The wheels of CPEC are spinning. In latest news, the Chinese Consulate in Karachi and Sindh University Jamshoro plan to establish CPEC Research Centre at the universitys area study centre. Meanwhile, the Institute of Business Administration is preparing for its second CPEC business and research conference in mid-March 2017 in partnership with Shanghai University and leading universities from each Pakistani province. These developments come weeks after the FPCCI and the KCCI released their respective studies on the CPEC.
For researchers across business, academia and think tank circles, the task on hand is no piece of cake; especially when lack of information is the single biggest complaint by politicians, businesses, academia and think tanks alike. Pakistan, however, is not the only country facing this grand fog.
A few weeks ago, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) released a report titled The Silk Road Economic Belt. That report said that the European Union, where the OBOR corridors end up in Rotterdam, Hamburg, Prague and Madrid, also lacks comprehensive understanding.
At an institutional level, the EU still requires a more comprehensive understanding of the Belts strategic implications in their totality before it engages in the Belt in greater measure. This includes understanding all of the Belts implications on the EUs own stated foreign, security and economic interests, SIPRIs authors wrote.
In fact even the Chinese scholars themselves remain divided in their views on whether the BRI [Belt and Road Initiative, a synonym of the original OBOR] is in essence a geostrategic, economic or national developmental strategy, the report noted.
Ergo, researchers in Pakistani shouldnt be detracted by the gargantuan and foggy nature of the task. After all, OBOR itself is unprecedented in modern, recorded human history. That is not to say FDI flows from the OBOR are unprecedented. Surely, that is not the case.
According to Unctad data, the US had a $5.5 trillion worth of inward FDI stock as of 2015, whereas that of UK and China had $1.4 and $1.2 trillion respectively. But most of that is private money rather than being a part of some grand state-led regional investment plan.
The last time so much money poured in any region was by the US into Western Europe under what is famously known as the Marshall Plan. Before that plan in 1948, the US had already given about $12-13 billion of aid to Western Europe, and similar flows followed under the plan between 1948 and 1951 though its another thing that 70 percent of the US aid under that plan was used to buy commodities from US suppliers: $3.5 billion on raw materials; $3.2 billion on food, feed and fertiliser; $1.9 billion on machinery and vehicles; and $1.6 billion on fuel. Aid is good business, isnt it?
Anyway, the total US aid in that period ($24-26 billion) was about 10 percent of the then US GDP, and confined to a small region called Western Europe. Now compare that to Chinas OBOR though of course the nature of OBOR is entirely different from that of the Marshall Plan.
The OBOR connects regions from south and east of China, across South Asia, Central Asia and Europe. The geography in question itself is unprecedented. Now compare the dollar spending. According to initial reports, China plans to spend between $4 and $8 trillion under OBOR, though exact timelines havent yet been made public, if they exist at all. Even if China spends half of the lower end of the range ($2 trillion), the spending would equal about 18 percent of Chinas current GDP.
Researchers from across the spectrum should also keep in mind that China is not a democracy, which means democratic standards of transparency cannot be expected. Moreover, as SIPRI notes, the OBOR has no formal institutional structure.
A deliberation and coordination body for the BRI overseen by vice-premier Zhao Gaoli has been established within the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), a powerful mostly domestic-oriented super ministry, in charge of the Chinese economy and development. However, implementation of the BRI takes place across multiple actors at multiple levels. This includes various Chinese ministries, most notably the Ministry of Commerce and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, local provincial or municipal authorities with individual implementation plans, as well as both state owned and private corporate actors and investors, SIPRIs authors note.
In cognisance of this, the researcher community should consider the following three policy recommendations that this column thinks would help yield the desired results.
First, develop a dedicated set of human capital, some of whom should not only be trained in the Chinese language and culture, but they should also have a deep understanding of regional trade and investment relations and its manifestations from the lens of businesses, especially from supply chain aspects, finance, legal issues, and security.
Second, establish strong connections with research clusters across business, academia and think tank circles in China. And third, coordinate, coordinate, coordinate; for nobody can claim to have a monopoly on knowledge when it comes to something as big as OBOR. To that end, like-minded universities should form a consortium that houses CPEC-dedicated academic journals, data portals, blog posts, and other platforms for coordination.
With China already rolling the ball, the pace of things will depend, inter alia, on how quickly OBOR countries respond and whether they can act proactively. In turn, this will require substantial amount of collective thinking. To that end, establishing research clusters and organizing conferences are only the first building blocks. A building, however, needs much more than mere blocks.
Comments
Comments are closed.