Sehrish Khan
Although realizing that there are some external forces hostile to CPEC initiative, Chinese analysts and participants are concerned about what they see as the misrepresentation of facts internationally. It is not obvious to them as to what purpose is served by raising doubts and fears about CPEC in the minds of the international community. The aspersions being cast on the motives of the Chinese, such as the analogy with the East India Company or Pakistan becoming a satellite of China, are very unnerving: external detractors of CPEC pick up these reports and after bundling them as ‘risks’ of CPEC to Pakistan, disseminate them widely. International propagandas against CPEC is no more a shock to us, as anti-Pak forces cannot bear the development of Pakistan. Besides the involvement of more than 60 countries, CPEC got a new participant to this game changer project i.e. Saudi Arabia. As India and other anti-CPEC forces do not want Pakistan to enhance its trade and investment as it would offer Pakistan acquiring the status of developed economy, they are playing games to discourage Saudi Arabia to give up investing in CPEC project. Whereas, knowing the importance of the CPEC, Saudi Arabia has already agreed to join the CPEC.
Once again Anti-Pak allies attacked the sovereignty of Pak and CPEC by blaming the intentions of current government towards the progress of Pakistan. They are trying to gave impression about the new government in media that they would oppose the CPEC and would terminate the deal with the Chinese counterpart. As the interview of Prime Minister Imran Khan’s appointed Adviser Razzak Dawood has been misquoted in ‘Financial Times’ over the terms of deal regarding the CPEC at a time when Chinese Foreign Minister was on three days visit to Pakistan. He was misquoted that the new government would review the multi-billion dollars corridor. “The previous government did a bad job negotiating with China on CPEC — they didn’t do their homework correctly and didn’t negotiate correctly so they gave away a lot, Chinese companies received tax breaks, many breaks and have an undue advantage in Pakistan; this is one of the things we’re looking at because it’s not fair that Pakistan companies should be disadvantaged’.
Furthermore, Mike Pompeo expressed his views about the CPEC during his visit to Pakistan that they may doubt that the ‘US aid’ might be used in the developmental projects of CPEC. Whereas, Modi invested in Iran’s Chabahar Port and built a highway leading to Afghanistan. Modi’s aim was to convince the Central Asian States and coerce Afghanistan to transit their exports and imports via Chabahar, rather than Gwadar. India wants to hurt its arch rival China as well as Pakistan thus Indian social media activists have become very active in spreading false propaganda against CPEC. Moreover, when India fails to do the same, now India is engage in sending trained Indian agents to Pakistan to get involve in the projects of CPEC and make them impracticable.
Unluckily, besides India, US, Israel and some Gulf states also oppose the project which they assume that it would detriment the economy of Gulf States. So, getting benefits from such weakness of Gulf region, India is investing huge buck to hire those Pakistani scholars who are familiar to Pakistani electronic and print media and able to ignite anti-CPEC propaganda in masses to make CPEC disputed like ‘Kala Bagh’ dam. Whereas, India got success in hiring of scholars from Gulf states and the glimpses of such acts can now be pragmatic on Pakistani media. Keeping in mind the propagandas of diff countries against CPEC, Chief of Army Staff Gen Bajwa during his meeting with Chinese Ambassador, assured the Chinese Ambassador that Armed forces will provide full security to the Chinese workers working at CPEC project thus negating the anti-CPEC propagandas. Since, start of the CPEC’s construction, Armed forces are fully providing security to working staff and there security measures played vital role in rapid construction of the project.
Besides propagandizing against CPEC, US and India should get benefits from such developments as Pakistan has already offered India and its allies to become the part of this generous project. Other than Russia, Central Asian Republics (CARs), other South Asian countries, Iran, the UK and many other countries have indicated their desire to join the CPEC. It is expected that soon Pak-China project would be turned into ‘Asian Development Highway.
