The Chief of the Army Staff (COAS), Gen Raheel Sharif, reiterated early this month his firm resolve that any attempt to obstruct or impede the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project would be thwarted at all costs. Speaking on the occasion of the Chinese army’s 88th anniversary, he said cooperation on the CPEC would benefit the entire region. According to the ISPR, the COAS said recent strides and the holistic concept of the CPEC spoke volumes in this regard. “We will see both nations progressing and further maximising the dividend of our geo-strategic relations.” He said the entire world looked at the CPEC through the same lens. He had visited the site of the project and the pace of work was in full gear, he said.
General Sharif said both Pakistan and China had deep and resolute relations. “The all-weather friendship is sweeter than honey, higher than the Himalayas and deeper than oceans. Our friendship will further grow in these testing times.” The COAS added that the Pakistan-China cooperation for regional stability would squeeze space for anti-state and non-state actors and help ensure a stable Afghanistan.
Now read the Indian reaction to CPEC: One Indian writer recently wrote in Hindustan Times: “The completion of the CPEC is likely to stoke Chinese ambitions of increasing maritime footprints in the Indian Ocean. A robust and increasingly assertive Chinese navy (PLAN) will only fuel such ambitions. The Xinjiang province bordering Pakistan is the most restive, turbulent and insurgent region in China. Along with an access point for goods of value, the CPEC has a high degree of possibility of becoming a thriving ground for trans-national terrorism. The anti-state sentiment in Xinjiang will only exacerbate the likelihood for militant ideologies to connect across the CPEC, throwing a spanner in regional security and stability of South Asia. This could become one of the greatest security challenges for India too.”
Another commented: “Couched in India’s backyard, for all its noble intentions, the CPEC will be a festering concern for India. Free continental connectivity between Islamabad and Beijing through the disputed territory is already a sovereignty issue for India. A circuitous Chinese presence around India through its ‘belt and road’ strategy, of which the CPEC is an integral part, will set in another great game between India and China. After India’s efforts for a ‘zone of peace’ and ‘denuclearisation’ of the Indian Ocean, the CPEC, in the long term, could well create a zero-sum game between Beijing and New Delhi: an unfortunate strategic contestation that could stunt growth in both the countries.”
A third one recently asserted: “Since April 2015, particularly, there has been a qualitative upgradation in China’s relationship with Pakistan. With the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), Beijing dispelled all ambiguity on its stance on the Kashmir issue to overtly support Pakistan. The proposed construction of 51 infrastructure, energy-and military-related projects in the CPEC, with many sited in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK), Gilgit and Baltistan, accord China’s de facto acknowledgement to Pakistan’s occupation of these territories. To protect the huge Chinese investment, Islamabad has begun to potentially bend borders with India by fully integrating Gilgit and Baltistan, including nominating ‘observers’ to its Parliament.”
The same writer added: “An unmistakable signal of enhanced Sino-Pak military collaboration, including in the Arabian Sea, was the arrival of a Chinese nuclear submarine to Karachi in May this year. It is a first by a Chinese nuclear submarine to any port in South Asia. Of equal concern to India is China’s assistance to Pakistan in the design and development of tactical nuclear missiles. Chinese President Xi Jinping and Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had planned to discuss, on the sidelines of the Nuclear Summit (Mar 31-Apr 1), China extending diplomatic or other substantive support to Pakistan to counter US insistence that Pakistan go slow on the development of its tactical nuclear weapons.”
What more proof on how the Indians view the Pak-China relations and CPEC and the extent to which they would go to hurt the project is needed.