FOCUS
President Xi Jingping is now-a-days is hosting China’s biggest summit of the year to showcase his ambitious concept of a new Silk route connecting Asia, Africa and Europe. Leaders of nearly two and a half dozen countries and senior delegates of many other countries are attending the Belt and Road (B&R) initiative meeting in Beijing.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, leading a high-powered delegation, including four provincial chief ministers, is representing Pakistan at the forum. The B&R initiative involving billions of dollars is enthusiastically welcomed by China’s friends but it has also raised eye-brows in China’s regional and global rivals.
Pakistan is the foremost beneficiary of the gigantic initiative because the much talked about China Pakistan Economic Corridor is the flagship project of this major infrastructure initiative.
The western nations have remained wary of the B&R project from the day one as they suspect that it is basically aimed at expanding China’s political, strategic and economic clout in the world. They have also cast doubts that whether this ambitious project linking a big part of the world through motley of roads, pipelines and railway tracks could be turned into a reality.
The western media has been running very critical commentaries on the project raising questions about the transparency in the execution of the project and has maintained that till now it is broad on ambition and short on specifics. It has also raised objections over some of the participants of the forum which according to it have very poor human rights record back in their countries.
Despite all these reservations, the western countries have tried not to miss out the opportunity to attend the summit. The United States, whose officials suspect that B&R initiative is basically one of the counter initiatives of China to its regional trade pacts, has also sent a delegation to the forum. Similarly other western countries like Britain, Germany, and Italy have also dispatched their delegates to the conference.
The biggest opposition to the Chinese initiative comes from India.
India, which faced a humiliating defeat in 1962 war with China, worries that the R&B initiative would cement Beijing’s dominance all over Asia. The main Indian concern, however, over the China’s infrastructure is CPEC and has repeatedly raised this issue with the Chinese authorities because the CPEC runs through Kashmir as well as in Gilgit-Baltistan, which New Delhi in its wishful think believes that would become part of India one day.
Indian foreign minister spokesman Gopal Baglay said that New Delhi supports intra-regional connectivity but the Pakistan end of the project commonly known as ‘One Belt One Road’ (OBOR) is a major problem for it.
“As far as OBOR is concerned,…our position is that since the so-called CPEC forms a part of OBOR, that is where our difficulty is. It passes or proposes to pass through what is sovereign Indian territory and we have made our views in this regard very, very clear to the Chinese side.”
Despite this bravado, there is a realization among Indian intelligentsia and media that since India’s own infrastructure is creaky and highly pathetic it is unwise to skip such a major infrastructure development project. It is apparently for this reason that India has sent a delegation, though a very low key, to the Beijing moot.
It is not just skeptical west and worried India which have sent their representatives to the Beijing meeting but several other countries which do not see eye-ball to eye-ball with China on a variety of issues are also attending the conference.
Japan, which rivals with China in developing and funding infrastructure projects in Asia, has also been represented at the forum. Even Vietnam, which has had very troubled relations with China, is represented by its president at the summit.
China, on its part, has maintained that it is a no-hold-barred initiative that could be joined by any country and rejected objections over the project as “misconceptions and outright lies”.
“We have said all along the Belt and Road is an open, inclusive initiative,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said recently. Beijing has extended invitation to all countries without any exception to join the initiative.
China’s ambassador to India Lup Zhaohui, who has also served as his country’s envoy in Pakistan, has told an Indian audience recently that B&R initiative was good for both countries. With regard to India’s objection to CPEC, Luo said his country has no intension to intervene in disputes between Islamabad and New Delhi.
It is not just China which tried to allay Indian’s apprehensions about CPEC but Pakistan, particularly Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, has repeatedly asked India to join the project in an effort to end poverty in the impoverished region.
The Chinese official media recently also ran commentaries to allay misconceptions about the project and took exception to western media attempt to draw an analogy between the Marshall Plan after the World War Two and OBOR.
“The Marshall Plan for post-World War II reconstruction in Europe was part of the Western attempts to contain the expansion of the Soviet Union. The Cold War mentality and bipolar structure, however, have found no resonance with the Belt and Road Initiative,” said a recent commentary ran by the Xinhua news agency. “China is by no means organising alliances to confront any other country. It aims at achieving the common development of all countries rather than seeking spheres of political influence.”
Moreover it said unlike the Marshall Plan, no political conditions have been imposed on participants in the initiative. “China has always advocated that countries should respect each other's rights to independently choose their own social system and development path.”
Pakistan is lucky to be the first to benefit from this gigantic initiative. There is almost a complete consensus in Pakistan on CPEC and it is well reflected through the composition of Pakistani delegation to the summit.
The most important thing for Pakistan is to maintain internal cohesion and political stability to ensure maximum exploitation of the benefits of this project. The primary responsibility for maintaining this cohesion rests on the government.
The government needs to keep close coordination and liaison with all stakeholders on important matters relating to CPEC and should have a robust mechanism to address the concerns of any of the stakeholders in a swift and effective manner. The Chinese initiative would turn out to be a real fate changer for Pakistan only if Pakistani leadership showed maturity to ensure stability in the country.
The writer is a senior based in Islamabad
