Prevailing since 2014, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf’s concerns over the CPEC are not over yet. PTI’s Chairman, Imran Khan, keeps disputing the CPEC from different angles. Chinese Ambassador in Islamabad, Sun Weidong, met twice with Imran Khan in February and October 2016, where Imran Khan conveyed his concerns on the CPEC but it looks that such concerns were not removed. Once again, Imran Khan criticised the CPEC in the following tone: “his party did not have anything against the CPEC but with the way the federal government was handling it.” China is supposed to handle CPEC with the Federal Government and not with the provinces.
President Xi Jinping was scheduled to visit Pakistan in September 2014, but the PTI and allied parties staged a sit-in Islamabad, which made it impossible for President Xi to visit Pakistan at that time. That was a major blow to diplomacy and the CPEC. The visit was delayed for seven months, and the delayed CPEC was launched on 20 April 2015. The PTI made President Xi’s visit controversial, objected on the Chinese assistance to Pakistan, and called CPEC package somewhat an expensive commercial loan to Pakistan. The PTI also lamented that the package was not an investment.
The PTI policy on the CPEC keeps changing. There have been many twists and turns in the past two years. There will be no end, no matter how it will damage the country’s image to China. The party has its unending list of demands that are keeping changing. Imran Khan has taken different stands on the CPEC. There are u-turns and changing ideologies of the PTI on the CPEC. The CPEC is not the exclusively KP-oriented, but it is about all the regions of the federating units.
The main objection raised by Imran Khan was on the route of the CPEC. His first reaction came on 13 May 2015 when he talked about the ‘‘shortest route’’ between Kashgar and Gwadar and to address poverty in such areas. Later, PTI stressed on the “Western Route”. The Western Route is not the shortest but the longest involving more physical work and finances. The Western Route is not even economical and will require more travelling.
The eastern and central routes are shortest and economical. His party stressed on the longest western route that mainly bypassed Punjab, and only part of this route goes through the Punjab. In another press conference held in Lahore in September 2015, Imran Khan warned that the eastern route for the CPEC might foster enmity between provinces and a “better route” should be found out.
In May 2015, Imran Khan also started taking about the change of the “original route”, which was even not there at that time. He pointed out that the decision about the CPEC route took place in 2013, but the nation was kept in the dark about its actual route. Time and again, the government made it clear that there was no such “original route”.
In November 2015, Imran Khan said that western route should be completed first by building routes only in KP and Balochistan. The irony of this fact is that even the western route cannot be built without going through the Punjab province such as districts of Bakkhar, Minawali, and Attock that are centrally located between KP and Balochistan.
On the platform of the PTI, some of its members started calling the CPEC as the “China-Punjab Economic Corridor,” giving a provincial hate to the mega national project. It is ironic if one goes through the tweets of the PTI supporters on the social media about the CPEC. The social media tweets sent negative messages to the Chinese officials and people.
Participating at the All Parties Conference (APC) and addressing a press conference in Quetta in December 2015, Imran Khan said that “our concerns on the CPEC project are similar to those the people of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on the Kalabagh dam.” He further stated that “the CPEC should benefit the people of Balochistan because Gwadar seaport, which was an integral part of the project belonged to them, adding that Baloch people should not be deprived of their due rights.” Equating the CPEC with the Kalabagh dam was unfortunate.
The fact remains that the CPEC equitably distributes finances and physical resources and industrial zones among all provinces. The share of the Balochistan in all such projects is greater than all other provinces at the moment and why the CPEC has not be termed as the “China-Balochistan Economic Corridor (CBEC)” by opponents yet.
The first APC on the CPEC was held on 13 May 2015 in Islamabad. The PTI boycotted the second and the third APC comprising all political parties on the CPEC. The second APC took place on 28 May 2015 in Islamabad, while the third one was convened on 15 January 2016 to achieve national consensus. Constant broken pledges, politicisation, provincialism, and agitation against the CPEC brought nothing but a disappointment to this mega national project.
The writer is a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Strategic Studies Islamabad. He writes on China, Japan, and East Asia