News that General (r) Asim Bajwa resigned as CPEC Authority chairman as soon as Prime Minister Imran Khan appointed Khalid Mansoor as his special assistant on everything related to the Corridor didn’t really catch anybody by surprise; at least not anybody associated with CPEC. Word in Islamabad was that both the Chinese and the planning ministry, which handles CPEC, were not exactly very happy with the way he was handling the project. Things had, in fact, been going sideways since his family business empire became the subject of much controversy in the local press and also since he decided to step down as special advisor to prime minister on information and broadcasting. CPEC is now moving beyond the initial phase of setting up the necessary infrastructure in Pakistan for such an extensive venture and into the second stage which, according to Planning Minister Asad Umar, will ‘focus on industrial cooperation’. And the PM office very rightly believed that it needed someone with more entrepreneurial skills to deal with the Chinese at this fragile time. Reports in the international media suggest that Beijing is pretty unhappy with Islamabad at the moment because the speed of the Corridor has slowed down somewhat. If that is true then we will not only have to make up for the time already lost but also work much faster in the future because of the nature of the negotiations to come. Nobody needs any reminding that CPEC is truly a godsend for Pakistan. Without it we would never have been able to erect the kind of infrastructure that we are in the process of doing right now. And with it will come the kind of economic and financial bonanza that can really turn our fortunes around. The Chinese idea of resurrecting the ancient silk route in the modern setting can change everything about this region; and CPEC is a small but very important part of the wider Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Pakistan must make sure that it is ahead of the curve on all important developments and milestones when it comes to CPEC. Anything less would amount to letting a very precious opportunity go begging. *