China sustained economic growth in Asian
countries and to sustain economic growth translate into assertiveness of its
role in the world, economic corridor can enhance the economic growth of china and
it international trade and its investment increase, The theme engages scholars with a significant
ability to connect with China’s leadership and policymakers to ensure that the
resulting research embeds a relevant Chinese perspective.
In the Pakistani province
of Balochistan, South Asia and central Asia bleed into the Middle East.
Bordered by Afghanistan, Iran and the Persian Gulf, and well endowed with oil,
gas, copper, gold and coal reserves, Balochistan is a rich prize that should
have foreign investors battering at the gates. But for a half-century it has
been the exclusive playground of the Pakistani government and its state-owned
Chinese partners. China would prefer it to stay that way.
China is Pakistan's oldest
military, political and geographical
ally, due to geographical importance of Pakistan it place vital role to
trade South Asia and central Asia bleed
into the Middle East. Bordered by Afghanistan, Iran and the Persian Gulf, but in the last two decades it is the economic
component of the alliance that has taken center stage. Pakistan, and in
particular Balochistan, is China's physical link to its sizable investments in
Iranian gas, Afghan hydropower and Gulf oil. Explains Andrew Small, a fellow at
the German Marshall Fund, the Sino-Pak relationship "matters more now, because
of India's economic growth. Pakistan being a trade and energy corridor means
that possible pipelines and projects [in Pakistan] have a strategic
significance beyond the specific investments." Chinese control of
Pakistan's commodities corridor can "bind India down in South Asia,
restricting its capacity to operate elsewhere."
According to the Pakistani
government, Chinese companies have poured at least $15 billion into Baloch
projects: an oil refinery, copper and zinc mines and a deepwater port at Gwadar,
in the Gulf of Oman. "They wanted Gwadar to be another Dubai," says
Khurram Abbas, the port's managing director, "to capture the transit trade
with countries that are landlocked, like Afghanistan, and to encourage
transshipment trade from the Persian Gulf to East Africa."
China's Tianjin Zhongbei
Harbor Engineering has invested $200 million to build the first three berths
and plans to invest a total of $1.6 billion to expand the port in the future.
But business at Gwadar has been slow. Though the three berths have the capacity
to handle $2 billion worth of cargo a year, the port saw only $700 million in
2009. "The challenge," says Abbas, "is that Gwadar is not yet
linked to the rest of the country. The government was supposed to provide road
connectivity. Without roads there can be no commercial activity [in
Balochistan]. And we need commercial activity, investors to set up factories
around Gwadar, to get cargo for the port."
China is taking matters
into its own hands, starting to build a highway from Gwadar to the capital of
Balochistan, Quetta, on the Afghan border, where it will connect to Pakistan's
national highway network, and from there to the Karakoram Highway that leads
into China. China's Harbor Engineering Corps is also working on a new airport
at Gwadar, due to open in 2013.
Infrastructure is not the
only challenge that Chinese investors in Balochistan face. The province is a
key battleground in the wars currently threatening Pakistan. Quetta is rumored
to be hiding wanted leaders from the Afghan Taliban. Small towns in the Baloch
heartland, meanwhile, are a launchpad for a decades-old separatist movement
that capitalizes on populist resentment of federal agencies and foreign
investment.
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