CPEC - Pakistan At The Heart Of China

CONNECTING TO THE WORLD - CONVERGENCE OF CIVILIZATIONS

PREAMBLE

The current century presents a plethora of strategic opportunities for Pakistan, if Islamabad knows how to pluck the low-hanging fruit and take the initiative. The steady development of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is making the country ever more attractive for a wide variety of international partners, some of which have traditionally been aligned with Pakistan, and others which are entirely new and unprecedented. No matter which of the two categories these states fall under, it’s evident that they’re all interested in taking advantage of this game-changing series of infrastructure projects. Never has China had a reliable overland trade corridor to the Indian Ocean, and this in turn opens a wide range of options for the People’s Republic and its economic partners. Moreover, the eventual completion of CPEC will allow Russia and the landlocked states of Central Asia to more easily conduct commerce with the broader Indian Ocean Region, thereby leading to the creation of previously uncharted trade routes which will invigorate each set of partners and profit the irreplaceable transit state of Pakistan. In terms of the bigger picture, each crisscrossing network of economic connections in one way or another is expected to pass through Pakistan by means of CPEC, thereby empowering Islamabad to leverage its crucial geostrategic position in pursuit of its national interests. 

The convergence of so many diverse civilizational actors – including Europeans, Russians, Turks, Arabs, Iranians, Chinese, and Africans – in one state is made possible by Beijing’s One Belt One Road vision of global connectivity as manifested through CPEC, and it accordingly allows for Pakistan to mediate over a dialogue of civilizations in the 21st century. This is a pivotal role of the utmost importance and highest responsibility, and it has the very real potential of transforming Pakistan from a regional leader to a hemispheric Great Power within the next decade. This analysis will thus explore the way in which this grand strategy can be actualized, sequentially describing the overall concept, the various civilizational-connectivity channels, and the challenges that Pakistan can expect to face. 

FRAME OF REFERENCE 

The economic attractiveness of CPEC serves as an irresistible magnet for all sorts of various actors to utilize its infrastructural connectivity in facilitating their trade objectives, whether it’s enhancing bilateral trade with China such as the EU, Mideast, and African states may naturally be interested in, or in acquiring a convenient outlet to the Indian Ocean such as what Russia and the Central Asian republics desire. The convergence of so many civilizational forces in Pakistan will propel the South Asian state to worldwide importance by gifting its leaders with the impressive potential to serve as the common middle ground between each of them, both literally in terms of CPEC connectivity and figuratively as it relates to the broader dialogue of civilizations concept. The latter objective is wholly dependent on the former, meaning that Pakistan is unlikely to bring together a wide array of hemispheric interests and actors if the CPEC project isn’t completed or is severely undermined after the fact. Conversely, the completion of CPEC will enable Pakistan to do just that, which thus propels the country’s significance to global heights. The second and largest part of this research will describe the different connectivity channels that CPEC opens between Pakistan and the rest of Afro-Eurasia, but at this point a lot more needs to be said about the grand strategy behind this exciting endeavor. 

Once CPEC becomes fully operational, Pakistan will unofficially become China’s most important gateway to the rest of the world. Although the People’s Republic currently engages in a staggering amount of trade with each of its countless partners, the clear majority of this is conducted via maritime routes which traverse the bottlenecked chokepoint of the Strait of Malacca and the contentious waters of the South China Sea, both of which are uncomfortably vulnerable to an American blockade or similar sort of interference in the event of a conflict between the two Great Powers. It’s mostly for this reason and due to the foresight of Chinese strategists that Beijing decided to pioneer an overland trade route to the Indian Ocean through CPEC, relying on its decades-long and all-weather friendship with Pakistan to make this a reality. 

PERCEPTIBLE ADVANTAGES

Upon completion, CPEC will make Pakistan the most reliable, cost-effective, and fastest route for carrying out trade with China. It’s a much shorter voyage for ships to travel to Gwadar than it is to Guangzhou, and once goods are unloaded at the Arabian Sea port, they can quickly be spirited northwards to the Chinese border and enter the People’s Republic in record time. By cutting days off the journey and avoiding the possibility of unwanted American naval interference, CPEC is a priceless gift to each of China’s partners and is expected to become one of the most widely utilized overland trade routes in the world. As CPEC becomes more popular, Pakistan naturally becomes more important, and this provides the country with the chance to take on expanded leadership responsibilities in Afro-Eurasia. Understanding that international trade facilitation between China and each of its partners will become the backbone of Pakistan’s future strategic significance to the rest of the world, the government should take the initiative to host CPEC trade fairs in Gwadar as a means of showcasing its newfound logistical importance. These gatherings could be jointly organized by Pakistan and China’s relevant ministries, and they’d serve the purpose of incentivizing more companies to use this route as additional infrastructure comes online to make it more attractive. Hand in hand with promoting CPEC, Pakistan could also work on an ambitious public relations campaign to rebrand its image by associating itself more closely with this project. If done properly, then this could dramatically reverse the soft power losses that Pakistan suffered across the past two decades when the Western Mainstream Media relentlessly waged information warfare against the country. 

The ideal goal should be for Gwadar to host regular trade fairs and socio-cultural events which culminate in a big-ticket yearly meeting akin in esteemed importance to the Shangri-La Dialogue, except focusing on participation from each of the regional actors most likely to partake in CPEC. Given the overt economic focus of CPEC, this prospective headline-grabbing meeting could market itself on bringing together distinguished representatives from relevant institutional actors such as the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO), the EU, the Eurasian Union, GCC, SAARC, the East African Community, and other ‘non-aligned’ forces such as China, Iran, and Ethiopia, for example. Building off the common denominator of multilateral trade facilitation through CPEC, the attendees at the “Gwadar Gathering” could then expand upon the subject of conversation to more broadly include security, civilizational, and strategic topics as well, which could thus allow for non-CPEC-participating countries such as India and the US to also take part in this meeting. 

CPEC-CHINA

The initial purpose behind CPEC was to provide China with a reliable overland access route to the Indian Ocean by means of its close Pakistani ally, thereby easing the physical, financial, and strategic costs of trade with its European, Mideast, and East African partners per the reasons that were discussed at the beginning of this analysis. CPEC has been developing at a very fast pace, especially the work that’s been done in Gwadar, and the project is already operational despite not being fully completed. As it stands, this is the first of China’s many Silk Road projects to be open for business, even if it’s only partially online now. The reason why this is so important to draw attention to is because Beijing hopes to eventually construct two additional mainland trade routes across Eurasia to link the People’s Republic more directly with its European, Russian, and Mideast partners. These are the Eurasian Land Bridge across Russia and an envisioned high-speed railroad across Central Asia to Iran and inevitably to Turkey and further afield to the EU (via the Balkans). Neither of these has made as much progress as the One Belt One Road’s flagship project of CPEC, and there’s no telling when they’ll ever be fully constructed. The Eurasian Land Bridge is the most spoken about and seriously considered of the two trans-continental routes under consideration, but even this landmark effort of the Russian-Chinese Strategic Partnership is still far from becoming a reality anytime soon. Moreover, both the Eurasian Land Bridge and the prospective Rimland Railroad between China and the EU (by means of Iran, Turkey, and the Balkans) are fraught with significant Hybrid War risks and political sensitivities in the era of the New Cold War, and a multitude of scenarios could arise whereby these routes are either ultimately unconstructed, rendered inoperable, and/or anxiously avoided for one reason or another. There’s no doubt that CPEC will remain the premier New Silk Road project for the foreseeable future, and in the absence of large-scale trading across the Northern Sea Route (which itself is dependent on unpredictable environmental and political conditions), it might even be the only feasible non-Malacca maritime trade route to China for its Eastern Hemispheric partners. Conceptually speaking, CPEC can be likened to the jugular vein of Afro-Eurasian integration, and it’s expected to be a vital driving force of the emerging Multipolar World Order. At the same time, however, the project’s unrivaled geostrategic significance makes it an irresistible target of subterfuge, which will be touched upon in the third and final section of this research. This is important to keep in mind as all the subsequent CPEC connectivity channels and resultant convergence of civilizations would disappear if the endeavor itself was put into serious jeopardy by joint US-Indian covert efforts. Therefore, whether it’s consciously recognized or not now, the long-term viability of the EU, Mideast, and East Africa’s trade with China is in danger if Washington and New Delhi ramp up their destabilization efforts against Pakistan. This is a highly sensitive political point which may not ever be publicly stated but must nevertheless be discretely conveyed to each of these stakeholders sooner than later so that they can properly comprehend the risks that their American and Indian ‘partners’ are irresponsibly creating for them. The same goes for Russia and Central Asia, which obviously wouldn’t use CPEC to further their trade with adjacent China, but rather to gain direct access to the wider Indian Ocean Region marketplace. 

REFLECTIONS 

CPEC is the cornerstone of China’s One Belt One Road global vision of infrastructure connectivity and its conception of 21st-century multipolarity, and it’s not an exaggeration to state that it’s one of the most important game-changing projects to ever be attempted in history. Even looking solely at its bilateral Chinese-Pakistani implications, CPEC is an historic expansion of Beijing’s influence into South Asia and an unprecedented direct gateway to the broader Indian Ocean Region. It essentially nullifies the strategic utility of the US’ “Pivot to Asia” by reducing China’s dependency on the South China Sea and Strait of Malacca, both of which Washington has feverishly tried to turn into geopolitical traps for blackmailing Beijing. Proverbially speaking, all that meticulous planning and billions of dollars of military-strategic investments could go out the window with CPEC, which is why Washington is so furious with the project and decided to team up with New Delhi – which is equally aggravated for its own hyper-nationalist reasons – to try and undermine this corridor through the unconventional means of proxy warfare. All of this is being done because of the immediate impact that CPEC has on strengthening Chinese-Pakistani relations and Beijing’s strategic presence in the Indian Ocean Region, but the US and India also have more far-reaching goals in mind. It’s clear that CPEC’s full completion will propel Pakistan into becoming the most important transit state in the world due to its role in facilitating China’s trade with the EU, Mideast, and East Africa, as well as Russia and the Central Asian republics’ trade with the “Global South”. As such, a diverse variety of civilizational representatives and interests will be traversing across Pakistan, thereby making the country the focal point for the convergence of civilizations in the 21st century. No other place in the world is poised to fulfill such a role on the level that Pakistan is, as it’s truly becoming the zipper not just of pan-Eurasian integration, but of Afro-Eurasian integration as well due to the functionality that CPEC will have in enhancing Chinese-African trade. If properly utilized, the coming years can become a godsend for Pakistan by assisting in its transformation from a regional leader to a hemispheric and potentially even globally influential Great Power, provided of course that Islamabad is keen enough to promote the convergence of civilizations which is destined to take place on its territory. No other state except for Russia comes close to matching Pakistan’s capabilities in managing a dialogue of civilizations, as Moscow lacks the positive historic relations with the Mideast and East Africa that Islamabad has, though it admittedly makes up for it with its long-held ties to Europe and Central Asia. However, while Russia has certainly become a powerful force in the Mideast over the past couple of years and especially through its recent Tripartite partnership with Turkey and Iran, it’s a one-way street in the sense that Moscow’s influence is entering the region but not the other way around (although that’s not necessarily a bad thing), and it still has yet to revive its Soviet-era ties with Africa (if ever). On the other hand, although Pakistan doesn’t immediately seem to have much in common nowadays with the EU, Russia, and Central Asia, these three regions will naturally be drawn to it by Pakistan’s strategic geography through CPEC, thereby bringing their representatives and interests into contact with those from China, the Mideast, and East Africa. The brilliance behind Beijing’s project is that it basically serves as a convenient 21st-century superhighway for facilitating trade between the rest of the world and China, which translates in practical terms to Pakistan becoming the geographic bridge economically connecting these civilizations together.