China - Pakistan Economic Corridor - CPEC

it might be just any bus coming, plus in that country there'd be millions of volunteers around with their "gear"

I think we have to wait and see if there's yet another attack against Chinese personnel/assets soon, then yeah (I don't tend to believe in coincidences)

 

According to this reuters article, a pakistani official made critical comments about CPEC. Later, he said that his statements were misconstrued.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...uters/worldNews+(Reuters+World+News)&&rpc=401

But what do you think of this? taking into account what already happened in malaysia, is it possible that somewhere in the future, pakistan could renegociate or even cancel the CPEC, or at least parts of it? And what about the broader relationship betwen the 2 countries?

 

At the end of that article

You get everything about what it is about. IMF is the US tool. Pakistan's current problem is no different from other emerging markets like Turkey and India etc. who is suffering the surge of USD going up depleting their foreign exchange reserve.

Two options, go to IMF for support which means surrender to the pressure of US, remember the continuous criticism from US to Pakistan, or Turkey? The other option is stick to China and Russia. Besides IMF, ADB has the cash to support Pakistan.

It is all geopolitics, NOT about budget or debt. One does not need to cancel the project to lessen the burden, just adjust the speed to cope with the change, that means delay.

Last but not the least, every country has some people who is always dragging their feet to sabotage their own country to serve the interest of their foreign pay master. China has it, no surprise that Pakistan has that too. But they will fail in the long run, after all everybody need powerplant and road to boost economy which will increase the wealth not reducing it.

We will wait and see.

 

hi, you might recall
Aug 12, 2018

now
China confirms, condemns attack on consulate in Pakistan's Karachi
Xinhua| 2018-11-23 17:48:07 http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2018-11/23/c_137626946.htm

 

I think some of the Chinese investments in infrastructure in Pakistan don't make financial or political sense to me. But to a large degree I would say most of the investments do make sense. I only fear that some of the projects may be too large in scope though. It is fine to grow the transport and energy infrastructure, but without the industrial zones and fabric to produce products and employ people to pay these investments how can they be maintained in the long run? I know that Chinese economic investment zones are also planned but we see little news of those compared to the mega construction projects and that does worry me. To a degree I think China has been a responsible partner in that they either take up the financial burden for the project they sponsored or alleviate the payback reducing rates or increasing the length of time to pay back the loans. For example the Sri Lankan port case is often bandied to say China is an economic predator. However if you examine it more closely, the project was done under the initiative of the then Sri Lankan ruler who wanted a major harbor in his region of origin. This was a vanity project. It was done on the other side of the island, far away from the major population centers, like in the middle of nowhere. The port was both too large for the country solely and the infrastructure to connect the port to the rest of the country was not developed in time. So it is little surprise it was a failure. What people do not mention is that at the same time China upgraded their existing main port and that operation has been financially successful. The failure vanity project was taken over by China with a 99 year lease. Which I do consider excessive, but between that and having no second port in Sri Lanka, which is better really? It ended up costing

I think the Ethiopian railway system project was much more of a failure because there was poor planning with regards to the infrastructure surrounding the line which were required to make it profitable and viable in the first place. Then the northern rail extension was more of a political nature and had limited financial prospects. This lead to its economic failure. But you can attribute that to lack of economic planning by the Ethiopian state itself. I think China needs to better support these countries with top level economic advisors and consider the local conditions better in projects going further to ensure increased profitability and success. A lot of these countries lack the expertise to make informed decisions in such matters. In China, for example, it is likely the local governments would have taken the initiative to build the surrounding infrastructure but in places like those, they simply either do not have the budget or lack the know-how in how to do that properly.

To also tackle these issues I think the Chinese should enact similar programs to what the Soviets used to do back then i.e. finance scholarships to train technical personnel born in African countries at Chinese technical and economic schools in order to improve contact between Chinese engineers and economic planners and those countries.

The IMF is a tool of the US government to promote globalization to a degree even the USA does not allow inside its own borders. They basically force countries to dismantle their social industries and increase the social costs of base products in exchange for money. This pushes down those countries into a consistent position of economic vassalage to them. No industry is allowed to fully develop.

 

Are there still chronic power shortages across cities in Pakistan?