars trade and other agreements.
They term it a win-win situation for China and the states of South Asia, Southeast Asia, Middle East, Africa and Europe as it would trigger their economic activities, promote industries, create job markets and improve living standards of the people of these states.
The Chinese leadership believes in peaceful world economic revolution having no aggressive policies against any state across the world.
As part of this vision, the Chinese government in close collaboration with the provincial governments is exploiting all available options like holding of international trade expos, trade as well as cultural fairs, regional conferences, high profile seminars and increased government to government contacts.
Even many states especially from Central Asia have evinced interest to get connected with the CPEC to grab huge trade benefits out of the China’s international trade strategy.
More recently, the Beijing government in collaboration with the Yunnan provincial government has held the 6th China-South Asia Expo and the 24th Kunming Import and Export Fair in Kunming, the spring city of Yunnan province.
Multi-national companies, giant organizations and business groups from over 80 countries including Pakistan participated in this international event.
The Chinese government is using such events as potent tools to trigger economic activities not only for its own people but also all regional states and their over three billion population that constitute about 43 per cent of the whole world.
From Pakistan, over 200 individuals, business groups and government departments established their stalls of various products ranging from leather garments, traditional wooden furniture, textiles, marble, gyms, embroidery, etc.
China, by embarking on the Silk Road Economic Belt, has unfolded its mega but peaceful ambitions of economic progress engaging with the other regional states.
However, other economic powers of the other world bloc see this China-led economic paradigm change as a direct threat to their economic monopolies.
At this stage, Pakistan fortunately enjoys a pivotal geographical position in the region as it can play as an economic bridge between China and rest of the states particularly in Central Asia and Middle East.
The leaderships of both China and Pakistan are on the same page in terms of making economic progress.
Success lies only in turning this opportunity into economic turnaround.
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