{"id":200610,"date":"2017-05-18T19:16:12","date_gmt":"2017-05-19T02:16:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/?p=200610"},"modified":"2018-10-29T09:00:19","modified_gmt":"2018-10-29T16:00:19","slug":"cpec-concerns-swell-long-term-plan-exposed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2017\/05\/cpec-concerns-swell-long-term-plan-exposed\/","title":{"rendered":"CPEC Concerns Swell After Long-term Plan Exposed"},"content":{"rendered":"

The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a key component of Xi Jinping’s ambitious 65-nation “One Belt, One Road” (OBOR) economic integration and development initiative<\/a>, has long been the target of criticism. Aside from the financial and political speed-bumps that have faced the OBOR as a whole<\/a>, another point of critique revolves around associated plans to build a port at Gwadar in Pakistan’s Balochistan province, the site of a long-running insurgency<\/a>; in addition to\u00a0proven security concerns<\/a>, local rights advocates view the project as a direct threat to the Baloch people<\/a>. India, meanwhile, opposes CPEC as it will pass through Pakistan-controlled Kashmir<\/a>, a region contested by New Delhi. Financial Times compares support and opposition to CPEC in Pakistan, much of the latter based on worries of colonialism by a new economic powerhouse: “The head of a large investment company in Pakistan says: ‘We have to be careful if we don\u2019t want this to turn into a repeat of the East India Company’ […].\u201d These concerns about a region with a significant and disastrous legacy of colonialism are not new<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This week, Pakistani newspaper Dawn reported a detailed summary of the leaked “Long-term Plan on CPEC,” which did little to appease concerns about the project<\/a>. The plan, which Dawn acknowledges in an addendum “is not a project document, rather it ‘delineates the aspirations of both sides’,”\u00a0<\/em>lays out associated projects that would have long-lasting impact on Pakistan’s surveillance, entertainment, agricultural, tourism, transportation, finance, and security situations.\u00a0At Quartz, Zheping Huang notes that CPEC “offers insights into what a new international trade order led by China might look like,” before offering a bulleted summary of the plan<\/strong><\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n