Third World Quarterly

ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ctwq20

All geopolitics is local: the China–Pakistan

Economic Corridor amidst overlapping
centre–periphery relations

Pascal Abb

To cite this article: Pascal Abb (2023) All geopolitics is local: the China–Pakistan Economic
Corridor amidst overlapping centre–periphery relations, Third World Quarterly, 44:1, 76-95,
DOI: 10.1080/01436597.2022.2128329

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/01436597.2022.2128329

© 2022 The Author(s). Published by Informa

UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis
Group.

Published online: 26 Oct 2022.

Submit your article to this journal

Article views: 3582

View related articles

View Crossmark data

Citing articles: 2 View citing articles

Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at

https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=ctwq20
Third World Quarterly
2023, VOL. 44, NO. 1, 76–95
https://doi.org/10.1080/01436597.2022.2128329

All geopolitics is local: the China–Pakistan Economic

Corridor amidst overlapping centre–periphery relations
Pascal Abb
Peace Research Institute Frankfurt (PRIF), Frankfurt, Germany

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

Pakistan occupies an elevated role in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) Received 11 January 2022
and hosts its so-called flagship project, the China–Pakistan Economic Accepted 20 September
Corridor (CPEC). Existing literature has often interpreted this project 2022
from a geopolitical perspective, as a vehicle through which a rising KEYWORDS
China projects influence on a peripheral country and advances its own CPEC
centrality in international affairs. While such motivations certainly Pakistan
played a major role in getting the project off the ground, they are not China
the sole determinant of its design, or the heated controversies it trig- centre–periphery relations
gered within Pakistan. This paper seeks to capture both dimensions infrastructure
by analysing the development of CPEC, and the handling of the con-
flicts it sparked, through a lens of overlapping centre–periphery rela-
tions: one between China and Pakistan at the international level, and
one between Islamabad and peripheral regions and groups within the
country. I argue that this model best captures the pivotal position and
resulting agency of national governments in shaping local BRI imple-
mentations. It also shows how the BRI is not a straight case of Chinese
influence radiating outwards; rather, contestation by local actors in
turn forces adaptations in Chinese foreign and security policy.

Introduction
China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is an issue that has seen no shortage of interest, partic-
ularly its heavily covered potential to transform geopolitics by tying smaller states into a
Chinese orbit (Blanchard and Flint 2017; Ferdinand 2016; Rolland 2017). This perspective,
which has dominated the early international literature on the BRI and its subsequent
perception, focuses mainly on Chinese agency and strategic intent behind the project –
specifically, the vision to rebuild a China-centric world order by infrastructural means, by
economically integrating smaller states with its vast market, and perhaps ultimately pulling
them into its political orbit (Callahan 2016; Rolland 2017, 131). More recently, attention has
shifted towards specific implementations and their impact on the ground, often in the form
of national-level case studies. Among these, Pakistan stands out as one of the first countries
to sign up to the BRI, and the location of its ‘flagship’ project, the China–Pakistan Economic
Corridor (CPEC). Pakistan has attracted the largest volume of investments under the BRI,

CONTACT Pascal Abb abb@hsfk.de

© 2022 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,
provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.
 Third World Quarterly 77

with more than 30 billion USD already spent as of the time of writing, and expected total
costs of over 60 billion (Scissors 2019; Small 2020). Its early phases have already seen major
upgrades to Pakistan’s connectivity and electricity generation capacity (M. Ali 2020).
Announced at a time of economic crisis, CPEC was hailed as a ‘game changer’ by the then-
government of Pakistan, an opportunity to move beyond aid dependency and embark on
a new, dynamic phase of industrial development (Markey 2020, 48; Wolf 2020, 79). Through
its economic benefits, CPEC was also expected to serve as a nation-building project (Ahmed
2019), bringing greater unity and stability to a country riven with violent tensions between
its diverse ethnic and religious constituencies.
However, the downside of CPEC quickly became visible in the form of political contro-
versies over the distribution of its projects and its transparency, accountability and deci-
sion-making authority (Abb, Swaine, and Jones 2021; Hameed 2018); concerns about the
future influence of China within the country (Hillman 2020, 147; Younus 2021); and violent
resistance by local insurgent groups, resulting in multiple attacks on Chinese project sites
and construction crews (M. Ali 2020; Small 2020). Economically, the viability of CPEC as a
corridor is questionable, as there is little complementarity between Pakistan and China’s
Xinjiang province (McCartney 2021, 86), overland trade is limited by the extremely challeng-
ing local geography (Garlick 2022, 38), and Chinese investors struggle with Pakistan’s alien
business environment, bureaucracy and governance shortcomings. Politically, CPEC has
contributed to centre–periphery tensions within the country and an erosion of trust in central
governing authorities among more peripheral communities (Boni and Adeney 2020). The
attempt to knit Pakistan’s national fabric closer together through the use of infrastructure
also produced new tears, which then had to be mended with an ad hoc political strategy,
and required direct Chinese involvement beyond China’s usual stance of ‘noninterference’.
This paper seeks to explain the evolution and impact of CPEC through a lens of centre–
periphery relations, ie asymmetric relationships in which a ‘centre’ holds a power advantage
over a ‘periphery’ and is able to exercise political, economic or ideational influence over it
(Galtung 1971). Such relationships can occur and overlap on two levels: one internationally,
and one within the peripheral country itself. In both relations, the respective ‘centres’ sought
to reorder political spaces by infrastructural means. However, these centralising visions could
not be simply imposed on a receptive (or captive) periphery, but required difficult negotia-
tions with local interests.
As will be shown, this led to significant changes not just in the original designs, but also
within the ‘centres’ themselves: to keep CPEC afloat, China had to move beyond its traditional
diplomatic comfort zone of ‘noninterference’ in the domestic politics of other nations, and
security threats encountered in Pakistan are now driving adaptation and even inner-Chinese
discourses on overseas intervention. Meanwhile, the influx of resources into Pakistan also
caused an intense jostling for their control within its political system, affecting both its federal
designs and civil–military relations (Boni and Adeney 2020). The paper discusses two distinct
Chinese strategies adopted in response, one narrowly focused on securing project sites, and
the other on fostering a pro-CPEC political consensus among Pakistani elites. Based on this
interpretation, I argue that CPEC, and the BRI in general, is not just a one-way street projecting
Chinese influence abroad, but also exerts an adaptive pressure back on its origin.
The paper is based on interviews with experts, politicians and activists in Pakistan, a survey
of Chinese and Pakistani analyses and media reports on CPEC’s challenges and how to over-
come them, the known details of specific projects, and a review of previous publications on
78 P. ABB

CPEC. It is structured as follows: the next section briefly introduces the model of overlapping
centre–periphery relations and describes the main actors in the case of CPEC. Subsequently,
I recount its development, and the tensions arising from it, through the interests and agency
of central and peripheral actors in both relationships. The second half of the paper analyses
the responses of both centres to challenges against their mutual project, specifically the
strategies used to securitise it and rebuild a political consensus around it. The paper con-
cludes with implications for CPEC in Pakistan and broader Chinese international agency in
the age of the BRI.

Overlapping centre–periphery relationships: China, Islamabad and Pakistan’s

internal periphery
This paper loosely adopts a model proposed by Johan Galtung in his structural theory of
imperialism (Galtung 1971), which models such systems through relationships at two levels:
between an upper-case ‘Centre’ and a ‘Periphery’ at the international level – the imperial
metropolis and the colony – but also lower-case ‘centres’ and ‘peripheries’ within each of
them, defined as in- and out-of-power groups. Power differences result in the submission
and likely exploitation of both the Periphery and the two domestic peripheries. This can
take the form of nineteenth-century-style, resource-exploitative imperialism, up to more
modern forms of empire in which Centres may be more interested in the acknowledgement
of their leadership or the exertion of cultural dominance, while material resources actually
flow the other way (eg in the form of development aid). Notably, this model predicts that
a stable and even ‘harmonious’ relationship can be established between the centres of the
two nations, based on an alignment of interests and mutual benefit from international
exchanges, but at the price of increased tensions and conflicts within the Periphery as its
own, doubly marginalised periphery is driven to resistance. This model is useful for two
reasons: first, it offers a chance to integrate both geopolitical and domestic politics per-
spectives on the BRI; and second, it highlights the agency of the Periphery’s centre, whose
collaboration is necessary in a project like the BRI, and whose interests its local adaptations
need to reflect.
Centre–periphery relations are an increasingly appropriate lens to study relations between
a rising China and smaller developing nations, in which the former will almost inevitably be
– and perceive itself as – the Centre, by virtue of its sheer size and increasing economic and
political gravity. The notion of centrality is fundamental to China’s historical self-definition
as the core of a ‘sinocentric’ regional order (Kang 2010), and informs its contemporary desire
to reclaim what Chinese elites believe to be its legitimate position in the world. In the Xi
Jinping era, slogans from the desired ‘rejuvenation of the Chinese nation’ to an ambition of
‘moving back to the center stage’ of world politics (Zhang 2019) have explicitly voiced the
underlying ambition of re-establishing Chinese centrality (Reeves 2018). At the policy level,
Beijing has formalised these designs under the rubric of its new ‘peripheral diplomacy’ since
2014, shifting the focus away from its traditional emphasis on great power relations and
towards its immediate neighbourhood (Callahan 2016). To Chinese strategists, this space is
ambiguously conceptualised, on the one hand, as offering great opportunities for China to
integrate it economically, build its own institutions, and exercise political leadership within
it; on the other, it is also marked by instability and requires a careful management of local
 Third World Quarterly 79

relationships, as smaller countries feeling threatened by a rising China might otherwise seek
to contain it in partnership with the US (Swaine 2014).
The BRI is key to the fulfilment of this political vision: by building a series of corridors
through China’s periphery and connecting them to the vast Chinese market, they would not
only serve the further development of its own interior, but eventually grow into its natural
extension. The specific case of CPEC has been analysed through the same lens, focusing on
Chinese strategic visions of transforming and securing its near abroad by means of infra-
structure (Hillman 2020; Markey 2020). As will be detailed further below, these motivations
weighed heavily on the Chinese decision to commit to a gargantuan project like CPEC.
However, despite China’s considerable power and the amount of resources mobilised for
the BRI, its actual implementation on the ground is not simply a result of Beijing imposing
its strategic designs in a top-down fashion, but also a result of negotiations with local power
holders pursuing their own aims (Boni and Adeney 2021). Accordingly, there is a second
‘centre’ and a lower-case periphery that need to be taken into account when analysing the
impact of such projects.
Within Pakistan, centre–periphery tensions are highly pronounced, springing from its
origin as a multiethnic, postcolonial state assembled from the Muslim-majority parts of
British India. Aside from a shared religion, Pakistani nationhood has been defined by its
rivalry with India, whose larger size and superiority in military capabilities have driven both
efforts at self-strengthening and external cooperation with China (Markey 2020, 61; Small
2020). Pakistan’s ‘centre’ is less a geo- than a demographic one, formed by ethnic Punjabis
who constitute a plurality of 45% of its citizens, the dominant voting constituency, and
historically an elite that has dominated national-level politics, with an especially strong hold
on the nation’s security apparatus and civil service (Waseem 2011). Equally important here,
this centre constitutes itself through its privileged position in formulating visions for national
development and nation-building, mainly in the form of five-year-plans and later develop-
ment frameworks.
Minority ethnicities occupying Pakistan’s periphery (Gilgit-Baltistan, Khyber-Pakthunhwa
and Balochistan, but also comparatively highly developed Sindh) have sought to counter
centralising efforts with designs emphasising federalism, bicameralism, devolution and
regional self-governance, scoring a major victory with a 2010 constitutional amendment
(Adeney 2012). Infrastructure is a major locus for contestation between national and pro-
vincial administrations and constituencies, and has also repeatedly laid bare ethnic tensions:
for example, the Tarbela dam on the Indus River, constructed in the 1970s, was pursued by
national-level elites to advance the dual causes of technocratic developmentalism and polit-
ical centralisation, but for the same reason faced stiff resistance from peripheral regions
(Akhter 2015). The proposed Kalabagh dam has similarly divided constituencies in Punjab,
who tend to back central authorities and their national development schemes, and down-
stream Sindh, which saw it as a threat to its water rights and provincial autonomy (Mustafa
2021, 36–40).
In this model, Islamabad is the point where the two relationships overlap, as the Periphery’s
centre. Successive Pakistani governments have deftly used this pivotal position to pursue
their own needs for external capital and infrastructure construction expertise, appealing to
international funders with a strategic interest in the country, its stability or the advantages
of its geography (Hillman 2020, 128). However, deficiencies in Pakistan’s internal governance
have made these efforts highly contentious domestically, with distribution conflicts, concerns
80 P. ABB

over corruption and a lack of transparency, and civil–military struggles over control of the
project at the top of the list.

CPEC and its origins: interests, visions and priorities

CPEC builds on a long history of previous Chinese–Pakistani cooperation on strategic infra-
structure, albeit on a much larger scale. This connection is immediately obvious from the
two points anchoring CPEC, and which led to its designation as a ‘corridor’ running from
the Pakistani–Chinese border to the port of Gwadar on the Indian Ocean. The former, a
rugged mountain range, had been infrastructurally opened up through the construction of
the Karakoram Highway in the 1960s and 1970s, carried out by Chinese and Pakistani military
engineers. This work was initially motivated by strategic reasons – supporting the budding
alliance between the two countries, carrying Chinese military aid to Pakistan, and enabling
better control over the restive frontier territory (Haider 2005; Hillman 2020, 135). The devel-
opment of Gwadar, which began in 2002, can similarly be traced to the initiative of Pakistan’s
then-president Pervez Musharraf to lessen his country’s reliance on the port of Karachi,
considered too close to the Indian border for comfort (Markey 2020, viii). In both cases, China
transferred capital and infrastructural know-how to Pakistan in the hope of strengthening
its quasi-ally.
A similar confluence of interests explains the origins of CPEC. At the time of the BRI’s
announcement in 2013, Pakistan found itself mired in economic crisis. Over the preceding
decade, the country had grown increasingly dependent on US development and military
assistance in exchange for its participation in the ‘War on Terror’ (Hillman 2020, 139; Wolf
2020, 85). These were significantly curtailed amidst the drawing down of regional US coun-
terterrorism campaigns, leaving Islamabad desperate to find a way out.1 In 2013, the newly
elected Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif
pitched a renewed design for infrastructural cooperation to Beijing, seeking to take advan-
tage of its nascent vision for the BRI, and secured a quick commitment from premier Li
Keqiang (Small 2020). The actual details of what would become CPEC took a lot longer to
hash out (the process is arguably still ongoing), but key points had by 2017 been settled
under a ‘long-term plan’ drawn up by the top-level economic planning agencies of both
sides (MPDR/NDRC 2017).
According to this plan, CPEC’s implementation would span three phases, with the first
focusing on the most immediate needs of electricity generation and connectivity. The former
was covered by a dozen new power plants designed to end Pakistan’s plague of frequent
black- and brownouts; the latter through providing an integrated road, rail and telecoms
link along a North–South axis, running from the Chinese border to Gwadar. The port itself,
intermittently managed by the Singapore Port Authority, would once again be run by China
and expanded with further cargo facilities and a tourist zone. Phase two would seek to boost
industrialisation in 12 new Special Economic Zones (SEZs) along the corridor, luring investors
with new infrastructure, tax incentives and enhanced access to the Chinese market. A third
phase would focus on the agricultural sector, encouraging Chinese companies to acquire
lands in Pakistan and transfer knowledge on crop seeding, fertilisation and mechanised
harvesting. The project’s total costs were initially estimated in the 40 billion USD range,
making Pakistan the BRI’s number one investment destination by a wide margin; with about
 Third World Quarterly 81

35 billion USD already spent as of 2021, the projected total has now been revised to over
60 billion USD (Scissors 2019).
Establishing the Pakistani government’s interest in CPEC is straightforward. Most obvi-
ously, it promised to bring huge new investments to the country, solve the urgent electricity
shortages in the country, and open up a viable pathway to industrialisation (Wolf 2020,
73–78). But it also had another dimension as a nation-building project, continuing previous
attempts to integrate Pakistan’s national space through infrastructure. According to the
PML-N government’s rhetoric of CPEC as a ‘game changer’, it would not only spur overall
development but also reduce existing divisions within the country by letting all of its con-
stituents share in the benefits of modernity and globalisation (Ahmed 2019; Hameed 2018).
By portraying it as proof of the ‘all-weather friendship ‘between Beijing and Islamabad, pro-
ponents also encouraged the perception that CPEC was part of a strategic alliance bolstering
Pakistan against its Indian archenemy – making criticism risky, as it could quickly be branded
as unpatriotic’ (Afzal 2020). This politicisation initially helped to mobilise significant popular
support for the project, but also raised expectations that would turn out to be very difficult
to meet.
Why China agreed to a project of this scope, in a country with known financial and gov-
ernance problems, ongoing insurgencies and a history of militant attacks on Chinese con-
struction crews, requires a yet more complex explanation. Several factors have been stressed
in the writings of Chinese academics and international scholars, many of which are connected
to the transformative potential CPEC had for China’s strategic geography. For one, the port
of Gwadar and the proposed pipeline to the Chinese border were expected to enhance
China’s energy security by lessening its dependence on shipping through the easily block-
aded Malacca Strait (Yao 2015). Chinese scholars were notably more sceptical than interna-
tional scholars about the feasibility of such a pipeline but assumed it was a main feature of
CPEC, especially during the negotiation phase (Garlick 2022, 18). Rising tensions with India
made Pakistan an attractive ally and counterweight (Markey 2020, 47; Small 2020). The secu-
rity problems posed by insurgents and terrorist groups operating in many of the corridor’s
proposed transit zones were brought up by many Chinese analysts (Liu 2015; Yao 2015;
Zhang 2016), but the fact that they were a transnational, mutual threat to both Pakistan and
China also provided one of the rationales for CPEC: here, the vision was that it would eco-
nomically stabilise Pakistan and enable greater state control over the frontier spaces in which
such groups thrived, reducing their manoeuvring space and ultimately yielding benefits for
China’s own security (Markey 2020; Zheng 2016). Security risks could be managed in the
short term through joint counterterrorism efforts, on which Pakistan and China were already
cooperating, and in the long term resolved through greater economic opportunities and a
projected reduction in militancy (Liu 2015). From this perspective, CPEC appears to be an
international extension of the Chinese approach to alleviating instability in its own Western
periphery, which had followed identical priorities.
An additional factor that made Pakistan an attractive partner was its perceived reliable
pro-Chinese orientation. Chinese analysts weighing political risks to the BRI heavily focused
on two factors: first, so-called ‘geopolitical risks’, mainly the firm opposition of the US and its
allies to the BRI (Zhou 2016), and in the specific context of South Asia, Indian resistance to
Pakistani–Chinese cooperation and CPEC’s routing close to disputed Kashmir (Jiang 2015).
Against this backdrop, the new PML-N government presented an opportunity as it seemed
less beholden to US influence than its predecessor, and its principal figures were known
82 P. ABB

enthusiasts of infrastructure megaprojects. The second big concern was political instability,
mainly assessed in terms of government turnovers and policy changes that might lead to
the abrogation or renegotiation of earlier BRI agreements (Ma 2015; Tan 2015). A key require-
ment in picking a site for the BRI’s ‘flagship project’ was thus a partner who was prepared to
resist external pressure and stick with China for the long term. Despite Pakistan’s complex
internal politics, its strategic dependence on China as an ally, and the commitment of all
major political actors to this partnership, seemingly ensured a long-term buy-in that out-
weighed other local risks (Yao 2015). Beijing was determined to go fast and big in kicking
off the BRI, and Pakistan offered an enticing mixture of local demand, strategic benefits and
a conducive political environment to accommodate this approach.
In summary, CPEC’s genesis can be seen as the confluence of two separate but compatible
visions of how to reorder centre–periphery relations by infrastructural means: on the one
hand, Pakistan’s desire to increase cohesion in its fractious society through a national devel-
opment plan; and on the other, the BRI’s grand ambition to ‘recentre’ China on the world
stage by linking sympathetic countries even more closely to it. Inherent to this approach,
however, was a lack of consideration for peripheral interests, whose resistance subsequently
required substantial policy adaptation.

The securitisation of CPEC

As a project devised by central authorities and intended to strengthen their control over the
country, CPEC was naturally rejected by separatists dedicated to their own vision of inde-
pendent nationhood. This opposition is especially pronounced in Balochistan, home to the
port of Gwadar and one of the longest proposed stretches of CPEC. Pakistan’s south-western
province is a geographically vast and resource-rich but sparsely populated and underdevel-
oped area, which has relegated it to the fringes of Pakistani politics (Bansal 2008). It is also
one of the hotbeds of Pakistan’s insurgency problem and has seen repeated armed uprisings,
met with an extensive counterinsurgency campaign by Pakistan’s armed forces. One of the
main grievances motivating insurgent groups, the perceived exploitation of Balochistan’s
natural wealth at the hands of outsiders (Khan 2009), directly implicates China and its projects
in the area. In this narrative, CPEC is the latest instalment in a long line of infrastructural
projects designed and operated by colonial powers to funnel local resources towards the
metropolis, without delivering any benefits to the Baloch people (Hameed 2018). Both
Gwadar and Chinese mining operations in the region (which are scheduled to expand under
CPEC) are seen as redolent of British-era installations in their extractive orientation and top-
down planning.2 By design, Gwadar is a national-level project overseen by the central gov-
ernment, which appoints the chairman of its Port Authority (GPA) and a supermajority of
the board (GPA 2002). Under the treaties signed with China, the latter is entitled to 91% of
its revenue for 40 years, while the GPA receives only 9% (Khan 2017). Multiple sources in
Balochistan stressed this lack of control and stakeholdership as the main reason motivating
resistance against CPEC, citing repeated failures of Pakistan’s national political authorities
to involve them in planning and implementation processes.
Much of the resistance towards CPEC has been peaceful, but it has become a repeat target
for insurgent attacks, mainly from the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) and the Pakistani
Tehreek-e-Taliban. Since the launch of CPEC in 2015, these groups have committed 10 attacks
against Chinese projects in the country that resulted in 61 deaths and 35 injuries – the vast
 Third World Quarterly 83

majority of which have been Pakistani, 52 and 31, respectively.3 Chinese personnel work in
fenced-off enclaves and move about under military escort, which has reduced their exposure
to threats. However, it has also resulted in a heavily securitised version of development that
is only feasible under constant military protection and considered a burden by local com-
munities. To defend CPEC sites, the Pakistani military set up a ‘Special Security Division’ of
15,000 troops and a special naval detachment in Gwadar, which has made it a major stake-
holder in the project. High-profile sites like Gwadar are fenced and ringed by multiple layers
of checkpoints, which has resulted in harassment and affected the freedom of movement
of local people.4 This has also had effects on their livelihood, as security ordinances have
limited the access of local fishermen to the sea.5 The reality of CPEC – essentially, a fusion of
Chinese developmentalism and Pakistan’s own security state – has so far proven incapable
of generating local buy-in.
China was initially content to leave CPEC’s security entirely to the Pakistani military, a
partner in which it holds great strategic trust,6 and which is also in line with its diplomatic
stance of non-interference in the domestic concerns of other countries. However, the con-
stant threat to its citizens and capital is now having an impact on inner-Chinese debates on
how the country should go about protecting its overseas interests, and how to deploy its
ever-growing power. The July 2021 bombing of a convoy which killed nine Chinese engineers
(widely attributed to the Tehreek-e-Taliban) triggered Chinese media criticism of Pakistani
security measures and calls for direct Chinese involvement in local counterterrorism oper-
ations (Global Times 2021). A 2022 BLA attack in Karachi that killed three Chinese teachers
from the local Confucius Institute led to a significant sharpening in China’s official diplomatic
rhetoric, with premier Li Keqiang conveying ‘shock and outrage’ to his newly elected coun-
terpart Shehbaz Sharif, as well as making clear demands for stronger security measures
(FMPRC 2022). Frustration with the existing security regime is mounting both in Beijing and
among the Chinese community in Pakistan. One Chinese expat academic interviewed for
this paper spoke of a pervasive and growing distrust in Pakistani security measures, citing
poor training, ineffective administration and corruption among local forces.
While there is a universal expectation that the Pakistani army will remain in charge of
CPEC’s military security and direct Chinese military involvement is not on the cards,7 these
problems are already spurring lower-profile changes in Chinese overseas activities. China
has stepped up its intelligence-sharing on counterterrorism efforts and the export of sur-
veillance and facial recognition technology to Pakistan (Layton 2020). According to local
experts interviewed for this paper, Chinese representatives have also reached out to insur-
gent leaders in Balochistan and sought to pay them off in exchange for the safety of their
projects.8 Although long reluctant to invest in project security, overseas-operating Chinese
enterprises have stepped up training and emergency evacuation planning at the urging of
their embassies (Ghiselli 2021, 103). China’s growing sector of private security contractors
(PSCs) are already offering services in Pakistan, although Pakistan’s prohibition on foreigners
carrying weapons is limiting them to training local personnel and acting as consultants. This
has become a contentious point as China is now actively lobbying Pakistani authorities to
relax restrictions on Chinese PSCs. In any case, the high costs of such services have so far
limited them to large Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs), while smaller businesses or
individuals have to hire local security or forgo it.9 These developments are ongoing, but they
are evidence that the BRI is not just a tool through which China exerts a quasi-gravitational
84 P. ABB

pull on its periphery, but is in fact being drawn into the latter itself, in ways it had not orig-
inally intended.

The breaking and remaking of a political consensus around CPEC

While the insurgent threat to CPEC has caught the most attention, a lower-intensity and
non-violent, but arguably more significant, resistance has played out in Pakistan’s political
arena. Here, CPEC sparked a heated debate over three key issues: the distribution of its
projects, the location of decision-making authority, and the lack of transparency over the
content of specific agreements.
Distribution conflicts can be traced to a familiar fault line in Pakistani politics, the percep-
tion that developmental efforts are the project of a technocratic elite drawn from the ranks
of ethnic Punjabis, and designed for their benefit (Waseem 2011; Mustafa 2021). Support
and opposition to large-scale infrastructure projects have often fallen along ethnic lines.
Originally, CPEC was supposed to be different, with a planned corridor directly linking
Gwadar to the Chinese border, which would have traversed and benefitted Pakistan’s less-
developed Western periphery (Bengali 2015). As negotiations with Beijing dragged on in
2014–2015, however, it emerged that there was little Chinese interest in this route, due to
the lack of existing infrastructure and the severe insurgent problem in these areas. Leaks
that the central government was now exploring an ‘Eastern’ route through better-developed
areas in Punjab and Sindh triggered fierce opposition from constituencies along the ‘Western’
route (Shah 2015). The routing controversy was seemingly resolved in May 2015, when an
all-party conference established a compromise, replacing the single ‘corridor’ with three
north–south ‘arteries’ and several lateral connections. However, finding Chinese financing
for these roads proved challenging, and several years later, most of the promised roads in
the West had still not been included in the CPEC portfolio, have yet to begin construction
or even receive the necessary funding commitments (Aamir 2019). Far from being a ‘game
changer’, CPEC thus reinforced existing feelings of betrayal among the concerned commu-
nities and led to a further loss of trust in central authorities.10
Similar problems have marred CPEC’s other priority, the amelioration of Pakistan’s chronic
energy deficit and frequent blackouts. According to government statistics, nine new plants
came online from 2015 to 2020, adding a total capacity of about 5000 MW mainly from coal
power generation (CPEC 2021). In theory, this is enough to cover Pakistan’s previous nation-
wide deficit, caused by an inability of local energy providers to obtain foreign financing for
new plants (Safdar 2021), but again it is unevenly distributed. With one exception, the fin-
ished plants are located entirely in Punjab and Sindh, and the power they generate is pre-
dominantly delivered to urban, well-developed eastern parts of Pakistan, while transmission
grids in Pakistan’s western regions are too outdated, disconnected and sparse to adequately
supply local households.11 Transmission losses of 10% and theft of 5% further reduce avail-
able power. Moreover, the new plants (except the Thar mining/plant complex) cannot make
use of Pakistan’s domestic lignite coal and rely instead on imports, which need to be shipped
through Karachi and moved by truck up North.12 The 2022 spike in resource prices and
depreciation of the Pakistani rupee also made them too expensive to run at full capacity,
resulting in widespread power cuts that predominantly affected rural households
(Mangi 2022).
 Third World Quarterly 85

Figure 1.  CPEC’s eastern skew: (a) geographic location of connectivity (lines) and power plant (triangles)
projects within Pakistan; and (b) overlaid on district-level human development index (HDI) data.
Source: Author’s compilation of project location data obtained from the Reconnecting Asia database
(CSIS 2020), restricted to projects that are marked as ‘completed’ or ‘under construction’. HDI data
obtained from Najam and Bari (2017).

When mapping out projects that have been completed or begun construction using
geolocation data (Figure 1), both the connectivity gaps in the proposed ‘Western route’ and
the heavy concentration of power plants in Eastern and Southern industrial centres are
immediately apparent. This will also have consequences for the next phases of CPEC: while
every province has been assigned at least one of the proposed SEZs, their progress in periph-
eral areas is hampered by the lack of connectivity and utility infrastructure. The most progress
has occurred in Punjab’s Allama Iqbal Industrial City, which is located near the new M-3
motorway, part of CPEC’s ‘Eastern Route’. Kyber-Pakthunkwa’s Rashakai SEZ similarly benefits
from its position along the modern M-1 motorway. Balochistan’s SEZ in Bostan near Quetta,
however, is right in CPEC’s Western connectivity gap and can only be accessed via the older,
two-lane N-25 and N-50 highways, whose expansion and modernisation remain in the
86 P. ABB

planning stage. The viability of Gwadar’s ‘Free Trade Zone’ is similarly questionable due to
its remote location and inconsistent supply of basic utilities like water and electricity. From
this imbalance, it is easy to understand concerns that CPEC will cement existing develop-
mental gaps, leaving peripheral areas even further behind (Hameed 2018).
Given the importance of project selection, the question of who had the authority to do
so and to negotiate specifics with the Chinese side emerged as the second point of conten-
tion. Here, the securitisation strategy also had a direct political impact as Pakistan’s military
became increasingly involved in project selection and implementation.13 This reflected
another familiar fault line in Pakistani politics – the struggle between civilian and military
authorities (Waseem 2011) – and a reversal of the post-Musharraf trend of asserting civilian
control over national infrastructure (Boni 2020, 94–95). Here, the government turnover in
2018 was a watershed moment, as the incoming administration of premier Imran Khan (a
noted CPEC critic when in opposition) increasingly relied on the military as intermediaries
in negotiations with Beijing,14 while also offering it a much greater role in the project’s
domestic governance. In October 2019, it instituted a new ‘CPEC Authority’ by executive
decree, headed by retired general Asim Bajwa, and following a model the army had proposed
in 2016 (Boni and Adeney 2020). It is unclear whether Beijing had actively pushed for this
reorganisation, but it certainly welcomed it after its initial experiences with the Khan
government.15
A final major concern about CPEC – and one highlighted even by some of its supporters
– is the lack of transparency over two aspects: the underlying funding agreements, which
remain non-public; and the ultimate scope of the project, which is constantly evolving and
branching into new areas of Pakistan’s economy. As with most of the BRI, CPEC’s projects
are not financed through development aid, but using commercial loans, albeit at preferential
rates. The exact interest rate and repayment scheme have not been publicised by the gov-
ernment, supposedly because the terms are so generous that this would complicate Chinese
negotiations with other loan recipients.16 The master plan for CPEC has similarly remained
a secret closely guarded by the central government until it was leaked to the press in 2017;
notably, it had been shared in full with Punjabi authorities, while all other provinces received
a version shortened to less than a fifth (Husain 2017). The level of secrecy has further con-
tributed to an erosion of trust in the central authorities pursuing the project, and given rise
to concerns about over-indebtedness even in a populace predisposed to welcoming Chinese
involvement in their country (Small 2020).
Faced with these problems, rebuilding political support for CPEC was a major task that
also involved China in an active role, a highly significant development given its long-standing
commitment to non-interference in the domestic politics of other nations. In the planning
stage, Chinese diplomats had already reached out to opposition parties, seeking to counter
perceptions of CPEC as a PML-N pet project and to insulate it against future government
turnovers (Small 2020). Chinese negotiators were somewhat willing to alter the subnational
distribution of CPEC projects and, for example, agreed to an even number of proposed
industrial parks for all provinces (Hussain and Rao 2020). In 2019, Beijing convened a format
of its own, the Joint Consultation Mechanism (JCM), in which representatives of Pakistani
parties can engage with high-level Chinese officials. On the Pakistani side, it includes nine
parties (including all three major national parties and four Balochistan-based ones) and a
selection of individual opinion leaders (Gitter, Bowie, and Callen 2019). On the Chinese side,
it is organised by the International Department of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which
 Third World Quarterly 87

handles contacts with foreign political parties, and also involves official diplomatic staff in
Pakistan. The first JCM, held in March 2019 in Beijing, issued a declaration that appears mainly
designed to formally commit the Pakistani participants to supporting CPEC (JCM 2019). Its
language clearly mirrors China’s preferred rhetoric around CPEC and the BRI as building
blocks for a ‘community with a shared future for mankind’, while also urging participants to
‘create favorable conditions’ for CPEC and exercise ‘political guidance’ over their constituen-
cies. From what little is known about the content of these discussions, they mostly involve
the signalling of political loyalty to CPEC and the China–Pakistan friendship, not exchanges
on contentious issues. Summarised remarks from the second JCM meeting strongly focused
on rebutting criticism of the project (Express Tribune 2020). Recordings from this and similar
formats held in 2020 also had a heavy emphasis on praising China’s Covid-19 response,17 an
issue which had little to do with CPEC, but was an urgent priority for Chinese domestic and
international propaganda efforts at the time (Gill 2020). In exchange, participants received
access to Chinese representatives within Pakistan – where the embassy is the crucial gate-
keeper – and China itself through party channels. The asymmetry of this bargain neatly
summarises the relationship between the two sides, in which a would-be Centre obtains
symbolic recognition of its desired status, and actors from the periphery receive privileged
access in return.
At the level of policy communities, Chinese think tanks have been closely engaging sym-
pathetic counterparts in Pakistan, following a domestic directive to ‘build a strong social
foundation for the BRI’, ie to promote it with opinion leaders in member countries and counter
local and Western criticism of the project (Abb 2016). In Islamabad, they found ready partners,
predisposed to positive attitudes towards the strategic value of CPEC and partnering with
China in general. In interviews conducted for this study, Islamabad-based policy elites were
by far the most positive about CPEC and its effects, citing China’s attractiveness as a source
of capital, its commitment to Pakistan as a partner and respect for its sovereignty, and the
speed of implementation despite Pakistan’s cumbersome bureaucratic and political pro-
cesses. Setbacks were usually ascribed to a lack of Chinese familiarity with local conditions,
which has created a demand for consultant services by Pakistani experts.
A central function is played by the Pakistan–China Institute (PCI), a think tank founded
in 2009 by Senator Mushahid Hussain, the chairman of the Senate’s Foreign Affairs Committee
since 2018 and the Parliamentary Committee on CPEC since 2015. Upon CPEC’s launch in
2015, it established a joint research and consultation platform with the Chinese Academy
of Social Sciences (CASS), China’s largest think tank, and has since acted as a conduit to hold
regular meetings between policymakers and experts from both sides, disseminated a large
number of pro-CPEC reports (PCI 2020), and helped Chinese companies broker local business
deals and navigate Pakistan’s political landscape (Markey 2020, 56). The PCI advocates for
CPEC in particular and robust ties with China in general, and sees its role as building a
domestic consensus on both issues, which includes co-organising the all-party conferences
under the JCM.18 Other ties exist with established institutes within Pakistan’s strategic studies
community, such as the Institute of Strategic Studies Islamabad (ISSI) and the Islamabad
Policy Research Institute (IPRI). In the past several years, they have staged an enormous
number of conferences and webinars on CPEC and China–Pakistan ties – PCI alone held 14
in the last two years.19 These exchanges mainly involve policy elites in Islamabad who are
already a highly supportive constituency for CPEC, while more critical voices from the periph-
ery either found themselves outright excluded from such gatherings or left with little
88 P. ABB

confidence that their input was taken seriously.20 And while they are also intended to inform
the Chinese side about challenges in Pakistan, the heavy participation of elites with strong
pro-CPEC opinions or personal stakes in the project precludes frank discussions.21 Still, the
development of an intellectual infrastructure underpinning Centre–Periphery relations is
rapidly following the physical one, and ties between policy communities are increasingly
reminiscent of the networks underlying transatlantic relations.
Beyond political and policy elites, a China-led civil society outreach has aimed at groups
that are sceptical or hostile towards CPEC. Before the pandemic, local politicians and jour-
nalists from Balochistan were regularly invited on tours of China, allowing it to showcase its
own successful modernisation and portraying it as a friend to all of Pakistan. However, accord-
ing to one participant, these attempts did not produce the desired effect because they
followed a general image-building template rather than addressing issues of specific concern
to Baloch communities.22 A similar problem has marred local corporate social responsibility
(CSR) efforts provided by Chinese enterprises. Many local citizens in the immediate vicinity
of projects see Chinese companies as aloof and either ignorant of or indifferent to their
concerns (Jafri 2020). Where CSR efforts have been undertaken at all – eg through the con-
struction of a school in Gwadar – they have been perceived as inadequate.23 More progress
has been made in education and training, where Chinese-funded programmes have been
specifically designed to address the concerns that peripheral communities would be locked
out of desirable employment within CPEC due to a lack of marketable skills.24 Bilateral coop-
eration has improved vocational training in Pakistan and focused it on areas likely to be of
specific relevance to CPEC.25 China has committed to funding a vocational training centre
within each of the new SEZs and major projects like Gwadar or the Sahiwal coal plant, focus-
ing on the skills required by local industries, and offering scholarships for advanced studies
in China.26 Locally provided Mandarin classes have served to reduce the language gap, while
over 20,000 Pakistani students have received scholarships to Chinese universities, meeting
a rising interest in China-facing careers (Safdar 2021). In the long run, this may effect a shift
in the orientation of Pakistani elites, who have traditionally pursued higher education at US
or UK universities – one interviewee who obtained her PhD in Beijing considered it an alter-
native window on the world.27
Finally, both Chinese and Pakistani actors undertook (partially joint) media efforts to
promote CPEC, control the narrative surrounding it, and push back on criticism. This became
an especially urgent task in 2017–2018, as concerns over the lack of transparency surround-
ing CPEC, the leak of internal planning documents, and new prime minister Imran Khan’s
apparent scepticism of the project threatened the shaky domestic consensus (Afzal 2020).
On the Chinese side, former deputy ambassador to Pakistan Zhao Lijian took on a very active
and unusual role, especially when it came to social media engagement. While Zhao is best
known for pioneering the so-called ‘wolf warrior diplomacy’ through his aggressive rebuttals
of CPEC criticism on Twitter, he also used the medium to provide detailed information in
response to factual inquiries (Palmer 2021). Within Pakistan, proponents of CPEC sought to
insulate the project against criticism by stressing its relevance for national security and
casting its detractors as ‘enemies’ of the Pakistani state (Afzal 2020). Chinese and Pakistani
actors are also increasingly coordinating their counter-messaging: when former US Deputy
Secretary of State Alice Wells criticised CPEC as an example of ‘debt-trap diplomacy’ in
November 2019 (and on a subsequent visit to Islamabad in January 2020), her points were
immediately rebutted by officials from both countries (Aamir 2020). The PCI played a major
 Third World Quarterly 89

role in this, publishing no less than seven op-eds and organising two media seminars
together with the Chinese embassy directly referencing Wells’ criticism.28 Bilateral coopera-
tion in the media sector is being further institutionalised through content-sharing agree-
ments carrying Chinese messaging on CPEC to a Pakistani audience. In September 2021, the
two sides agreed to establish a ‘media corridor’, specifically intended to counter foreign ‘fake
news and propaganda jeopardizing the Pak–China relationship and CPEC’ (S. Ali 2021).
In summary, the political strategy that China and its local allies employed to strengthen
support for CPEC went far beyond the elite cooptation model China has used elsewhere to
promote the BRI. It included outreach to many actors that have to be considered peripheral
or marginal to Pakistan’s governing processes: minority and regional parties, individual
experts, intellectuals and community leaders, and the public at large through traditional
and social media channels. This, too, represents a significant departure from previous inter-
pretations of ‘non-interference’ in the domestic politics of other states. It is also evidence of
the Centre–Periphery relationship at work, and in fact mirrors the dense, multi-channel
relations which the US has developed with its own allies. The strategy has proven highly
successful in insulating CPEC against political power shifts: an important success was
achieved in managing the 2018 government turnover, bringing the previously sceptical
Imran Khan and his new administration on board with CPEC, and arguably establishing the
broadest domestic elite consensus since its onset. Khan’s ouster by a no-confidence vote in
2022, which returned a PML-N led coalition to power and resulted in Shehbaz Sharif’s election
to prime minister, is likely to continue this trend. The coalition parties are unanimous in their
support for CPEC, and several of the new members of government are outspoken proponents
and alumni of formats like the JCM. The new premier is known for his personal enthusiasm
for CPEC, penchant for mega-projects and facilitating their rapid implementation.29 Changes
to the project may affect its domestic governance – like abolishing the CPEC Authority and
re-strengthening civilian control – but not its fundamental progress.30
Among ordinary Pakistani citizens, China continues to enjoy a highly positive image and
a great deal of trust (Pew Research 2015), while the activities of Chinese companies there
received a 63% approval in a Chinese survey, far higher than the 44% average in a sample
of BRI countries (ACCWS/Kantar 2020). Crucially, with the exception of some separatist groups
in Balochistan, most of the remaining CPEC critics do not disagree with the project as a
whole, but in fact often want a bigger piece of it. The failure to achieve a more equitable
distribution is blamed not on China but on authorities in Islamabad and the shortcomings
of Pakistan’s own political system – in fact, this was a unanimous view among interviewees
for this paper, regardless of their attitude towards CPEC.
Accordingly, the work on a joint strategy to promote CPEC has strengthened ties at the
international level and indeed established a ‘community of common destiny’ between Beijing
and Islamabad. The BRI outcomes the two sides negotiated are not a case of China imposing
strategic designs on a peripheral neighbour; they also reflect the interests of local elites,
who subsequently rallied in defence of the project. This is particularly important at a time
of rising international tensions between China and the US, and accompanying inner-Pakistani
debates over which side (if any) their country should take: to China-leaning elites, CPEC is
proof of China’s economic and strategic commitment to Pakistan, and provides a cornerstone
for the further development of social and intellectual ties. External (especially Indian and
Western) criticism of CPEC has actually reinforced this international realignment, as Pakistani
elites consider the narrative that they are being snared into a ‘debt trap’ to be baseless and
90 P. ABB

insulting.31 At the same time, the genuine problems with CPEC – mainly its pursuit without
meaningful input from peripheral constituencies – have exacerbated tensions within
Pakistan, and whether the intensified political outreach will prove effective at this level
remains to be seen.

Conclusion
CPEC has its origins in two separate but overlapping visions of how to reorder political spaces
by means of infrastructure, in which ambitious ‘centres’ sought to tie their respective periph-
eries closer to themselves. These have been realised to different extents, and not always in
line with the original designs: at the international level, CPEC has locked Pakistan into a
close, and arguably symbiotic, partnership with China. Despite a widening economic crisis,
Chinese capital has flooded into the country and allowed the pursuit of an extremely ambi-
tious industrialisation strategy, with substantial early results in the energy sector. This rela-
tionship can build on long-established strategic trust, mutually compatible notions of the
national interest, and increasingly closely connected policy communities – not unlike the
factors undergirding transatlantic ties. From a Chinese perspective, CPEC has delivered on
many of the sought-after benefits of centrality: the ability to implement grand strategic
visions, the close diplomatic and economic alignment of one of its largest neighbours, and
the political flattery from abroad which the CCP increasingly demands. However, this rela-
tionship is not one-sided – it has also tied China irrevocably into Pakistan’s complicated, and
sometimes hostile, political landscape. As China seeks to reshape the world through infra-
structure and has made the BRI the centrepiece of its bid for greater status, the pathways
so created also exert a transformative pressure back on China itself, moving foreign threats
closer to it and the national consciousness. Setbacks in Pakistan are contributing to debates
over the future of China’s diplomatic and security policies, which are trending in a more
interventionist direction. At least in the short term, China’s engagement in Pakistan is likely
to focus on domestic security efforts like counterterrorism, surveillance and intelligence-shar-
ing rather than outright military efforts, although the physical infrastructure of CPEC would
also make the latter easier.
Within Pakistan, CPEC has not been able to deliver on all of its overly ambitious promises,
especially when it comes to the integration of peripheral regions and groups. On the one
hand, CPEC has become a rallying point for political parties across the spectrum, and a robust
elite consensus in its favour is being maintained with a sophisticated and multi-pronged
strategy. On the other, violent resistance among separatists and distributional conflicts inside
Pakistan continue to plague the project. From this perspective, CPEC is a cautionary tale for
how such projects can overwhelm political institutions ill-equipped to handle them. In a
fragmented country with low levels of trust in the central government, neither the restrictive
information policy surrounding CPEC nor the top-down mode of implementation was appro-
priate. As these problems became apparent, China and Islamabad moved quickly to shore
up support – which has, however, focused more on obtaining symbolic statements of loyalty
than addressing underlying grievances. Given the apparent lack of domestic capacities or
will to effectively address them, Chinese agency – as is already underway in the fields of CSR
and education – is likely to be decisive here. This, too, may turn out to be another way in
which China ultimately emulates the way Western ‘centres’ have been interacting with their
 Third World Quarterly 91

global peripheries, and in which the BRI draws China out of its previous comfort zone even
as its global influence continues to grow.

Acknowledgements
I am grateful to the two anonymous reviewers, the participants of a 2021 virtual conference on CPEC,
and Jonas Wolff for offering their feedback on my evolving manuscript. Research on this article began
in late 2020, when international travel was impossible under pandemic restrictions, and local sources
could only be contacted remotely. This effort would not have gotten off the ground without the help
of Farooq Yousaf, who introduced me to many knowledgeable contacts in Pakistan and abroad. In
2022, proper field research was finally made possible thanks to a grant from the Stiftung Ökohaus
Foundation and Hasan Karrar, who hosted me at Lahore University of Management Sciences. Finally,
I am particularly grateful to the many interviewees who gave their views on CPEC and its controversial
effects on condition of anonymity.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Funding
Research for this article was supported by a grant from the Stiftung Ökohaus Foundation in Frankfurt,
Germany.

Notes on contributor
Pascal Abb is a senior researcher at the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt (PRIF), focusing on how a
rising China interacts with global conflict environments. He is currently conducting a research project
on the impact of the Belt and Road Initiative on conflict-affected states. His latest publications are
‘Road to Peace or Bone of Contention? The Impact of the Belt and Road Initiative on Conflict States’
(with Robert Swaine and Ilya Jones, PRIF Report 1/2021) and ‘From “Peaceful Rise” to “Peacebuilder”?
How Evolving Chinese Discourses and Self-Perceptions Impact Its Growing Influence in Conflict
Societies’ (Journal of Contemporary China 30 (129), 2021).

ORCID
Pascal Abb http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5066-9704

Notes
1. Interview with an academic expert on CPEC.
2. Interview with a Baloch politician.
3. Based on a query of the Global Terrorism Database (LaFree and Dugan 2007) of all terror inci-
dents in Pakistan during this time period that had a relation to CPEC or other Chinese projects
in the country.
4. Interview with an advisor to the government of Balochistan.
5. Interview with a Baloch politician.
6. Interview with an academic expert on CPEC and an expert on Pakistani civil–military relations.
7. Interviews with two think tank experts and a CPEC Authority official.
92 P. ABB

8. Interview with two academic experts on CPEC and a Pakistani think tank expert.
9. Interview with a Chinese resident scholar in Pakistan.
10. Interviews with a former advisor to the government of Khyber-Pakhthunkwa and a Baloch politician.
11. Interviews with a former advisor to the government of Khyber-Pakhthunkwa and a Baloch
politician.
12. Interviews with two Pakistani non-governmental organisation (NGO) representatives.
13. Interview with an academic expert on CPEC.
14. Interview with a journalist based in Balochistan.
15. Interview with a Pakistani expert on civil–military relations.
16. Interview with an academic expert on CPEC.
17. See a recording of senator Sherry Rehman’s speech to the 2nd JCM meeting (https://www.you-
tube.com/watch?v=a4pc7Xh7874) and a recording of the ‘Webinar on
Balochistan’s Political Parties’ Dialogue’ organized by the Emerging Policymakers Institute
(https://www.facebook.com/epi.org.pk/videos/1660403694126379).
18. Interview with a PCI executive.
19. Based on entries on the PCI website (pakistan-china.com) and its affiliated CPEC information
platform (cpecinfo.com).
20. Interviews with a former advisor to the government of Khyber-Pakhthunkwa, 22 November
2020, and an advisor to the government of Balochistan.
21. Interviews with two think tank experts specialising in China–Pakistan relations, and a journalist.
22. Interview with a journalist based in Balochistan.
23. Interview with an advisor to the Balochistan provincial government.
24. Interview with an academic expert on CPEC.
25. Interview with an academic expert on CPEC.
26. Interview with a CPEC Authority official.
27. Interview with a think tank expert.
28. Based on entries on the PCI website (pakistan-china.com) and its affiliated CPEC information
platform (cpecinfo.com).
29. Interview with a businessman and former member of the Gwadar board.
30. Interviews with two NGO representatives.
31. Interviews with multiple Pakistani think tank experts, scholars and officials.

Bibliography
Aamir, A. 2019. “The Myth of CPEC’s Western Route.” The Friday Times, November 8, 2019.
Aamir, A. 2020. “Pakistan and CPEC Are Drawn into the U.S.-China Rivalry.” China Brief 20 (1): 18–23.
Abb, P. 2016. “China’s New Think Tank Diplomacy.” ECFR China Analysis, August 2016.
Abb, P., R. Swaine, and I. Jones. 2021. “Road to Peace or Bone of Contention? The Impact of the Belt
and Road Initiative on Conflict States.” PRIF Report 1/2021.
Academy of Contemporary China and World Studies (ACCWS)/Kantar. 2020. Chinese Enterprise Global
Image Survey Report 2020, BRI Edition (Zhongguo Qiye Haiwai Xingxiang Diaocha Baogao 2020,
‘Yidaiyilu’ Ban). Beijing: ACCWS.
Adeney, K. 2012. “A Step Towards Inclusive Federalism in Pakistan? The Politics of the 18th Amendment.”
Publius: The Journal of Federalism 42 (4): 539–565. doi:10.1093/publius/pjr055.
Afzal, M. 2020. “At All Costs: How Pakistan and China Control the Narrative on the China-Pakistan
Economic Corridor.” Brookings Report, June 2020.
Ahmed, Z. S. 2019. “Impact of the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor on Nation-Building in Pakistan.”
Journal of Contemporary China 28 (117): 400–414. doi:10.1080/10670564.2018.1542221.
Akhter, M. 2015. “Infrastructure Nation: State Space, Hegemony, and Hydraulic Regionalism in
Pakistan.” Antipode 47 (4): 849–870. doi:10.1111/anti.12152.
Ali, M. 2020. “China–Pakistan Economic Corridor: Prospects and Challenges.” Contemporary South Asia
28 (1): 100–112. doi:10.1080/09584935.2019.1667302.
 Third World Quarterly 93

Ali, S. 2021. “Pakistan, China Media to Jointly Counter False Propaganda.” The Nation, September 29,
2021.
Bansal, A. 2008. “Factors Leading to Insurgency in Balochistan.” Small Wars & Insurgencies 19 (2): 182–
200. doi:10.1080/09592310802061356.
Bengali, K. 2015. China-Pakistan Economic Corridor: The Route Controversy. Quetta: Government of
Balochistan.
Blanchard, J-M., and Colin F. 2017. “The Geopolitics of China’s Maritime Silk Road Initiative.” Geopolitics
22 (2): 223–245. doi:10.1080/14650045.2017.1291503.
Boni, F. 2020. Sino-Pakistani Relations: Politics, Military and Security Dynamics. London: Routledge.
Boni, F., and K. Adeney. 2020. “The Impact of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor on Pakistan’s
Federal System: The Politics of the CPEC.” Asian Survey 60 (3): 441–465. doi:10.1525/as.2020.60.3.441.
Boni, F., and K. Adeney. 2021. How Pakistan and China Negotiate. Washington, DC: Carnegie
Endowment.
Callahan, W. 2016. “China’s ‘Asia Dream’: The Belt Road Initiative and the New Regional Order.” Asian
Journal of Comparative Politics 1 (3): 226–243. doi:10.1177/2057891116647806.
China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). 2021. “CPEC Official Website: Energy.” http://cpec.gov.pk/
energy
Express Tribune. 2020. “Political Parties Unite to Support ‘Game-Changer’ CPEC.” Express Tribune,
August 20, 2020.
Ferdinand, P. 2016. “Westward Ho – The China Dream and ‘One Belt, One Road’: Chinese Foreign Policy
under Xi Jinping.” International Affairs 92 (4): 941–957. doi:10.1111/1468-2346.12660.
Foreign Ministry of the People’s Republic of China (FMPRC). 2022. “Li Keqiang Speaks with Pakistani
Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif on the Phone." Accessed June 2, 2022. https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/
mfa_eng/zxxx_662805/202205/t20220516_10686660.html
Galtung, J. 1971. “A Structural Theory of Imperialism.” Journal of Peace Research 8 (2): 81–117.
doi:10.1177/002234337100800201.
Garlick, J. 2022. Reconfiguring the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor: Geo-Economic Pipe Dreams Versus
Geopolitical Realities. London: Routledge.
Ghiselli, A. 2021. Protecting China’s Interests Overseas: Securitization and Foreign Policy. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Gill, B. 2020. “China’s Global Influence: Post-COVID Prospects for Soft Power.” The Washington Quarterly
43 (2): 97–115. doi:10.1080/0163660X.2020.1771041.
Gitter, D., J. Bowie, and N. Callen. 2019. “CCP Watch Weekly Report 3.16.2019-3.20.2019.” Accessed
September 9, 2021. https://www.ccpwatch.org/single-post/2019/03/25/weekly-report-222-3162019-
3202019
Global Times. 2021. “Terrorists Attacking Chinese: Though You Are Far Away, You Will Be Punished (Dui
Zhongguoren Shishi Kongxizhe, Sui Yuan Bi Zhu).” Global Times, 16 July 2021.
Gwadar Port Authority (GPA). 2002. “Gwadar Port Authority Ordinance LXXVII of 2002.” Accessed
August 31, 2021. http://www.gwadarport.gov.pk/file/ordinance%20gpa.pdf
Haider, Z. 2005. “Sino-Pakistan Relations and Xinjiang’s Uighurs: Politics, Trade, and Islam along the
Karakoram Highway.” Asian Survey 45 (4): 522–545. doi:10.1525/as.2005.45.4.522.
Hameed, M. 2018. “The Politics of the China – Pakistan Economic Corridor.” Palgrave Communications 4
(1): 64. doi:10.1057/s41599-018-0115-7.
Hillman, J. 2020. The Emperor’s New Road: China and the Project of the Century. New Haven: Yale
University Press.
Husain, K. 2017. “Exclusive: CPEC Master Plan Revealed.” Dawn, June 21, 2017.
Hussain, E., and M. Rao. 2020. “China–Pakistan Economic Cooperation: The Case of Special Economic
Zones (SEZs).” Fudan Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences 13 (4): 453–472. doi:10.1007/
s40647-020-00292-5.
Jiang, H. 2015. “Evaluation and Management of Geopolitical Risks in the ‘Belt and Road’ (‘Yidaiyilu’
Diyuan Zhengzhi Fengxian De Pinggu Yu Guanli).” International Trade 8/2015.
Joint Consultation Mechanism (JCM). 2019. “Beijing Declaration of the First Meeting of the CPEC
Political Parties.” Published online by a participant. https://twitter.com/qasimkhansuri/status/
110800058361987481
94 P. ABB

Kang, D. 2010. “Hierarchy and Legitimacy in International Systems: The Tribute System in Early Modern
East Asia.” Security Studies 19 (4): 591–622. doi:10.1080/09636412.2010.524079.
Khan, A. 2009. “Renewed Ethnonationalist Insurgency in Balochistan, Pakistan: The Militarized State
and Continuing Economic Deprivation.” Asian Survey 49 (6): 1071–1091. doi:10.1525/as.2009.
49.6.1071.
Khan, I. 2017. “China to Get 91pc Gwadar Income, Minister Tells Senate.” Dawn, November 25, 2017.
Lafree, G., and L. Dugan. 2007. “Introducing the Global Terrorism Database.” Terrorism and Political
Violence 19 (2): 181–204. doi:10.1080/09546550701246817.
Layton, P. 2020. “Artificial Intelligence, Big Data and Autonomous Systems along the Belt and Road:
Towards Private Security Companies with Chinese Characteristics?” Small Wars & Insurgencies 31
(4): 874–897. doi:10.1080/09592318.2020.1743483.
Liu, Z. 2015. “Current Status, Problems and Countermeasures for China’s ‘Belt and Road’ Initiative in the
Southeastern and Southwestern Periphery (Woguo ‘Yidaiyilu’ Changyi Zai Dongnan, Xinan
Zhoubian Jinzhan Xianzhuang, Wenti Ji Duice).” Indian Ocean Economic and Political Review 4: 92–
109.
Ma, Y. 2015. “Risk Management Issues in the Construction of the "Belt and Road" (‘Yidaiyilu’ Jianshe
Zhong De Fengxian Guankong Wenti).” China Review of Political Economy 6 (04): 189–203.
Mangi, F. 2022. “Cash-Strapped Pakistan Cuts Power to Households on Fuel Shortage.” Bloomberg,
April 18, 2022.
Markey, D. 2020. China’s Western Horizon: Beijing and the New Geopolitics of Eurasia. New York: Oxford
University Press.
McCartney, M. 2021. The Dragon from the Mountains: CPEC From Kashgar to Gwadar. Cambridge, UK:
Cambridge University Press.
Ministry of Planning, Development and Reform and National Development and Reform Commission
(MPDR/NDRC). 2017. “Long-Term Plan for China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (2017-2030).”
Mustafa, D. 2021. Contested Waters: Sub-National Scale Water and Conflict in Pakistan. London: I.B.
Tauris.
Najam, A., and F. Bari. 2017. Pakistan National Human Development Report. New York: United Nations
Development Programme.
Palmer, A. 2021. “The Man Behind China’s Aggressive New Voice.” The New York Times, July 7, 2021.
Pakistan-China Institute (PCI). 2020. “Projects: Research and Education.” Accessed October 20, 2021.
https://www.pakistan-china.com/mn-research-and-education.php
Pew Research). 2015. “Global Indicators Database: Pakistan.” Accessed October 5, 2022. https://www.
pewresearch.org/global/database/indicator/24/country/pk/
Reeves, J. 2018. “Imperialism and the Middle Kingdom: The Xi Jinping Administration’s Peripheral
Diplomacy with Developing States.” Third World Quarterly 39 (5): 976–998. doi:10.1080/01436597.2
018.1447376.
Rolland, N. 2017. China’s Eurasian Century? Political and Strategic Implications of the Belt and Road
Initiative. Seattle: National Bureau of Asian Research.
Safdar, M. 2021. The Local Roots of Chinese Engagement in Pakistan. Washington, DC: Carnegie
Endowment.
Scissors, D. 2019. China Global Investment Tracker. Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute.
https://www.aei.org/china-global-investment-tracker/
Shah, S. A. 2015. “Economic Corridor: ANP Denounces Change in Route, Calls APC.” Dawn, May 1, 2015.
Small, A. 2020. Returning to the Shadows: China, Pakistan, and the Fate of CPEC. Washington, DC:
German Marshall Fund.
Swaine, M. “Chinese Views and Commentary on Periphery Diplomacy.” China Leadership Monitor 44,
no. 1 (2014): 1–43.
Tan, C. 2015. “Chinese Enterprises’ Overseas Investment Risks and Countermeasures under the ‘Belt
and Road’ Strategy (‘Yidaiyilu’ Zhanlüe Xia Zhongguo Qiye Haiwai Touzi Fengxian Ji Duice).” China
Circulation Economy 29 (7): 114–118.
Waseem, M. 2011. “Patterns of Conflict in Pakistan: Implications for Policy." Brookings Working Paper
No. 5, January 2011.
Wolf, S. 2020. The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor of the Belt and Road Initiative. Cham: Springer.
 Third World Quarterly 95

Yao, Y. 2015. “Analysis of Risks Facing the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (Zhong-Ba Jingji Zoulang
Mianlin De Fengxian Fenxi).” South Asian Studies 2: 35–45.
Younus, U. 2021. “Pakistan’s Growing Problem with Its China Economic Corridor." United States
Institute of Peace. Accessed October 27, 2021. https://www.usip.org/publications/2021/05/paki-
stans-growing-problem-its-china-economic-corridor
Zhang, F. 2019. “The Xi Jinping Doctrine of China’s International Relations.” Asia Policy 26 (3): 7–23.
doi:10.1353/asp.2019.0029.
Zhang, Y. 2016. “Baloch Separatist Forces Views on the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and Causes
(Biluzhi Fenlizhuyi Shili Dui Zhongbajingjizoulang De Kanfa Jiqi Chengyin).” South Asian Studies 2:
24–42.
Zheng, G. 2016. “Strategic Challenges to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, Grand Strategy and
Policy Suggestions (Zhong-Ba Jingji Zoulang De Fengxian Tiaozhan, Da Zhanlüe Sikao Jiqi Duice
Jianyi).” Pacific Journal 24 (04): 89–95.
Zhou, P. 2016. “Geopolitical Risks Faced by the “Belt and Road” and Their Management. (‘Yidaiyilu’
Mianlin De Diyuan Zhengzhi Fengxian Ji Qi Guankong).” Exploration and Free Views 1: 83–86.