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CPEC And The 21st Century Convergence

Of Civilizations
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Multipolarity
Islamic civilization

19.01.2017
China
Pakistan
Andrew Korybko

The current century presents a plethora of strategic opportunities for Pakistan, provided that
Islamabad knows how to pluck the low-hanging fruit and take the initiative. The steady
development of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is making the country ever more
attractive for a wide variety of international partners, some of which have traditionally been
aligned with Pakistan, and others which are entirely new and unprecedented. No matter which of
the two categories these states fall under, it’s evident that they’re all interested in taking
advantage of this game-changing series of infrastructure projects.

Never before has China had a reliable overland trade corridor to the Indian Ocean, and this in
turn opens up a wide range of options for the People’s Republic and its economic partners.
Moreover, the eventual completion of CPEC will allow Russia and the landlocked states of
Central Asia to more easily conduct commerce with the broader Indian Ocean Region, thereby
leading to the creation of previously uncharted trade routes which will invigorate each set of
partners and profit the irreplaceable transit state of Pakistan. In terms of the bigger picture, each
crisscrossing network of economic connections in one way or another is expected to pass through
Pakistan by means of CPEC, thereby empowering Islamabad to leverage its crucial geostrategic
position in pursuit of its national interests.

The convergence of so many diverse civilizational actors – including Europeans, Russians,


Turks, Arabs, Iranians, Chinese, and Africans – in one state is made possible by Beijing’s One
Belt One Road vision of global connectivity as manifested through CPEC, and it accordingly
allows for Pakistan to mediate over a dialogue of civilizations in the 21st century. This is a
pivotal role of the utmost importance and highest responsibility, and it has the very real potential
of transforming Pakistan from a regional leader to a hemispheric Great Power within the next
decade. This analysis will thus explore the way in which this grand strategy can be actualized,
sequentially describing the overall concept, the various civilizational-connectivity channels, and
the challenges that Pakistan can expect to face.

Concept
Abstract:

The economic attractiveness of CPEC serves as an irresistible magnet for all sorts of various
actors to utilize its infrastructural connectivity in facilitating their trade objectives, whether it’s
enhancing bilateral trade with China such as the EU, Mideast, and African states may naturally
be interested in, or in acquiring a convenient outlet to the Indian Ocean such as what Russia and
the Central Asian republics desire. The convergence of so many civilizational forces in Pakistan
will propel the South Asian state to worldwide importance by gifting its leaders with the
impressive potential to serve as the common middle ground between each of them, both literally
in terms of CPEC connectivity and figuratively as it relates to the broader dialogue of
civilizations concept.

The latter objective is wholly dependent on the former, meaning that Pakistan is unlikely to bring
together a wide array of hemispheric interests and actors if the CPEC project isn’t completed or
is severely undermined after the fact. Conversely, the completion of CPEC will enable Pakistan
to do just that, which thus propels the country’s significance to global heights. The second and
largest part of this research will describe the different connectivity channels that CPEC opens up
between Pakistan and the rest of Afro-Eurasia, but at this point a lot more needs to be said about
the grand strategy behind this exciting endeavor.

Once CPEC becomes fully operational, Pakistan will unofficially become China’s most
important gateway to the rest of the world. Although the People’s Republic currently engages in
a staggering amount of trade with each of its countless partners, the vast majority of this is
conducted via maritime routes which traverse the bottlenecked chokepoint of the Strait of
Malacca and the contentious waters of the South China Sea, both of which are uncomfortably
vulnerable to an American blockade or similar sort of interference in the event of a conflict
between the two Great Powers. It’s mostly for this reason and due to the foresight of Chinese
strategists that Beijing decided to pioneer an overland trade route to the Indian Ocean through
CPEC, relying on its decades-long and all-weather friendship with Pakistan in order to make this
a reality.
Tangible:

Upon completion, CPEC will make Pakistan the most reliable, cost-effective, and fastest route
for carrying out trade with China. It’s a much shorter voyage for ships to travel to Gwadar than it
is to Guangzhou, and once goods are unloaded at the Arabian Sea port, they can quickly be
spirited northwards to the Chinese border and enter the People’s Republic in record time. By
cutting days off of the journey and avoiding the possibility of unwanted American naval
interference, CPEC is a priceless gift to each of China’s partners and is expected to become one
of the most widely utilized overland trade routes in the world. As CPEC becomes more popular,
Pakistan naturally becomes more important, and this provides the country with the chance to take
on expanded leadership responsibilities in Afro-Eurasia.

Understanding that international trade facilitation between China and each of its partners will
become the backbone of Pakistan’s future strategic significance to the rest of the world, the
government should take the initiative to host CPEC trade fairs in Gwadar as a means of
showcasing its newfound logistical importance. These gatherings could be jointly organized by
Pakistan and China’s relevant ministries, and they’d serve the purpose of incentivizing more
companies to use this route as additional infrastructure comes online to make it more attractive.
Hand in hand with promoting CPEC, Pakistan could also work on an ambitious public relations
campaign to rebrand its image by associating itself more closely with this project. If done
properly, then this could dramatically reverse the soft power losses that Pakistan suffered across
the past two decades when the Western Mainstream Media relentlessly waged information
warfare against the country.

It’s crucial that Pakistan takes urgent and visible steps to debunk the foreign-imposed stereotypes
that the country is an “exporter of terrorism” and “horrifyingly unsafe”, since this false narrative
is a powerful deterrent to the development of enhanced trade ties. With this in mind, it’s
advisable that CPEC trade fairs be bolstered by complementary political and socio-cultural
forums, events, and conferences that highlight the recent advances in Pakistan’s domestic
stability and raise awareness about its civilizational connectivity potential in promoting a
multilateral dialogue of peace with each of its partners. Thought leaders (think tank experts,
analysts, etc.), journalists, government officials, and civil society representatives from all across
Europe, Russia, Central Asia, the Mideast, East Africa, and China should be invited to attend
these gatherings in order to network with one another and learn how Pakistan is becoming
synonymous with CPEC, peace, and prosperity.

The ideal goal should be for Gwadar to host regular trade fairs and socio-cultural events which
culminate in a big-ticket yearly meeting akin in esteemed importance to the Shangri-La
Dialogue, except focusing on participation from each of the aforementioned regional actors most
likely to partake in CPEC. Given the overt economic focus of CPEC, this prospective headline-
grabbing meeting could market itself on bringing together distinguished representatives from
relevant institutional actors such as the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO), the EU, the
Eurasian Union, GCC, SAARC, the East African Community, and other ‘non-aligned’ forces
such as China, Iran, and Ethiopia, for example. Building off of the common denominator of
multilateral trade facilitation through CPEC, the attendees at the “Gwadar Gathering” could then
expand upon the subject of conversation to more broadly include security, civilizational, and
strategic topics as well, which could thus allow for non-CPEC-participating countries such as
India and the US to also take part in this meeting.

Symbolic:

What Pakistan is aiming for is to become one of the centers of the emerging Multipolar World
Order, taking advantage of the limitless benefits afforded by CPEC to transform itself from a
regional leader to an actor of hemispheric and even global importance. It can only do this by
promoting itself as the neutral and well-trusted point of convergence between a variety of
different economic actors, which correspondingly enables it to broaden its relevance to the world
by highlighting how it could serve as a bridge in connecting each of their larger multilateral
interests. There has yet to be (and may very well never be) another state capable of bringing
together as diverse of a set of partners as Pakistan can through CPEC, since no other country is
as relevant to the collective long-term economic prospects of Europe, Russia, Central Asia, the
Mideast, East Africa, and China. Consequently, Islamabad should seize the moment by
proactively informing each of its current and prospective partners about the win-win future that
awaits them through CPEC, as well as explaining how this directly correlates with their
respective grand strategic interests.

Paying special attention to the leading multipolar Eurasian Great Powers of Russia and China,
their partnerships with Pakistan fulfill an indispensable soft power role for each of them by
serving as a powerful bridgehead to wider engagement with the global Islamic community.
Unrecognized by most casual observers, Pakistan is indeed the most powerful Muslim country in
the world because of the combination of its nuclear weapons arsenal, enormous conventional
military capabilities, provably effective counter-terrorist forces, large population, and the fastest-
growing Muslim economy, all of which are going to be greatly augmented by Pakistan’s new
global geostrategic position vis-à-vis CPEC. Furthermore, Pakistan is neutral in the American-
provoked sectarian wars in the Mideast, having the second-largest Shiite population behind
neighboring Iran yet also enjoying very fruitful relations with Saudi Arabia, which thus places it
in the enviable and rare position of being trusted by both “sides”. Because of this, Moscow and
Beijing’s productive relations with Islamabad reverberate all across the wider “Ummah” and
leave a favorable impression in the minds of most Muslims.

It goes without saying that this intangible ‘civilizational credence’ is crucially significant
nowadays in order to stem off the US’ divide-and-rule scheme for engineering a ‘clash of
civilizations’ to divide the Eastern Hemisphere, ergo the related need for Pakistan to use CPEC
as a springboard for encouraging a dialogue about the imminent convergence of civilizations
across its territory during a prospective “Gwadar Gathering”. The respected credibility and long-
established trust that Pakistan has earned among the global Muslim community can go a long
way in helping Russia and China deepen their socio-economic engagements across the Mideast
and East Africa. In fact, their relationships with Pakistan could eventually become the model for
other Muslim countries’ ties with these two states and accordingly serve as the gateway for
strategically broadening these Great Powers’ presence in these regions, with Islamabad
cementing the progress that Moscow and Beijing have already made in this regard and ultimately
complementing their grand strategies.

Channels
As it was stipulated earlier in the research, the convergence of civilizations and all of the
aforementioned concepts are entirely dependent on the multilateral connectivity potential of
CPEC, particularly in terms of how it relates to successfully attracting European, Russian,
Central Asian, Mideast, East African, and Chinese trade across Pakistani territory. This is the
essential prerequisite which must be met in order for Islamabad to proceed with its 21 st-century
plans to become a globally relevant Great Power all across the Eastern Hemisphere. Because of
how intimately the country’s future is tied to CPEC, and keeping in mind the earlier suggestion
that Pakistan rebrand itself to more closely affiliate its international image with this project, the
following list elaborates on some of the bilateral CPEC relationships that Islamabad should
promote as soon as possible, all of which if actualized would collectively contribute to the
convergence of civilizations and consequent multipolar stability:

CPEC-China:

The initial purpose behind CPEC was to provide China with a reliable overland access route to
the Indian Ocean by means of its close Pakistani ally, thereby easing the physical, financial, and
strategic costs of trade with its European, Mideast, and East African partners per the reasons that
were discussed at the beginning of this analysis. CPEC has been developing at a very fast pace,
especially the work that’s been done in Gwadar, and the project is already operational despite not
being fully completed. As it stands, this is the first of China’s many Silk Road projects to be
open for business, even if it’s only partially online at the moment. The reason why this is so
important to draw attention to is because Beijing hopes to eventually construct two additional
mainland trade routes across Eurasia in order to link the People’s Republic more directly with its
European, Russian, and Mideast partners. These are the Eurasian Land Bridge across Russia and
an envisioned high-speed railroad across Central Asia to Iran and inevitably to Turkey and
further afield to the EU (via the Balkans).

Neither of these has made as much progress as the One Belt One Road’s flagship project of
CPEC, and there’s no telling when they’ll ever be fully constructed. The Eurasian Land Bridge is
the most spoken about and seriously considered of the two trans-continental routes under
consideration, but even this landmark effort of the Russian-Chinese Strategic Partnership is still
far from becoming a reality anytime soon. Moreover, both the Eurasian Land Bridge and the
prospective Rimland Railroad between China and the EU (by means of Iran, Turkey, and the
Balkans) are fraught with significant Hybrid War risks and political sensitivities in the era of the
New Cold War, and a multitude of scenarios could arise whereby these routes are either
ultimately unconstructed, rendered inoperable, and/or anxiously avoided for one reason or
another. With this in mind, there’s no doubt that CPEC will remain the premier New Silk Road
project for the foreseeable future, and in the absence of large-scale trading across the Northern
Sea Route (which itself is dependent on unpredictable environmental and political conditions), it
might even be the only feasible non-Malacca maritime trade route to China for its Eastern
Hemispheric partners.
Conceptually speaking, CPEC can be likened to the jugular vein of Afro-Eurasian integration,
and it’s expected to be a vital driving force of the emerging Multipolar World Order. At the same
time, however, the project’s unrivaled geostrategic significance makes it an irresistible target of
subterfuge, which will be touched upon in the third and final section of this research. This is
important to keep in mind as all of the subsequent CPEC connectivity channels and resultant
convergence of civilizations would disappear if the endeavor itself was put into serious jeopardy
by joint US-Indian covert efforts. Therefore, whether it’s consciously recognized or not at this
time, the long-term viability of the EU, Mideast, and East Africa’s trade with China is in danger
if Washington and New Delhi ramp up their destabilization efforts against Pakistan. This is a
highly sensitive political point which may not ever be publicly stated but must nevertheless be
discretely conveyed to each of these stakeholders sooner than later so that they can properly
comprehend the risks that their American and Indian ‘partners’ are irresponsibly creating for
them. The same goes for Russia and Central Asia, which obviously wouldn’t use CPEC to
further their trade with adjacent China, but rather to gain direct access to the wider Indian Ocean
Region marketplace.

CPEC-EU:

The EU is one of China’s largest trading partners and vice-versa, so it can be confidently
anticipated that CPEC will eventually be used to conduct a large amount of bilateral trade
between them. It was already discussed how this route reduces the physical, financial, and
strategic costs of commerce between these two, and as Pakistan successfully rebrands its national
image and more of CPEC’s infrastructural projects come online, it’s expected that European and
Chinese companies will come to increasingly rely on this geographically pivotal vector of their
relationship. Although an increasing amount of trans-continental overland trade will inevitably
be conducted across the Eurasian Land Bridge and Rimland Railroad, neither project is expected
to enter into full operation anytime soon, and even when they do, Hybrid War risks and political
sensitivities might render them inoperable or make certain states avoid them.

Being the prudent long-term strategists that they are, the Chinese aren’t taking any chances by
assuming that either of these two projects will ever replace the EU’s maritime trade with the
People’s Republic, which explains why Beijing bought the Greek port of Piraeus (one of the
largest in Europe) and is constructing the Balkan Silk Road high-speed rail route from the
Mediterranean to Central and Eastern Europe. The intention behind this initiative is to allow
China to conveniently trade with these regions via a newly charted southern access route as
opposed to having to lengthily circumnavigate the European peninsula and offload goods to them
from the Baltic Sea. Beijing wouldn’t be pursuing the Balkan Silk Road if it had full confidence
that the Eurasian Land Bridge would mostly replace the EU’s maritime trade with China, so the
very fact that the given project is in existence and progressively moving forward should be taken
as a sign that China expects more of its EU trade to transit through CPEC instead.

To explain a little bit more in case the reader doesn’t follow, all maritime trade between the EU
and China is greatly assisted by CPEC because of the comparatively lesser physical, financial,
and strategic costs that it entails as compared to the circuitously longer route through the
bottlenecked chokepoint of the Strait of Malacca and the contentious South China Sea. Just like
the Eurasian Land Bridge won’t ever fully replace the EU’s maritime trade with China, so too
will CPEC never fully replace this mode of trade’s historic reliance on the Strait of Malacca and
the South China Sea. Rather, the Pakistani-traversing project offers an alternative route to China
which is less susceptible to external interference, while ironically remaining just as dependent on
the Suez Canals and Bab El Mandeb. However, the key difference between these western
chokepoints and their eastern counterparts is that they’re controlled by Egypt and the GCC,
respectively, both of which are on very friendly terms with Pakistan and China, which makes it
considerably less likely that they’ll agree to go along with the US’ geopolitical blackmail against
either.

CPEC-Mideast:

The next connectivity channel which will be discussed should be divided into Iranian and non-
Iranian halves due to several important geographic and strategic differences. Turkey and the
Levantine countries could conduct their trade with China just like the Europeans do through the
Mediterranean, Suez Canals, and Bab El Mandeb en route to CPEC. If the geopolitical situation
allows them to, however, they could also transport their goods overland through Iraq and
onwards to the Persian Gulf, from where they could then trade with China just like most of the
Gulf Kingdoms do by crossing the Strait of Hormuz and accessing CPEC. The UAE, Oman, and
Yemen importantly avoid any of these three chokepoints by having direct maritime connectivity
to CPEC, thus giving them the highest degree of flexibility in trading with China and potentially
positioning them to function as alternative overland ‘detours’ in the event that the bottlenecks
become unpassable.

Iran is in a somewhat interesting place by theoretically having three potential avenues for
conducting trade with China. All of the country’s ports except for Chabahar are in the Persian
Gulf and thus dependent on the Strait of Hormuz chokepoint. As for the far eastern port in the
province of Sistan and Baluchestan, it’s relatively underdeveloped despite India’s commitment to
modernize it as part of its ambitious efforts to streamline the so-called North-South Corridor.
Chabahar also remains largely disconnected from the rest of Iran’s road and rail networks,
making it very difficult for the country to rely on it in times of dire need. Similarly, because of
Chabahar’s distance relative to the rest of the country and its economic heartland, it’s unlikely
that Iran will properly utilize the commercial possibilities of the neighboring CPEC port of
Gwadar anytime soon, though that doesn’t necessarily mean that Tehran’s participation in the
project should be ruled out. Iran recently expressed interest in CPEC, and it’s possible that if
India follows through on its promises and helps to develop this corner of the country, that it
could inadvertently allow Iran to strengthen its connectivity with CPEC.

This is very important because Iran can’t rely on the Rimland Railroad which has yet to even
materialize into a concrete proposal, and even if it ever does, Central Asia will always remain a
Hybrid War hotspot. Furthermore, although there’s already a roundabout rail route connecting
Iran with China via the peripheries of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, it’s not economically
dependable at this time and is also much longer than simply shipping goods from the country’s
western economic heartland across the Persian Gulf to Gwadar and then northwards to China.
It’ll take a lot of time before the Rimland Railway becomes a practical option for Chinese-
Iranian bilateral trade, so in the meantime, Iran might just have to depend on either entirely
maritime routes to China or the shortcut through CPEC. At this point, it’s pertinent to talk about
the CPEC-Iran channel and how it could reasonably develop in the future.

It was already written how Iran is unlikely to achieve large-scale direct mainland connection to
CPEC due to its infrastructure shortcomings in Sistan and Baluchestan province, so this begs the
question of what other types of connectivity are available aside from sailing across the Persian
Gulf and Strait of Hormuz to Gwadar. Readers should be made aware that the bulk of Iranian-
Chinese trade is through energy resources, and that it’s in this sphere where Tehran could
potentially be most useful for CPEC. A $2 billion partially-Chinese-financed Iran-Pakistan gas
pipeline is already under construction which will one day transport gas across Gwadar and to
Nawabshah, from where it’ll then enter Pakistan’s internal gas distribution network and help
power the rest of the country. Interestingly, Russia is also involved in constructing the $2 billion
North-South gas pipeline from Karachi to Lahore which will enable Pakistan to import LNG in
the future. Taken together and prognosticating the best-case scenario, there’s a chance that
Russia and Iran could be convinced to put aside their undeclared energy rivalry and cooperate in
helping to bring Gulf gas to China via Pakistan.

For example, following the eventual completion of the Iran-Pakistan and North-South gas
pipelines, these successful confidence-building projects could be used as the launching pad for a
grander multilateral connectivity initiative aimed at more closely integrating Russia, China,
Pakistan, and Iran. Russia, with its globally renowned professional expertise in the gas sector,
could modernize and develop an expanded CPEC-parallel pipeline for shipping Iranian gas to
China. There’s a lot of technical planning that would be involved with this and it probably
wouldn’t see the light of day until midway through the next decade at the absolute earliest, but
it’s a promising idea which should at the very least be casually entertained by the expert and
professional communities in case it becomes viably attractive in the future. As the 21 st century
steadily becomes characterized by Eurasian integration, it’s only a matter of time before this
proposal is seriously looked at as a logical way to expand upon CPEC and deepen Iranian-
Chinese relations, with the collateral benefit being that Russia and Pakistan could also draw even
closer as well.

CPEC-East Africa:

China’s commercial relations with East Africa are taking on a heightened importance in the early
21st century, representing the most dependable way for the People’s Republic to deal with its
overcapacity and thus sustain domestic economic growth and social stability. Contrary to what
many Western pundits have alleged, China’s investments in Africa are no longer just one-sided
cash-for-resource agreements, but part of a mutually beneficial development partnership
whereby Beijing is sincerely committed to seeing its counterparts flourish and prosper. China
needs African markets just like Africa needs Chinese infrastructural investments, and this win-
win arrangement makes for a perfect match between the two partners. The author extensively
explored the nature of Chinese-African relations in his ongoing Hybrid War series at Oriental
Review, and the reader is strongly encouraged to reference it for additional detailed information
about the nuances of this under-discussed partnership.
As the most generalized summary which can be topically offered in this context, China is
constructing four ultra-strategic infrastructure corridors along the eastern part of the continent
which could directly link up with CPEC after their cross-oceanic journey to Gwadar. From north
to south, these are the Ethiopia-Djibouti railway; the LAPSSET Corridor between Ethiopia,
South Sudan, and Kenya; the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) across Kenya and Uganda; and the
Central Corridor (CC) from Tanzania to Rwanda and Burundi. Additionally, there’s also the
1970s legacy project of the TAZARA railway which has recently been modernized and connects
the coastal country to its landlocked and copper-rich neighbor of Zambia. It should also be said
the SGR, CC, and TAZARA have the very real possibility of laying the foundation for an
interoceanic North and South Trans-African Railway bridging the continent’s Indian and
Atlantic coasts.

Regardless of how far China’s infrastructure projects go in penetrating the heart of Africa and
beyond, it’s indisputable that trade between the two is always growing and will figure ever more
prominently in Beijing’s strategic calculus. Due to physical constraints, all bilateral trade must
cross the Indian Ocean for some length of distance or another, so it only makes sense that this
will be expedited via CPEC and its conveniently located northern oceanic port of Gwadar. In
terms of the bigger picture, this means that Pakistan is poised to become the geographic interface
through which Chinese-African trade is conducted, which could thus make Islamabad a future
player in East African affairs. Being the most powerful Muslim country and the origin of some
British-era colonial descendants, Pakistan can leverage its religious and ethnic links along the
majority-Muslim East African coast in order to prospect new networking and investment
opportunities that simultaneously work out to its own and China’s strategic benefit through the
overlapping complementarities of Islamabad’s outreach programs and Beijing’s One Belt One
Road vision.

CPEC-Russia/Central Asia:

The last CPEC channel to be discussed is that between Pakistan and its northern partners in
Russia and Central Asia. Moscow and its regional allies obviously don’t need to go through
Pakistan in order to trade with China, but they do need to utilize CPEC if they are to gain market
access to East Africa, South Asia, and ASEAN. Russia doesn’t currently have many economic
interests in Africa, but its government is keen to develop the country’s commercial ties with
India and ASEAN, neither of which are exclusively dependent on CPEC but could be greatly
assisted by it. In connection with this, Russia could potentially access Pakistan via the narrow
border that it shares with China between Altai and Xinjiang, through which Moscow is already
countenancing the possibility of energy and water pipelines. If Russian decision makers continue
to pay attention to this strategic corridor, then it’s likely that they’ll eventually realize that it
could also be used for connecting Siberia to the Indian Ocean by means of CPEC and thus
facilitating the country’s trade with India and ASEAN.

However, due to India’s jealous jingoism, Moscow can’t openly declare its eagerness to utilize
CPEC, hence why it must resort to a curious diplomatic game of denying any official interest or
investment in the project, but at the same time remaining silent about the likelihood of private
Russian companies using this apolitical infrastructure network. There’s of course no way that
Moscow could or ever would prohibit its private citizens and business entities from transporting
their goods across CPEC, so India’s obsessive efforts to prevent Russia from using it will
inevitably be in vain. Nevertheless, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs must still play along
with India and officially deny that Moscow is involved in CPEC, which is technically the truth
because the government itself has no part in it, though the same obviously can’t be said for its
private citizens once the project is fully operational and potentially linked to Siberia by means of
the Altai-Xinjiang Corridor.

As for the Central Asian republics, they’re not under any such diplomatic pressure to publicly
distance themselves from CPEC, and it’s very likely that they’ll take advantage of this project in
order to achieve access to the wider global economy and the valuable marketplaces of East
Africa, South Asia, and ASEAN. Additionally, CPEC could also potentially open up another
avenue for Central Asian-EU trade, as well as commercial interactions with the Mideast, so it’s
improbable that the landlocked countries will avoid using it. Even so, India isn’t giving up and
has its own ambitions to connect with Central Asia through an overland route across Iran which
would serve as an outgrowth of the North-South Corridor, though remembering just how far
behind New Delhi is in tangibly actualizing this, one shouldn’t get their hopes up that it will
happen anytime soon. Given the Central Asian countries’ close relationship with China, there’s a
greater likelihood that they’d defer to using CPEC as opposed to the North-South Corridor for
conducting their extra-regional trade, though the latter could still be exploited one day to
uncontrollably push Indian goods onto their markets in a desperate bid to displace China’s
influence.

Challenges
Absent any external inference, all of the abovementioned scenarios and connectivity channels
would likely develop as expected, but appreciating just how significant CPEC is to the emerging
Multipolar World Order and the 21st century in general, there’s no way that the US and India will
passively stand by and allow any of this to happen if they can help it. After all, CPEC is the
umbilical cord of China’s sustained economic integration with most of the Eastern Hemisphere,
and snipping it would deal a death blow to Beijing’s future leadership plans. It’s for this reason
why the US-Indian Strategic Partnership is scoping out CPEC and probing its most likely
vulnerabilities to exploit, though they’re aware that they must tread carefully and act indirectly
since they’d otherwise risk provoking a wider war which could quickly go nuclear if they
decided to conventionally attack.

Barring a suicidal “surgical strike” campaign by India or an unthinkable “limited intervention”


aimed at cutting CPEC in half through Gilgit-Baltistan (both of which might frighteningly seem
attractive to the pro-American Hindutva extremists currently running New Delhi at the moment),
the US and India will resort to operating through proxies in order to achieve their grand strategic
objective of sabotaging this project. It’s unrealistic to think that either of them could fully stop
CPEC at this point, but what they intend to do is raise the economic and security costs of doing
business by spiking fears about the route’s safety and thereby scaring away potential companies
which might otherwise be eager to utilize this strategic shortcut to China. Pakistan and China are
closely cooperating on ensuring CPEC’s security, but it’s impossible for every inch of this
network to be under surveillance and control at every single second, and it’s bound that some
attacks will be launched against it with time.
What the American and Indian intelligence agencies are depending on is that they can succeed in
stirring up enough domestic political disturbances inside of Pakistan that the military is unable to
totally commit to protecting CPEC due to much more urgent and immediately prioritized
problems, such as dealing with a Color Revolution outbreak in the country’s main cities for
example. Concurrent with this, unconventional warfare operatives could provoke violence in
Balochistan and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) using their in-country proxies
and Afghan-based terrorists. This was briefly discussed in the author’s end-of-the-year radio
commentary and 2017 analytical forecast for South Asia, and it’s an emerging trend which has
been warned about for some time but which will acquire imminence as CPEC becomes an ever
more prominent vehicle for promoting multipolarity in Afro-Eurasia.

This isn’t to say that every destabilization scenario will succeed or that they’ll play out
simultaneously, but just that the risk is evidently there and it’s clear that this warning
encapsulates the most likely range of unconventional instruments which the US-Indian Strategic
Partnership could conceivably muster in trying to disrupt CPEC. Having said that, Pakistan is
stronger than ever before after having finally beaten back the terrorist insurgencies which
plagued the country all throughout the first decade of the millennium, and it’s thus more than
capable of preemptively dealing with any of these eventualities, to say nothing of properly
responding to them after the fact. Despite that, it’s always useful to keep the most probable
threats facing one’s country in mind in order to remain alert at all times and mentally conditioned
for tackling any trouble the moment that it arises, which is why it’s necessary to discuss the
various dangers facing CPEC so as to never be caught off guard in case they materialize.

Concluding Thoughts
CPEC is the cornerstone of China’s One Belt One Road global vision of infrastructure
connectivity and its conception of 21st-century multipolarity, and it’s not an exaggeration to state
that it’s one of the most important game-changing projects to ever be attempted in history. Even
looking solely at its bilateral Chinese-Pakistani implications, CPEC is an historic expansion of
Beijing’s influence into South Asia and an unprecedented direct gateway to the broader Indian
Ocean Region. It essentially nullifies the strategic utility of the US’ “Pivot to Asia” by reducing
China’s dependency on the South China Sea and Strait of Malacca, both of which Washington
has feverishly tried to turn into geopolitical traps for blackmailing Beijing. Proverbially
speaking, all of that meticulous planning and billions of dollars of military-strategic investments
could go out the window with CPEC, which is why Washington is so furious with the project and
decided to team up with New Delhi – which is equally aggravated for its own hyper-nationalist
reasons – to try and undermine this corridor through the unconventional means of proxy warfare.

All of this is being done because of the immediate impact that CPEC has on strengthening
Chinese-Pakistani relations and Beijing’s strategic presence in the Indian Ocean Region, but the
US and India also have more far-reaching goals in mind. It’s clear that CPEC’s full completion
will propel Pakistan into becoming the most important transit state in the world due to its role in
facilitating China’s trade with the EU, Mideast, and East Africa, as well as Russia and the
Central Asian republics’ trade with the “Global South”. As such, a diverse variety of
civilizational representatives and interests will be traversing across Pakistan, thereby making the
country the focal point for the convergence of civilizations in the 21st century. No other place in
the world is poised to fulfill such a role on the level that Pakistan is, as it’s truly becoming the
zipper not just of pan-Eurasian integration, but of Afro-Eurasian integration as well due to the
functionality that CPEC will have in enhancing Chinese-African trade.

If properly utilized, the coming years can become a godsend for Pakistan by assisting in its
transformation from a regional leader to a hemispheric and potentially even globally influential
Great Power, provided of course that Islamabad is keen enough to promote the convergence of
civilizations which is destined to take place on its territory. No other state except for Russia
comes close to matching Pakistan’s capabilities in managing a dialogue of civilizations, as
Moscow lacks the positive historic relations with the Mideast and East Africa that Islamabad has,
though it admittedly makes up for it with its long-held ties to Europe and Central Asia. However,
while Russia has certainly become a powerful force in the Mideast over the past couple of years
and especially through its recent Tripartite partnership with Turkey and Iran, it’s a one-way
street in the sense that Moscow’s influence is entering the region but not the other way around
(although that’s not necessarily a bad thing), and it still has yet to revive its Soviet-era ties with
Africa (if ever).

On the other hand, although Pakistan doesn’t immediately seem to have much in common
nowadays with the EU, Russia, and Central Asia, these three regions will naturally be drawn to it
by virtue of Pakistan’s strategic geography through CPEC, thereby bringing their representatives
and interests into contact with those from China, the Mideast, and East Africa. The brilliance
behind Beijing’s project is that it basically serves as a convenient 21st-century superhighway for
facilitating trade between the rest of the world and China, which translates in practical terms to
Pakistan becoming the geographic bridge economically connecting these civilizations together.
Such a role is inordinately important in the emerging Multipolar World Order and serves the
purpose of sustaining a peaceful dialogue of civilizations amidst what will expectedly be an era
of American-driven identity conflict (Hybrid Wars) aimed at preventing the integration of Afro-
Eurasia. Pakistan is thereby endowed with unparalleled responsibility in making sure that these
plans don’t succeed, but for this to happen, its decision makers must fully grasp the global and
historic geostrategic significance of their country in taking the lead to promote the converge of
civilizations.

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