CPEC: China, Pakistan try to rope in the Taliban to check Baluch terrorists
Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: To prevent Baluch terrorists from attacking the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and its mouth, the Gwadar Port, Beijing, and Islamabad are trying to persuade the Taliban-ruled Afghanistan to join the USD 62 billion bilateral flagship project of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
China and Pakistan are also trying to prevent the Taliban from potentially attacking the Uyghur Muslim-dominated Xinjiang Province.
While the Taliban-supported Tahreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has been attacking the Pakistani Army to wrest the country’s areas bordering Afghanistan, the Baluch terrorist groups opposing the CPEC and demanding independence from Pakistan have killed several Chinese and Pakistanis in recent attacks in the areas close to Gwadar Port and also in Karachi.
Clearly, worried Islamabad and Beijing think the situation might improve if they could rope in the Taliban fighters in the CPEC project to counterbalance the TTP and Baluch terrorists.
With these objectives, China and Pakistan, on Friday, welcomed “any third country” joining the CPEC for mutually beneficial cooperation.
They know India will not join it as it has protested to China over the CPEC’s passing through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (CPEC). The “any third country” is, therefore, Afghanistan.
They launched the CPEC in 2015 to increase connectivity between Pakistan and China by building roads, energy projects, and industrial zones in Pakistan. Originally valued at USD 46 billion, the projects were worth USD 62 billion as of 2017, and their costs have increased.
The third meeting of the CPEC Joint Working Group on International Cooperation and Coordination (JWG-ICC) was held through video conferencing. It was co-chaired by Pakistan’s Foreign Secretary Sohail Mahmood and China’s Assistant Foreign Minister Wu Jianghao, according to a statement by the Foreign Office in Islamabad.
During the meeting, the two sides reviewed the continued implementation of the CPEC and its expansion to jointly agreed on priority areas. They claimed it had broken new ground in strengthening international and regional connectivity, especially in its extension to Afghanistan.
As an ‘open and inclusive’ platform, they welcomed ‘interested third parties’ to benefit from avenues for mutually beneficial cooperation by CPEC. With this, they are wooing Kabul to join the essentially bilateral project, which will benefit Pakistan.
They also claimed the CPEC’s development had reached a new point, with increasing emphasis on high-quality development of industry, agriculture, IT, and science and technology while ensuring tangible socio-economic benefits for the people.
Foreign Secretary Mahmood underscored the centrality of the time-tested all-weather strategic cooperative partnership between the two countries in Pakistan’s foreign policy.
Manifesting the historic choice of both countries and peoples, the vitality and dynamism of the CPEC reflected the deep-seated mutual goodwill that lay at the heart of the bilateral relationship, he said.
He said the timely completion of CPEC projects and steady progress on realizing important projects in the pipeline energized bilateral cooperation, strengthened the foundation for Pakistan’s economic modernization, and enhanced the capacity for sustained progress and prosperity.
