China-Pakistan economic corridor
Beijing seeks to gain access to natural resources and open new markets and therefore, it has made extensive infrastructure investments throughout the African continent
Ajmal Sohail
Chinas ambitious global geo-political objective has raised concern among American strategists, which China attempts to Isolate America at the global level. The claim has become more evident during the G20 summit when China curbed president Trump effort to pass a joint declaration in order to condemn North Koreas recent ICBM test.
Newly, the Pentagon alleged China and there was also a pop up in the main stream media indicating that China has stationed several thousand troops in Pakistan most probably at the Gwadar Port, in order to establish counter balance for Americas strategic partner India and America itself. Gwadar Port is a warm-water, deep-sea port situated on the Arabian Sea at Gwadar in Baluchistan the socalled province of Pakistan. For instance, thousands of acres of agricultural land will be leased out to Chinese enterprises to set up demonstration projects in areas ranging from seed varieties to irrigation technology. A full system of monitoring and surveillance will be built in cities from Peshawar to Karachi, with 24 hour video recordings on roads and busy marketplaces for law and order. A national fibreoptic backbone will be built for the country not only for internet traffic, but also terrestrial distribution of broadcast TV, which will cooperate with Chinese media in the dissemination of Chinese culture. The plan envisages a deep and broad-based penetration of most sectors of Pakistans economy as well as its society by Chinese enterprises and culture. Its scope has no precedent in Pakistans history in terms of how far it opens up the domestic economy to participation by foreign enterprises. In some areas the plan seeks to build on a market presence already established by Chinese enterprises, eg Haier in household appliances, ChinaMobile and Huawei in telecommunications and China Metallurgical Group Corporation (MCC) in mining and minerals.
In other cases, such as textiles and garments, cement and building materials, fertiliser and agricultural technologies (among others) it calls for building the infrastructure and a supporting policy environment to facilitate fresh entry. A key element in this is the creation of industrial parks, or special economic zones, which must meet specified conditions, including availability of waterperfect infrastructure, sufficient supply of energy and the capacity of self service power, according to the plan.
But the main thrust of the plan actually lies in agriculture, contrary to the image of CPEC as a massive industrial and transport undertaking, involving power plants and highways. The plan acquires its greatest specificity, and lays out the largest number of projects and plans for their facilitation, in agriculture.
Enterprises entering agriculture will be offered extraordinary levels of assistance from the Chinese government. They are encouraged to [m]ake the most of the free capital and loans from various ministries of the Chinese government as well as the China Development Bank. The plan also offers to maintain a mechanism that will help Chinese agricultural enterprises to contact the senior representatives of the Government of Pakistan and China.
The government of China will actively strive to utilize the national special funds as the discount interest for the loans of agricultural foreign investment. In the longer term the financial risk will be spread out, through new types of financing such as consortium loans, joint private equity and joint debt issuance, raise funds via multiple channels and decentralise financing risks.
According to the Pentagon reports, China has also dispatched troops to the Wakhan district of Badakhshan province of Afghanistan to safe guard its bordering areas alongside Afghanistan. Furthermore, the Indian security agencies have suspected China attempts to encircle India, the reports designates, that Beijing has also taken over some ports in Sri-Lanka, Bangladesh and Myanmar to embroil India and possibly America; the claims were later declined by the Chinese authorities.
According to the Chinas defense ministry statement, the country sent off troops to its overseas naval base in Djibouti. This is being seen as a major step forward for the countrys expansion of its military presence abroad.
The base will ensure Chinas performance of missions, such as escorting, peace-keeping and humanitarian aid in Africa and West Asia. It will also be conducive to overseas tasks, including military cooperation, joint exercises, evacuating and protecting overseas Chinese and emergency rescue, as well as jointly maintaining security of international strategic seaways.
Chinese troops are stationed just a few miles from Camp Lemonnier, the only permanent US base in Africa. The US Department of Defense had stated that the base, along with regular naval vessel visits to foreign ports, echoes and intensifies Chinas growing influence. Beijing seeks to gain access to natural resources and open new markets and therefore, it has made extensive infrastructure investments throughout the African continent.
The writer is co-founder of Counter Narco-Terrorism Alliance Germany
