Sea Pack And CPEC – OpEd

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In international Politics there are no permanent friends or enemies, but only permanent interests (John Henry Temple). Nation-states adopt any sort of tricks to safeguard and enlarge their national interest because nothing is mandatory except national interest when it comes to state, this is generally termed as Statism where state holds the superior power rather then anything else. Before the division of USSR, the world had a bipolar system in international politics: the capitalist block and the communist block. A power driven tug of war had always been there in between these two states to break the hegemony of other and make the world unipolar in terms of economic, military, technology, and cultural aspects etc. To take this position both of these states played their cards which changed the political scenario of world and made Policy makers of world to have a scrutiny on these great games.

World War II came to an end with a drastic change in the geopolitical structure of the world. USSR was expanding it’s communist regime in the middle east countries which was also an ultimate war between these two blocks (western and Eastern ). Powers on both blocks has shown a pragmatic elevation of strengthening their security crisis which alarmed different countries on both blocks.

Policy makers of west (US) started to make policies to tackle this alarming issue. US was afraid of this rapid expansion of the communist regime. US started to negotiate with Middle east Asian countries and South East Asian countries and propagated that this expansion will threaten their religious ideology and will change the political scenario drastically so they made Central Treaty Organization and South East Asia Treaty Organizations during 1950s. The main objective which was propagated by US about these pacts was that it will be a counter pact to stop expansion of communist regime. So they supported the countries of the pact with military upgraded weapons and financial help in order to cut of the communist expansion.

Here we have a point which should be understood that when USSR was expanding its regime the main objective of the regime was to reach the warm water Arabian Sea which is the hub or control point to the almost half of the world. US, which propagated that USSR expansion will challenge the sovereignty of nation-states was actually afraid of USSR reaching the warm water of Arabian sea and that USSR will become the super power and the bipolar system might changed to a communist unipolar system.

Pakistan and India were member of these both pacts to counter communist expansion. Both of these countries never fought against communist expansion before, rather they had good relation with communist countries. Pakistan was amongst the 1st Nation-state who accepted the sovereignty of China (Communist Nation) on 1949 after independence and India had good relations with USSR.

When Pakistan signed the SEATO and CENTO on 1950s China never agitated on this acts nor Pakistan took any sort of counter attack on Communist China. Rather both nations developed good relations from the first day. Hub of events was the pragmatic examples of these relations i.e. Pakistan helped and also supported China on Sino-India border war and provided any sort of help they could had at that time and like vise versa China supported Pakistan on border war with India on 1965 September. China also extended his warm help to Pakistan in terms of Kashmir in United Nation Organization and always VETO’ed the pact which was against Pakistan vice versa.

Both China and Pakistan then developed Economic Partnership since 1970s. They also have cross military trainings now-a-days and trained their Squad with latest upgraded weapons. Since their economic partnership they have signed many projects but the project which got importance and considered as worlds largest project is China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) – an off shoot of the mighty One Belt One Route (OBOR) project.

On April 2015, China and Pakistan signed this CPEC project with the initial cost of $46 billion and expected to be extended to 63$ billion. CPEC is not a single project it’s a hub of project which covers infrastructure, technology, banking sector, telecommunication, agriculture, space and technology sector. When we look into these expense of this project, simple question arises that why China is investing too much on CPEC?

The simplest answer for this question is that it takes almost 27 days for China from south east to reach the warm water of Arabian Sea but with the completion of this project the distance will reduce to 3500 Km, almost two days from China to Arabian sea which will save China’s economy and off course will save the time for 25 days. This project will provide elevation to china economy as part of the Belt and Route Initiative. Inside ‘Belt and Route,’ China’s mega-project that is linking 70 countries across Asia, Europe, and Africa. On completion of this mega Project China will be considered as super power in terms of economy and technology. This is all possible only when it reaches to warm water of Arabian sea.

Now here lets make a chain between past events which formulated future’s policies. During 1950s US designed pacts CENTO and SEATO which was formed to counter communist expansion, which as a so called motto, originally US wanted to stop USSR to reach the warm water so it would build its Unipolar system but failed in these pacts. Both countries Pakistan and China have opposite ideologies and different mind sets and origins.

Despite being member of these pacts Pakistan never acted on single point of the pact to counter communism neither china felt embarrassed in helping Pakistan when she was running in difficult time China went on helping Pakistan despite being active member of CENTO and SEATO and Now China will reach the warm water from completion of this mega project. China and Russia are also getting closer now-a-days it may be possible that both these countries in future will develop a common communist goal to take over the world politics which clearly depicts that it is a SEA PACK project not a CPEC.

*Sajjad Ali based in Karachi. Postgraduate Student of Political Science at University of Karachi who has a keen interest in Political Science, International Political economy, Public Policy, Conflict & Peace resolution and Foreign Policy studies.

One thought on “Sea Pack And CPEC – OpEd

  • January 16, 2019 at 7:18 am
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    well written

    Reply

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