The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor

The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) offers a massive platform for China and Pakistan to promote regional connectivity, trade growth, and infrastructure development. Pakistan views CPEC not only as an infrastructure and economic development program as well as a key initiative with wide-ranging implications for the country’s domestic economy and social makeup, but also a potential “game changer” in the regional situation. However, this project also faces grave internal and external challenges, such as route controversy, militancy, religious extremism, competing narratives, media propaganda, debt-trap accusation, and synergy of institutions. To make CPEC a sustainable project that benefits Pakistan and the whole of South Asia in the long run, both the Chinese and Pakistani governments need to address these challenges through greater transparency of the CPEC projects, as well as more consultation with all stakeholders involved, so as to ease their concerns about the profound implications of the grand project.