Roving Periscope: Now, CPEC is a ‘white elephant’ for both China and Pakistan!
Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: Once touted as Pakistan’s Khul Ja Simsim (Open Sesame) kind of golden future, the USD 60 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) may have turned into a white elephant for both the ‘all-weather-friends’. While Beijing has adopted a go-slow policy. Islamabad is worried that the ultra-ambitious project might threaten the country’s unity.
Despite eight years of development, neither country has earned revenue from it.
That is why it is running behind schedule with only three of its 15 projects completed, the media reported. A dozen projects worth up to USD 2 billion remain unfinished. They include water supply and electricity generation, according to The Express Tribune report.
Until now, Pakistan could complete only three of the CPEC projects, worth about USD million, in Gwadar, where the Baluchistan Liberation Army (BLA), demanding separation of the country’s largest province, has gained support. Recently, a woman Baluch suicide bomber killed some Chinese nationals in Karachi for which the BLA took responsibility.
The CPEC is a 3,000-km long route of infrastructure projects connecting China’s northwest Xinjiang Province (the Muslim-dominated Uyghur Autonomous Region), and the Gwadar Port in western Pakistan’s province of Baluchistan. This is the flagship project of the much larger Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a USD 200 billion mammoth plan for three continents.
Since the CPEC passes through the Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK), India has strongly protested against China.
Since 2020, the outbreak of Covid-19 has slowed down overall progress on the BRI, including the CPEC. Suspecting Beijing’s role in the global pandemic, some countries are reconsidering participation or pressing for dilution of terms and conditions. Looking at Sri Lanka’s economic crisis and political instability, they are also cautious of China’s debt traps.
According to reports, the CPEC Authority in Pakistan has admitted that all works relating to the socio-economic benefits in Gwadar were running behind schedule.
The three completed projects are the Gwadar Smart Port City Master Plan (USD 4 million), Physical Infrastructure of Gwadar Port, construction of Free Zone Phase-1 (USD 300 million), and the Pakistan-China Technical and Vocational Institute (USD 10-million).
At present, the Gwadar port area does not even have its own power generation and water supply sources and imports electricity from neighboring Iran.
The CPEC includes laying pipelines from Swad Dam and Shadi Kure Dam with a capacity of 5 million and 2.5 million gallons per day, respectively. However, these works are far from completion.
Last month, Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal announced the scrapping of the CPEC Authority, saying it was a “redundant organization” that wasted resources and thwarted the speedy implementation of the regional connectivity program.
Pakistan had also planned to set up a 300 megawatts (MW) Gwadar power plant to provide home-based electricity. But it completed hardly 3 percent of work.
They marred the power project with problems because of the PTI government’s failure to clear Rs 300 billion dues of those Chinese power plants that were already in operation. It led to the closure of 1,980MW Chinese IPPs, which was unthinkable till a few months ago.
