Скачать или смотреть Part 5 The Truth Behind CPEC

Alice G Wells, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for South Asia and Central Asia, is nothing if not forthright in her statements, both private and public. At a Washington think-tank recently, she was at her acerbic best, tearing into the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) to shreds with strong data, and even stronger statements. The points made were hard-hitting, but what was even more interesting is why she chose to make it at all.

China Accounts for 75% of Pakistani Debt: What This Means
First, Wells’ point that CPEC was not, and was never meant to be an aid project, may be old news, but is a point consistently overlooked by the Pakistanis, long fed on the public rhetoric of a friendship ‘higher than the mountains and deeper than the sea’. The point was actually made brutally clear by a Chinese Professor from Beijing University more than a year ago, when she warned that ‘CPEC is not a gift’. The reality is apparent in the budget figures, if anyone cares to look.

Chinese ‘grant’ aid this year is PKR 350 million for a vocational institute, and a rather larger slice for infrastructure in Gwadar, the raison d’etre for China being there at all. The rest of the PKR 226,726.77 is all loans.