That the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) has already begun to accrue benefits to the Pakistani nation much before its full implementation is a welcome development. The outgoing Chinese ambassador to Pakistan, Sun Weidong, has given the good news to a nation battered by electricity load-shedding that there would be surplus electricity available after November. According to him, the Chinese companies involved in a variety of infrastructure works have also provided employment to as many as 60,000 local people.
Unfortunately, however, the forces inimical to CPEC have found a new voice in their support: the Trump administration. The US leadership, it appears, has finally decided to unleash an anti-CPEC drive, targeting both Pakistan and its global economic rival China. According to the Trump administration, the CPEC is a "controversial" project. Appearing before a US Senate Armed Services Committee hearing last week, US Defence Secretary James Mattis said that One Belt One Road (OBOR) "goes through disputed territory, and I think that in itself shows the vulnerability of trying to establish that sort of a dictate." Both China and Pakistan have dismissed US reservations that clearly provide new ammunition to forces that are hostile to Pakistan and CPEC. In response to US accusations against CPEC, Beijing, in a show of strong determination, has told Washington that CPEC is an economic cooperation initiative which is not directed at third parties, and that it has nothing to do with disputes related to territorial sovereignty, and that this country does not affect its principled stand on the Kashmir dispute.
Be that as it may, this new development seems to have given a new dimension to the US-India strategic partnership in South Asia and beyond. Targeting CPEC means undermining China's One Belt One Road (OBOR) historic infrastructure-building initiative. The US economy, which among other things, is characterized by a Chinese debt of over $1 trillion, losing out to China every day. It is safely deduced by independent economists that China's economy will surpass the United States' by the middle of this century, or even earlier. A heavily debt-ridden US believes that it must do something at the earliest in order to arrest the surge of the modernized Middle Kingdom that has been posting a $200 billion trade surplus every year for so many years. Washington's criticism of China's approach to economic development has now turned into accusations that the Chinese currency has been kept weak artificially to enable the country to boost exports and expand the manufacturing base to provide jobs to hundreds of millions to deal with the population's growing dissatisfaction. Since the tenure of Hu Jintao, President Xi Jinping's predecessor, the yuan has been appreciating against the US dollar by five percent annually. Conceding economically can translate into reduced influence in political terms. That is why the US - especially under Donald Trump, who is widely known for his China-bashing since his raucous presidential campaign last year - has articulated a slew of new strategies to check China's growing "soft power" image in the world. The US strategy is to appease its partner India through Washington's criticism of CPEC. India's hostility towards CPEC or OBOR is well-known. For example, it refused to participate in the ceremony launching OBOR in Beijing, on flimsy grounds. Washington also believes that any added pressure on China would help the United States deal on a better footing with the nuclear standoff on the Korean Peninsula.
But the question is, how can the US ignore the fact that over 70 countries and international organisations, including the United Nations General Assembly and Security Council, have signed cooperation agreements with Beijing on the OBOR initiative and incorporated it into important resolutions? How ironic it is that the US is trying to give its implausible "disputed territory" argument regarding CPEC or OBOR the gloss of Congressional sanction. And all this to serve its own strategic interests on the Korean Peninsula, in the South China Sea, in Afghanistan and South Asia.
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