NEW DELHI: The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) suggests a connectivity corridor, which is a “dubious” idea, academic and author Jeremy A. Garlick tells StratNews Global Associate Editor, Amitabh P. Revi. Similarly, “Gwadar port breaking China’s Malacca dilemma is ridiculous” and a “non-starter.” The Associate Professor at the University of Economics, Prague says it’s Beijing’s “geopolitical balancing against India for influence and leverage in Pakistan.” But, he adds, “China is in a relatively stronger position” in relation to the pandemic’s effect on economies, so rival initiatives like the U.S., Japan and Australia Blue Dot Network are “on hold”. The Author of the book, ‘The Impact of China’s Belt and Road Initiative: From Asia to Europe’ assesses “no effect” on the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) after the initial slowdown in the economy because of the Coronavirus pandemic as China is now seeing a “relative bounceback”.
The author of the peer reviewed article, ‘Deconstructing the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor: pipe dreams versus geopolitical realities’ in the Journal of Contemporary China also discusses the Pakistan military’s control of CPEC, so-called debt traps, the reported $400 billion Iran-China strategic partnership, Chabahar, ASEAN and where pushback against China is stronger in south-east Asia.
