Along the rocky road of CPEC

The corridor called China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), often dubbed as a game changer for Pakistan, seems to be fraught with troubling tracks zigzagging along rocky, difficult paths. 

The project needs to be run in the most transparent manners so that the people of China and Pakistan know about terms of the projects. Contrary to this, the Pakistani government has been moving ahead on the project in the most suspicious manners clouding the public perceptions towards the project. 

In front of Chinese delegates, who are the smartest dealmakers on the earth, transparency would have helped the representatives of our side to be aware of pros and cons of deals. At least, in this world, nobody knows everything of all the things. We may know everything about something and something about everything. 

The first meaningful detail of CPEC emerged when the Senate learned that China would get 91 percent of the revenues to be earned from the Gwadar port and the remaining income – nine percent – would go to the Gwadar Port Authority. This arrangement would remain in place for 40 years. This dropped a bombshell on senators and the public at large, who felt just being robbed even before the start of the project. One senator pointed out India had struck a similar deal with China on easy terms. 

CPEC involves mega projects, which need months-long, if not years-long, planning, feasibility works and piloting, and all these well-established norms are being violated in the planning and execution of CPEC projects. Consider the project of the Lahore Orange Line Metro Train project where the National Engineering Services of Pakistan (Nespak) experts renegotiated with the Chines sides and succeeded in getting slashed Rs50 billion from the total project cost. Otherwise, the project had been signed and was at the execution stage when Nespak officials stepped in and got away with saving precious Rs50 billion. 

Now, we hear that Pakistan was pressed hard to surrender more concessions to the Chinese investors in certain projects at the 7th joint cooperation committee (JCC) meeting of CPEC. Of them, one is Diamer-Bhasha Dam, followed by Karachi-to-Peshawar railway line upgrade project, energy projects and industrial parks in different cities.   

A well-worded note for the anxious press crops should have been issued at the end of the JCC meeting. Now, through leaked minutes of the meeting, the press reported that Chines had come up with some hard terms, which Pakistan was reluctant to accept. Both sides also differed on the terms related to the Karachi-Peshawar railway line project, or the Main Line 1 project, besides the Karachi circular railway. The JCC meeting ended without signing the project documents. That is not bad. Striking a bad deal is worse than having no deal at all. 

CPEC is to remain in place for the years to come and it is prudent for both sides to inch towards the terms of reference carefully. An all win-win situation for China will also hurt the project. The corridor should have a win-win bargain for either side and for that it is necessary for the Chinese side to be considerate towards the taker – Pakistan.