By Cameron Munter
The ‘One-Belt-One-Road’ initiative has the potential to have significant impact on both China and Pakistan.
If general impressions are to be believed, Chinese President Xi Jinping’s One-Belt-One-Road project—at least as it plays out in Pakistan and its neighborhood—is either a major step toward Chinese projection of power outside its borders, or an example of the importance of domestic constituencies in Chinese foreign policy. The first camp believes that the hesitancy and inherent conservatism of China is finally giving way to a more muscular and confident role, and that Chinese claims that its investment in infrastructure to its west and south is “win-win” for everyone is actually cover for a new manifestation of its global role. The latter believes that the foreign implications of the plan are secondary to the real issue on the Chinese leadership’s mind: the domestic Chinese economic transformation that will see cheap labor producing mass exports replaced by higher value-added production that depends on technological savvy and education.
On the other end of the One-Belt-One-Road project, in Pakistan for example, there is the prospect of an opening of an economy long stagnant, unleashing Pakistan’s potential in its labor force, accessibility of goods, and role in international trade. That, of course, is what the government of Prime Minister Sharif states, expecting that the 48 billion dollars expected to pour into infrastructure projects in Khyber Pakhtunkwa and Balochistan will transform the country, alleviating much of the poverty that has been increased by the violence and insecurity of recent decades. But it could in fact do no such thing. The economy of Pakistan has become more autarkic over time, as political elites defend their roles in traditional sectors like agriculture, textiles, and basic manufacturing, resisting the changes that have brought neighboring areas like Southeast Asia in to the world economy. Some suspect that the 48 billion, if steered toward political favorites and distributed in a non-transparent way, will simply reinforce the calcified system that favors traditional elites over innovation and flexibility.
Read the full story at The Diplomat