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Posts Tagged China Pakistan Economic Corridor.Political Stability

CPEC Panic in India : Indian Fears & Paranoia About China-Pakistan Economic Cooperation

Posted by Dr. Salman in INDIA SPLITTING INTO 5 NATIONS, INDIA'S CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY on December 18th, 2016

 
 

Secessionist Movements in India

Editor’s Note: India is fuming over  China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. It is a thorn in the side of India. It has tried sabotage, subversion, and brutal massacres of lawyers in Quetta to destabilize Balochistan, the main beneficiary of CPEC. But, breakapartIndia has failed miserably.It is a sad commentary on the pathetic rage of India against the existence of Pakistan. India succeeded with Russian and British break apart United Pakistan, by creating a vassal state Bangladesh. A nation which is still struggling to find its identity. India’s infiltration of Indian soldiers into poorly defended E.Pakistan and leveraging the linguistic resentment among E.Pakistanis resulted in breakup of United Pakistan. However, despite 71 years of Pakistan focused hatred and devious designs by Hindutva fanatics like Ajit Doval, India’s efforts are thwarted by facts on the ground. India itself breaking apart with serious fissures appearing in five different regions,
  • Assam separatist movements.
  • Dravida Nadu.
  • Indian Occupied Kashmir.
  • Khalistan movement.
  • Naxalite–Maoist insurgency.
Pakistan came out of Indian subversion as a stronger nation. It became not only a Nuclear Power, but also developed its own sophisticated miniature Nuclear Weapons mounted on lethally accurate short-range missiles, namely RAAD, NASR.
India in its blind rage cut its nose to speight its face. 
Let this be a lesson for India that people living in glass houses, should not throw stones. A day is not too far when the fissures in India will become independent nations. The precedent for such a happening was set by India, by deliberately breaking United Pakistan. It will happen soon, as predicted by India’s faith in karma, or what goes around comes around. The rest is history.
 Note:apologies for poor indents.

China,Columnists,Countries,Diplomacy,India,Sri Lanka |

Dec 16, 2016

China has made quick strategic moves to encircle India while advancing its growing global interests.

by Arun Kumar Singh

( December 16, 2016, New Delhi, Sri Lanka Guardian)

Whilst most Indians have been rightly focused on India’s attempt to leapfrog into the digital and cashless economy after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s surprise announcement of November 8 about demonetising Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes, some equally important news, which may have dangerous strategic implications for India, have been sidelined. China has made quick strategic moves to encircle India while advancing its growing global interests.

The Chinese Navy has been deployed in prolonged anti-piracy operations off Somalia since 2008. It has added conventional and nuclear submarines for such deployments though submarines have no role to play in anti-piracy operations. China has built and militarized seven artificial islands in the disputed South China Sea. It has improved its relations with the Philippines’ new President Rodrigo Duterte with a $20 billion aid package.

Early this year, China acquired its first foreign naval base facility in Djibouti, which also hosts US and Japan maritime surveillance aircraft. Now that Somali piracy has been largely neutralized, China has made various moves to ensure that its Navy has a permanent presence in the Indian Ocean region by getting base facilities for warships and aircraft. This will protect its sea lanes of commerce and also its newly-proclaimed Maritime Silk Route, which is a part of the well-known “one belt one road” connecting China to Europe by reviving the fabled Silk Route of medieval times. Let’s examine some of these Chinese moves, which are now becoming a reality.

The first of these relates to the Chinese-built Hambantota port in Sri Lanka, where China is now apparently going to control 80 percent of the facility. It will have management control of this new strategically located deep-water port in India’s immediate neighborhood.

Wily and farsighted China has also built a massive international airport just 18 km from Hambantota port, named as Mattala Rajapaksa International Airport. With Sri Lanka in no position to repay China for these infrastructure projects, and also others like the world-class highway linking Colombo to Galle port, there are some media reports about China taking Hambantota port and the Mattala airport on a 99-year lease. This will pave way for a Chinese naval base in our neighborhood, thus converting Sri Lanka into a long-term Chinese ally.

In the meantime, US President-elect Donald Trump spoke to the Taiwanese President. This indicates that China and the US may be heading for a possible confrontation. To emphasize this point, last week, a US Navy long-range maritime patrol and anti-submarine aircraft P-8A, operated from China-built Mattala airport. Two rival superpowers in India’s backyard is not good news for India.

Next is the publicly announced forthcoming induction of two Chinese-built conventional submarines by the Bangladesh Navy in January 2017. It may be well known that Bangladesh is now planning to commercially exploit its newly-acquired expanded exclusive economic zone in the Bay of Bengal. China — which has already sold warships to Bangladesh — has now made a long-term presence in Bangladesh possible, by not only selling submarines at subsidized rates but also providing $20 billion loan and signing deals worth $13.6 billion during President Xi’s two-day visit on October 14.

To solve its “Malacca dilemma”, China provided soft loans of $13.75 billion to Malaysia for building its East Coast rail line and also to sell four Navy warships at subsidized rates. The total package is about $34 billion.

Similarly, Thailand, which has Chinese-built warships in its Navy, has embraced China by placing orders for three Chinese conventional submarines in July 2016. China is apparently ready to finance and build the Kra Isthmus Canal (across Thailand), which will save hundreds of miles of sea passage for warships, submarines, and merchant ships, by linking the Gulf of Thailand to the Andaman Sea.

Finally, we come to China’s all-weather friend — Pakistan. It is the beneficiary of $51 billion for the China-Pakistan economic corridor, linking China’s restive Xinjiang province through disputed Pakistan-occupied Kashmir to China-financed, built and managed port of Gwadar. Recently, Pakistan announced that the Pakistan and Chinese Navies would jointly patrol the waters off Gwadar port to provide seaward security to this port, which last fortnight received the first Chinese merchant ship as part of CPEC.

Another media report mentions that the Pakistan Navy has created a special task force to provide seaward security to Gwadar port. Yet another recent media report says that Gwadar International Airport, financed and built by China, is ready to operate fully loaded A-380 Airbus aircraft, which are the largest aircraft flying today.

The Chinese Navy is already in the IOR, and its warships and submarines will soon be based at Chinese-built ports literally in our backyard, while Chinese warplanes will operate from Chinese-built airports which are next to Chinese-built seaports.

All this while India, its Parliament, and people are in the throes of a well-meaning digital revolution to become a cashless society. Hopefully, Mr Modi will take decisive steps to counter this latest seaborne threat to our national security.

Vice Admiral Arun Kumar Singh retired as Commander-in-Chief of the Navy’s Eastern Naval Command in 2007. A nuclear and missile specialist trained in the former Soviet Union, he was also DG Indian Coast Guard.

 

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THE NIGHT OF OUR TRIALS COMING TO AN END: Pakistan: The Next Colombia Success Story?

Posted by admin in PAKISTAN :THRU VISITORS LENS, Pakistan Rising in Real Estate Growth, PAKISTAN SHINING on August 6th, 2015

 

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Pakistan: The Next Colombia Success Story?

Pakistan has the potential to be a global turnaround story. I recently spent time in-country listening to a wide range of perspectives and I am convinced that U.S. policymakers and business leaders need to look at Pakistan beyond the security lens. Getting our relationship right will require deeper thinking and action on issues around trade and investment, education, and broader economic development. The United States ought to be Pakistan’s preferred partner given its 70-year relationship. But in order to participate in the upside of the Pakistan story, the United States will need to view Pakistan not as a problem to be solved but as a potential partner. There are several changes that suggest the United States should soon act on this opportunity.

Daniel Runde
 
 
 
 
 
 
Daniel Runde
Contributor

Pakistan Think Tank & its Members Thank Mr.Daniel Runde to See the Potential in the People & Nation of Pakistan

 

I cover the opportunities for the US coming from the developing world.full bio →

 

The Pakistan of today is similar to that of Colombia in the late 1990s. Back then, words like “drugs, gangs, and failed state” were freely associated with the Andean country. Today, Colombia has a free trade agreement with the United States, a stable 3.5 percent annual GDP growth, and security is vastly improved. Similarly, Western headlines on Pakistan today gloss over the progress on the security front, the increased political stability, and incremental progress on the economic front. In spite of this potential for Pakistan, it continues to suffer from a terrible country brand that has not caught up with realities on the ground.

Action Against the Taliban

Pakistan’s improving security dynamic is the first change to note. It is hard to understate the before-and-after effects of the Taliban’s horrendous December 2014 attack on a military-owned elementary school in Peshawar that killed 145 people, including 132 schoolchildren aged eight to eighteen. Almost immediately after the attack, the military responded in force by taking out 157 terrorists via air strikes and ground operations in the North Waziristan and Khyber tribal areas adjacent to Peshawar.

What has not sunk into international perceptions about the country is the tangible consensus among government, military, and Pakistani citizens against violent terrorists including the Pakistani Taliban and the alphabet soup of other terrorist groups in and around the country. Pakistan will continue to experience attacks by fringe groups, but policymakers and investors need to stop operating as if the Pakistani Taliban is at Islamabad’s doorstep.

Political Stability

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is governing with a competent cabinet, a majority coalition, and is working in tandem with the military to deliver peace and security. Sharif was elected in Pakistan’s transition of power between democratically elected governments in April 2013 and so far, he has demonstrated enough of a commitment to democracy.

For much of last year, Sharif exercised restraint against an active opposition that led a crippling 162-day sit-in in front of the National Assembly to contest the 2013 election results. Instead of opting for an aggressive approach, Sharif wisely deferred to an independent election mission to verify the results, which recently ruled in favor of his party. The military, at the request of the Prime Minister, encouraged the crowds to disperse peacefully. The military’s decision not to use force against protesters – or the sitting prime minister – suggests that Pakistan could be on its way to further consolidating its fragile democracy.

Better Luck Around the Corridor

Chinese investment is another reason why the United States should reassess its Pakistan calculus. Since Xi Jinping first announced the $46 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) in 2014, the project has quickly become the centerpiece of diplomatic relations between the two countries. CPEC will include highways, railways, and oil and gas pipelines – all constructed via Chinese companies.

The CPEC project aims to connect China and Pakistan, ending in Pakistan’s Gwadar Port on the Arabian Sea.
The CPEC project aims to connect China and Pakistan, with an outlet to Pakistan’s Gwadar Port on the Arabian Sea.

Even the possibility of the scheme’s partial achievement has injected optimism in a country starved for infrastructure and energy investment. The deal has also greatly incentivized the government to clamp down on terrorist groups. Economic success is by no means guaranteed especially given China’s checkered track record of investing in infrastructure projects abroad. Still, China’s bet on Pakistan could overshadow US contributions unless we rethink our mix of engagement.

Similar to its approach in Kazakhstan, China is interested in leveraging Pakistan – in the words of Dan Twining – as a “launching pad” for greater connectivity with energy producers in the Gulf and Middle East, as well as markets in the West. The good news is that Pakistani businesses still prefer the allure of technology transfer and innovation offered by U.S. companies. But make no mistake: for Pakistanis, Chinese investment is better than no investment.

 

Pakistan: The Next Colombia Success Story?
Continued from page 1
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A New Development Story

Pakistan has a population of 182.1 million people and is the 6th largest country in the world. Sixty percent of the population is of working age. By 2050, Pakistan’s total population will be nearly 300 million, making it roughly ten times the size of Afghanistan. Pakistan is also among the world’s fastest urbanizing countries with half its people projected to live in cities by 2050. Twenty years ago, Islamabad, a planned city much like Brasilia, had a population of 400,000; today, it has a population of around 3 million including the peri-urban areas. Many Pakistani cities are undergoing a similar urbanization process, and this will create massive demands on food, energy, water, and consumer goods.

At the same time, macroeconomic and structural reforms over the last several governments have narrowed the budget deficit and raised GDP growth to a stable 4.5 percent despite large energy deficits, and built foreign reserves up to over $17 billion. Low oil prices and the $14 billion in annual remittances the country receives from its 6 million-strong diaspora have also helped. There has been substantial progress in reducing poverty, which has fallen to 13.6 percent in 2011 from 35 percent in 2002; in rural areas, poverty has dropped from 40 to 15 percent during the same period. While there is some debate on the accuracy of these numbers, there has been clear progress. In May, Standard and Poor upgraded Pakistan’s credit rating from stable to positive.

Pakistan is the world’s 26th largest economy in terms of purchasing power parity. Its national economic growth plan, Vision2025, aims much higher. With 90 percent of the country employed through SMEs, Pakistan has one of the most entrepreneurial economies in the world. Complete foreign equity is permitted in the infrastructure and manufacturing sectors, helping drive FDI to $1.45 billion in 2013, a 76 percent increase over the previous year but still far too small for such a big country.

Next Steps for International Engagement

As Pakistan gradually improves on a number of fronts, so should its relationship with the United States. Clearly, Pakistan wants more than just traditional foreign aid. During my visit, a prominent Pakistani intellectual and influencer told me that “if the United States isn’t going to build stuff, then it shouldn’t don’t bother.” Given the smaller budget envelope for U.S. infrastructure projects (the largest infrastructure project built by the United States in the last decade is the new U.S. embassy), assistance should be geared towards facilitating infrastructure investment particularly in the water and energy sectors.

Specifically, the United States should encourage regulatory and policy reform and encourage greater US investment using specialized agencies including Overseas Private Investment Corporation, the U.S. Trade Development Agency and USAID’s Development Credit Authority. Negotiations for a U.S.-Pakistan Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT) have stalled due to reservations on both sides, but a successfully concluded BIT would be a strong signal of certainty and stability for US based investors interested in deeper engagement in Pakistan. This might be a good topic for discussion when Prime Minister Sharif visits DC in October.

A high level Pakistani official told me of their need for at least Pakistani 10,000 PhDs from the US in the near future. The United States should find more ways to increase educational opportunities for Pakistani students especially in critical areas such as urban planning, public administration, agriculture, and STEM.

Currently, the U.S. relationship with the country has been limited to a risk mitigation paradigm. However, the changes outlined above warrant a reframing of the way countries such as the United States engage with Pakistan’s government and especially its private sector. Pakistan is on a hopeful path and with the right mix of assistance and private investment, the United States can participate in Pakistan’s upside and remain a strategic partner.

 

This article previously stated that projections indicate Pakistan’s population will approach 300 million by 2025. It has been edited to indicate this will occur by 2050.

forbes.com
Pakistan: The Next Colombia Success Story?

Original URL:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/danielrunde/2015/08/03/pakistan-the-next-colombiasuccess-story/

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