The only big thing going for an isolated Pakistan is the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) which is itself uncertain of its future. Unable to tackle its internal security problems for which it now wrongly blames India it prefers focusing on the good times the world thinks the Chinese investment of $46 billion will bring. However, speaking at an awards ceremony at the Balochistan Frontier Constabulary Headquarters in Quetta, Commander Southern Command Lt General Amir Riaz sent a clear message to arch-enemy India to join CPEC and share the fruits of future development by shelving anti-Pakistan activities and subversion.
General Riaz’s invitation to India to join CPEC is conditional on India calling off its Afghan proxy warriors mobilised expressly to disrupt CPEC because it “endangers India’s security”. Even if India has activated elements in Afghanistan against Pakistan, the policy can only be described as reactive because Pakistan’s asymmetrical forays into India pre-date it. The trade utopia of CPEC and its blessings of peace will remain incomplete if India is kept out. Pakistan continues to be blamed for the ongoing Taliban trouble in Afghanistan which has involved blowing up Indian diplomatic facilities there.
For the time being the CPEC, far from being one of the greatest war-preventing trade arteries in the world, might unleash a new war, based on India’s perception that it contains Gwadar port in Pakistan as a military outpost of China targeting India. Both Afghanistan and Pakistan need internal corrections to come out of their instability. But these corrections can only come indirectly, through an opening-up, and not through the reform of ideologies they are helpless to change.
The indirect solution lies in trade openings through these median states where China and India come into play. Having refused a through-route to India, an isolated Pakistan has been compelled to accept CPEC, which will spread peace and prevent war only if India joins it. China is possibly looking forward to enhancing its cooperation with Iran through CPEC” and welcomes the road joining Gwadar to Chabahar, the port being built with Indian help. Not long ago, SAARC thought of Pakistan as a “median” territory allowing trade routes, creating dependencies that prevent war. China surely wants to include India in the CPEC, facilitating $70 billion worth of bilateral trade with it.
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