The brief was prepared for GeoPolitica – a Romanian journal of political geography, geo-politics and geo-strategy

- for its special issue on Pakistan titled Pakistan: A Rising Global Player in the Emerging Geo-Strategic
Environment.

In the wake of globalisation, economic integration and
interconnection of markets has gained much impetus
in the contemporary geopolitical landscape. It has
evolved to become a vital ingredient of international
economy. The past decades have seen a rise in regional
integration blocs (with varying degrees of integration
level) and these are still gathering pace thus
prioritising connectivity on the global agenda.1
Connectivity, or the so-called interdependence, is not
something new in the integration debate. Where on one
hand an established self-reinforcing relationship
between integrated geographic connectivity and
economic productivity have necessitated upgradation
of facilities for intra-border infrastructure; on the other
hand the resurgence of interest in the subject has been
accompanied by a substantial body of literature
reviewing this phenomenon beyond the standard
paradigm. Connectivity, whether regional or global, is
a multifaceted phenomenon, where physical
connectivity remains only one of its integral pillars.2
Beyond the confines of hard infrastructure, a higher
degree of geographical lock-in hinges upon
socioeconomic and political linkages that extend from
joint commitment, cooperation and harmonisation to
the creation of an enabling environment for single
investment space.3
Hence where hard infrastructure remains the motor
behind regional integration, the political and social
dimensions remain the most important elements of
sustainable connectivity. All this becomes more
evident in the face of multiple incidences of failed
growth within regional blocs owing to lagging soft
infrastructure in terms of harmonised legislation and
coordination on economic policies. The SAARC is one
such bloc where the rivalries between the participating
members has stunted its growth. Further, perception
management as an offshoot of soft connectivity broke
down a strong geographically knitted regional model
in the case of Brexit. Moreover, the anti-globalisation
rhetoric recently initiated by the US represents a few
other symbolic blows to economic integration.4 In the
face of these changing undercurrents, enhanced
connectivity has become the focal node and knot of
regional connections, hence shifting the balance
towards the political and socioeconomic dimensions of
collaboration at policy level.

1 Xu, Mengqiao, Zhenfu Li, Yanlei Shi, Xiaoling Zhang and Shufei Jiang. "Evolution of regional inequality in the global shipping
network". Journal of Transport Geography 44 (2015): 1-12.
2 Walz, Uwe. Dynamics of regional integration. Springer Science & Business Media, 2012.
3 ESCAP, "Regional Connectivity for Shared Prosperity". Regional Connectivity for Shared Prosperity, 2014, 1-21.

doi:10.18356/00d1c123-en.
4 US President Donald Trump’s ban on Chinese telecoms giant Huawei is one recent example of economic containment.

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China-Pakistan Economic Corridor: A New Fig. 1 Sector-Wise Investment Distribution of
Heartland CPEC Project
In the above backdrop, China Pakistan Economic 1%
Corridor (CPEC) serves as an example of a
relationship built on the idea of alignment of trade,
connected past and shared trust. Having its roots in the
35%
rich time-tested friendship between Pakistan and
China, it attempts to boost these ties to a greater degree
64%
of economic integration. The CPEC clearly reads as an
audacious endeavour where the economic synergies
and complementary incidence of interconnected needs Energy
between these participating countries will create room
for sustainable economic cooperation. Moreover, the Infrastructure
corridor places paramount importance on harnessing
cultural and historical ties centring upon “people-to- Education, Public Health and Telecommunication
people” connection. A number of Universities and
centres are now involved in promotion of mutual Source: Ministry of Planning Development & Reform
understanding on cultures and languages of the two
countries.5 Beyond a bilateral economic undertaking, Physical connectivity is an important element of CPEC
the corridor is also expected to evolve as one of the far- and the history of such geographic connectivity
reaching initiatives in modern history, triggering large- between the two countries could be traced back to
scale connectivity in the region and hence making an building of the Karakoram Highway7 that connected
important contribution to integration of global the northern region of Pakistan with the western region
economy of China across the 15,000 feet high Khunjerab Pass in
1979.8 The construction of the highway, which took 27
A comprehensive 15-year investment programme, years to build, is the most potent symbol of the close
CPEC is an interconnected network of roads, railways historic ties between the two economies. The CPEC
and infrastructure projects yet not confined to that furthers this cross-regional linkage, consolidating a
only; it includes communication and information new axis between the two allies. Starting from the
networks, energy projects, industrial parks and border of China, the corridor runs all the way down to
economic zones, among others. The planned the southwestern port of Gwadar on the Arabian Sea.
investments in CPEC are currently valued at more than Fig.2 shows the network of highways in Pakistan
$60 billion.6 However, with the addition of new bisecting the length and breadth of the country towards
projects, this amount is likely to exceed that in the Kashgar in the Xingjian province of China.9
coming decades. Overall the project has been divided
into three phases scheduled for completion by 2030. A
sizeable portion of the investment project, around
64%, has been allocated to the energy sector, whereas
35% has been demarcated for infrastructure
development. Fig.1 shows the sectoral distribution of
the investment package.

5 As of 2017, around eight Chinese universities and 12 Pakistani centres were working for the purpose. See, Butt. D, Hasan, “CPEC and
the Road to Regional Integration”, CPEC-Spring Issue (2018).
6 Spearhead Research, “CPEC: Past and Future Challenges”, (2017).
7 KKH (often referred to as the Friendship Highway) spans the high mountain passes in North-East Pakistan and North-West China.
8 Small, Andrew. The China Pakistan axis: Asia’s new geopolitics. Random House India, 2015.
9 CPEC is not only focused on highways or roadways but also there is a plan to link Gwadar and Kashgar via rail network.

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Fig. 2 Highway Networks under CPEC regarding security and trade, Gwadar will not only
plug the larger gaps between several maritime nations
(to varying degrees depending on their geographical
positioning), but will also serve as the catalyst to
propel maritime security by providing an alternative
crucial opening to the trade routes of the Indian Ocean.

Fig. 3 Pakistan’s Geostrategic Location

Source: Ministry of Planning Development & Reform

CPEC in the larger context

When looked upon in isolation, CPEC serves to
connect Pakistan and China. Nonetheless the scope of
the project is much broader than a bilateral economic
undertaking. Pakistan does not only sit at the central
node position between South Asia, Central Asia and
the Middle East but also enjoys a pivotal position at
the intersection of the Indian Ocean, energy-rich
countries in the Middle East and Central Asia and
some of the largest global economies in the world. The
geostrategic position of the country continues to
benefit it while CPEC is expected to spur much larger
spill overs in terms of regional integration and
economic growth.
The geo-economic imperative of Gwadar port in
particular is crucial for understanding the complete
picture of this development initiative. Gwadar is the
warm-water seaport positioned at a vital staging point
in the Indian Ocean10; at a distance of 72km from Iran,
320km from Cape al-Hadd in Oman, 400km from the
Strait of Hormuz and in close proximity to the Persian
Gulf.11 It opens the gateway to the Middle East and
Africa in the west and South Asian countries in the
east.12 Moreover, where both the straits of Hormuz and
Malacca have been termed as major chokepoints
Source: Centre for Strategic and International Studies
(2018)
Eurasia is one of the most dynamic regions globally.
However, owing to the lagging hard and soft
infrastructure, the numerous economic blocks in the
region have failed to inter-trade to their actual
potential. The CPEC will address these much needed
connectivity bottlenecks where the overland
infrastructural connectivity under the corridor will
provide one of the most economic archetypical
regional transport chains.13
China is one of the world’s biggest oil importers. A
total of 90 per cent of the country’s oil imports pass
through the Strait of Malacca. Gwadar will now
provide a 3,000km route to Kashgar compared to the
12,900km route via Strait of Malacca to the eastern
seaboard of China, shortening transit time by at least
26 days (see Fig.4).14 Further, the landlocked Central
Asian Republics, which had long been in need of a
suitable route for connecting to the energy deficient
countries, will substantially benefit from this corridor
as a 500km highway from Gwadar to Herat in
Afghanistan will directly connect Central Asia and

10 Wolf, Siegfried O. "Gwadar Port-a potential game changer?" The Independent, March 24 (2013).
11 Hussain, Fakhar and Hussain, Mehar, “China-Pak Economic Corridor (CPEC) and its Geopolitical Paradigms”, IJSSHE-International
Journal of Social Sciences, Humanities and Education Volume 1, Number 2, 2017.
12 Butt, Khalid Manzoor, and Anam Abid Butt. "Impact of CPEC on Regional and Extra-Regional Actors." The Journal of Political

Science 33 (2015): 23.

13 Korybko, Andrew. "Pakistan Is the ‘Zipper’ of Pan-Eurasian Integration". Russian Institute of Strategic Studies (2015).
14 Hussain, Fakhar, and Mazher, Hussain. "China-Pak Economic Corridor (CPEC) and its geopolitical paradigms". International Journal

of Social Sciences, Humanities and Education 1, No. 2 (2017): 79-95.

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Russia with this regional hub.15 It will substitute the
prevailing route from South Asia all the way to the
Suez, Mediterranean, Atlantic and Baltic ports. The
CARs will hence have an all-time access point to
export their oil and gas resources to the neighbouring
region at minimal transit cost.
Fig. 4 Transit Routes to China via Gwadar and
Malacca Strait
Source: David Publishing (2018).16
Iran, which initially regarded CPEC as countering its
Chabahar port, has recently been considering options
for participation in the project keeping in view the
prospects of connectivity through road and railway
networks to China and further on.17 For linking the two
countries, all that is required is bridging around 80km
of distance from Gwadar to the Iranian border. These
developments will pave way for the construction of the
long-anticipated Pakistan-Iran gas pipeline starting
from Asaluyeh in Iran to Gwadar and onwards to the
north of Karachi. Interestingly, Russia is also
constructing a North-South gas pipeline, starting from
Karachi to Lahore.18 The eventual completion of these
two pipelines will lead to a grander multilateral
connectivity closely integrating Pakistan, Iran, Russia
and China. This way Pakistan will become a mega
transit hub for gas pipelines leading to China and
onwards.19
For Afghanistan, the prospects of joining BRI heralds
new investment and development for the country. The
initiative will advance the infrastructure of the war-
torn state, connecting it with its South and Central
Asian neighbours and allowing it to increase its
regional trade.
The extension of the value chain on connection to the
Middle East and the littoral states of Africa including
Djibouti, Ethiopia and Kenya will make Gwadar one
of the most vibrant transit corridors, stimulating flow
of trade from almost three quarters of all African
countries.
The projects under CPEC are progressing at a rapid
pace. The corridor is already attracting attention from
multiple actors in the region. Looking at the near
future, this bilateral undertaking is expected to
culminate in a much larger regional project. So far,
Russia20, Iran, the UAE and Saudi Arabia have
expressed their explicit interest in the corridor where
the latter has already signed three MoUs for financing
infrastructure and energy projects under the
initiative.21 The likelihood of Iran joining the project
would also extract out benefits for India in terms of its
accessibility to Afghanistan and CARs. Though
presently India is quite hesitant to dwell upon this
endeavour, CPEC carries the potential of becoming a
peace project, allaying the existing feelings of distrust
and ambivalence in the region.22
Kicking Off BRI and Alternative Initiatives
CPEC also has a special significance for Chinese
initiated ‘the Belt and Road Initiative’ (BRI) which is
one of the most ambitious 21st century connectivity
plans. Based on multilateral cooperation, it comprises
two types of routes: The Silk Road Economic Belt
(SREB) stretching from South-East Asia to North Asia
that will connect China all the way to Asia and Europe,
and the Maritime Silk Route (MSR) consisting of a
broader network of seaports positioned in different
countries of Asia, Africa and Europe.
Not directly a part of ‘Belt and Road’ yet an important
loop in its larger chain, Pakistan is a crucial staging

15 Hussain, Sajid and Ayaz, Muhammad, “CPEC; A Roadmap of Region’s Development”, FWU Journal of Social Sciences, Winter
2017, Vol.11, No.2, 51-59.
16 Muhammad, Ghulam, “The Game Changer China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC): A SWOT Analysis”, Cultural and Religious

Studies, November (2017), Vol. 5, No. 11, 661-674.

17 Tribune.com.pk. "Iran Expresses Desire to Join CPEC." The Express Tribune. February 15, 2019. Accessed June 24, 2019.
18 Korybko, Andrew, “CPEC and the 21st Century Convergence of Civilizations”, Geopedia, (2017).
19 Butt, M. Khalid, “Impact of CPEC on Regional and Extra-Regional Actors: Analysis of Benefits and Challenges”, (2015).
20Azeemi, Ume Farwa. "Russia's Tango with Pakistan | Opinion." Asia Times. February 6, 2019. Accessed June 19, 2019.
21 Raza, Syed Irfan. "Saudi Arabia to Finance Three CPEC Projects." Dawn.com. September 29, 2018.
22 Wagner, Christian. "The Effects of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor on India-Pakistan Relations." (2016): 4.

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post for BRI’s take-off. It serves as a nexus for the
continental and maritime routes of the ambitious
connectivity framework. Gwadar is the only port under
MSR that provides a conjunction to the overland
corridors envisaged under BRI, i.e. linking with SREB
at the origin and concluding at the MSR.23 Starting
from Xinjiang, the corridor passes through three
different routes covering various parts of Pakistan and
ending at the Gwadar, Bin Qasim and Karachi ports.
In fact the three ports provide an intersection where the
Belt and Road meet via CPEC. Considering CPEC’s
irreplaceably significant role in this process, it has
been nomenclated as the ‘Flagship Project’ in this
whole connectivity paradigm,24 which would function
as a bridge in advancing BRI in connecting Central
Asia, South Asia, the Middle East and China.25
With the implementation of CPEC and BRI, China will
enter a ‘Two Oceans Era: The Indian and Pacific
Oceans’. At a time of rising geopolitical significance
of the Indian Ocean, these developments have put the
whole project on the matrix of intense geostrategic
competition,26 where it is more often seen as a strategic
gambit rather than a connectivity initiative. Stoked by
the undergoing changes in the given geopolitical
context, a defensive sphere of parallel development
plans has been proliferated. For instance, the Chabahar
port inaugurated under a trilateral framework by India,
Iran and Afghanistan post-CPEC was undertaken to
bypass China and Pakistan.27 The Asia-Africa Growth
Corridor is another step in this direction that was
pitched by India and substantiated by Japan during the
52nd annual meeting of the African Development
Bank.28 For the United States, BRI is a deliberate
attempt at diminishing its ‘unipolar moment’.
Correspondingly, to counter the rising influence of
China in a new multipolar world order, it has teamed
up with Australia, India and Japan to establish a joint
regional infrastructure plan called ‘Quad’.29
Assertiveness aside, these multilateral connectivity
architecture roadmaps have reignited the drive towards
a loosely bordered, if not borderless, world at a time
when globalisation is losing traction.30 BRI has hence
manoeuvred the drive for Pan-Eurasian integration,
which will foster larger scale growth in the region.
Nonetheless, the silver lining remains in balancing
hegemonism and cultivating an environment of
coordination otherwise disregard for harmonious
development will not bode well for the broader
spectrum of enhanced integration.
Conclusion
In the present day where international trade has
become the mainstay of economic prosperity, large-
scale integration has emerged as one of the most
pronounced developments globally. Today the world
has become an amalgamation of different types of
regional blocs that are still growing in numbers.
The larger the positive spillovers of any project, the
stronger and self-sustaining it becomes. This analysis
reveals how implementation of CPEC is expected to
transform the geo-economic landscape over the
coming decades. Initiated as a bilateral project
between Pakistan and China, it has become the catalyst
for broader connectivity, invoking large-scale
geographical lock-in. As transport costs have a
statistically significant impact on inter- and intra-
regional trade31, the corridor will enhance the
commercial footprint in the entire region. Pushing
connectivity across three continents, it will become the
zipper of Eurasia, integrating more than 65 countries
and over four billion people. Beyond the conjunction
of physically adjacent economies, the corridor is
entwined with inter-linked forces of soft connectivity,
mutual cooperation and harmonisation, making it the
forerunner for convergence of civilisations. Learning
from the lessons of under-performing blocs, the

23 Markey, Daniel S., and James West. "Behind China’s gambit in Pakistan." Council on Foreign Relations 5, No. 1 (2016).
24 Esteban, Mario. "The China-Pakistan Corridor: a transit, economic or development corridor." Strategic Studies 36, No. 2 (2016): 63-
74.
25 Pantucci, Raffaello, and Sarah Lain. China’s Eurasian Pivot: The Silk Road Economic Belt. Routledge, (2017).
26 Javaid, Umbreen. "Assessing CPEC: Potential threats and prospects." Journal of the Research Society of Pakistan 53, No. 2 (2016).
27Daniels, Rorry. "Strategic competition in South Asia: Gwadar, Chabahar, and the risks of infrastructure development." American

Foreign Policy Interests 35, No. 2 (2013): 93-100.

28 Avinash Nair, “To Counter OBOR, India and Japan Propose Asia-Africa Sea Corridor,” Indian Express, May 31, 2017
29 Kersten, Rikki. "Japan and the Quad." Centre of Gravity Series 39 (2018).
30 US president Trump’s protectionism rhetoric intensified an environment for trade wars threatening global economic growth.
31 Limão, N. and A.J. Venables. 2001, ‘Infrastructure, Geographical Disadvantage, Transport Costs and Trade.’ World Bank Economic

Review 15: 451–79.

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corridor remains focused on shared development, thus
promoting a culture of trust and inclusiveness.
Though the project has understandably sparked some
scepticism among the adversaries, yet it creates hope
for substantial regional growth, prompting
partnerships and setting in motion parallel integration
processes proving Pakistan’s position as a pivot of
connectivity.

Prepared by:

Naila Saleh
Research Officer
Institute of Policy Studies (IPS), Islamabad.

For queries:

Syed Nadeem Farhat

Senior Research Officer
nadeem@ips.net.pk | www.ips.org.pk

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