When The ‘Flagship’ Starts Sinking: China’s CPEC Is Foundering In Balochistan – Analysis

By Sushant Sareen

The shockwaves caused by the Balochistan Liberation Army’s (BLA) extremely complex, well-coordinated, and quite devastating Operation Herof continue to be felt inside Pakistan, where the government and military are doubling down on its failed policy of suppressing the Baloch resistance.

While the Chief Minister of Balochistan, who is seen to be a proxy of the military establishment, has hinted at a full-fledged military operation, the federal Interior Minister, Mohsin Naqvi, has expressed a differing opinion that there is no need for a military operation. According to him, a local police station in-charge is enough to tackle the insurgency in Balochistan. However, if the Balochistan problem were so simple, it would have been resolved long ago. Instead, it has metastasised into a full-blown insurgency, which enjoys the support of the people.

Things have reached an impasse, with Akhtar Mengal, a prominent political leader and former chief minister, asserting that neither mainstream politicians nor activists like the redoubtable Dr. Mahrang Baloch and the Baloch Yakjheti Committee remain relevant in Balochistan. He is convinced that the military will need to speak to the insurgents since they call the shots.

Over the years, Beijing has been watching the rapidly deteriorating situation in Balochistan withgrowing concern. A decade ago, when China unveiled the very ambitious China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC),Pakistantouted it to be the magic bullet that would solve all their economic, security, and political problems. For their part, the Chinese elevated the status of CPEC and called it the ‘flagship’project of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) of President Xi Jinping. The Chinese plan was to use CPEC torebuild and stabilisePakistan. But it has not worked. Far from it, CPEC has proved to be very destabilising. It has ensnared Pakistan in a debt trap, foisted extremely expensive projects on the country, and resulted in a negative political fallout, which is evident in the growing anger towards the Chinese amongst marginalised communities like the Baloch.

Quite like the rest of the BRI projects, its flagship CPEC has also faltered. The corridor which extends from Gwadar in Balochistan to Khunjerab pass in Gilgit-Baltistan has run into serious trouble, not just in its two extremities but also along the rest of the route. Some problems that have plagued CPEC are common to all parts of Pakistan and areas under Pakistan’s control—flaky policy making, inept implementation, political instability, economic crunch, and administrative lethargy. But in Gilgit-Baltistan and Balochistan, the security dimension has become a major obstacle. According to a Pakistani journalist “G2G, theCPEC route from Gilgit to Gwadar, is now the centre stage of militant attacks…[which] are aimed at preventing China from making full use of CPEC’s potential in Pakistan.”

Gilgit-Baltistan is emerging as a major sectarian battleground, where the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and other jihadist terror groups, including Islamic State Khorasan, have become active. The Chinese, too, are in the crosshairs of these terrorists. While the Pakistanis are inclined to ascribe these attacks to an international conspiracy against CPEC, the reality is more prosaic—thejihadistshave their own ideological and tactical grouses andreasons for targetingthe Chinese. There is growing restiveness emanating from sectarian tensions,economic difficulties, andpolitical churntaking place in the Pakistan-occupied-Gilgit-Baltistan region. The entire region, which serves as a gateway to China, is a fertile ground for anti-Pakistan groups to operate. Naturally, the Chinese working in this area are fair game for the jihadists because targeting them drives a wedge between Pakistan and China, which is Pakistan’s biggest backer. Even before thesuicide attackon Chinese engineers in Besham in March last year, there wereapprehensionsthat Chinese personnel working on different projects were under serious threat.

In Balochistan, the situation is even worse from the Chinese perspective. There is great, and growing, ferment in the province. Attacks on Pakistani security forces have become a new normal, and targeting Chinese projects and personnel a regular feature. The Baloch fighters are striking at the Chinese not just in Balochistan but also in Karachi. These attacks are a huge reason why almost all big-ticket CPEC projects are languishing. Chinese investments on CPEC and other projects in Pakistan have either slowed down drastically, or come to a grinding halt.

The Port of Gwadar, a lynchpin of CPEC, has just not taken off. There is virtually no commercial traffic coming to or from the port. The situation has reached a point where the Government of Pakistan has started forcing all government departments to route 50 percent of their bulk imports through Gwadar to generate traffic at the port. Gwadar has become a fortress from which the local Baloch are totally excluded due to security reasons. The resentment against the Chinese and their local Pakistani enforcers is at a peak because all the tall promises and dreams that were shown to the local people have been belied.

The Chinese are seen as the new colonists by the Baloch. The way the entire development of Gwadar has been handled has only cemented perceptions that Beijing and Islamabad are exploiting the resources of the Baloch without any real benefits flowing to the local communities. If anything, wherever the Chinese are present, the local Baloch areas have become a sort of Bantustans where the inhabitants need permits to move around and undergo the daily indignity of passing through the security check posts dotting the entire area. These Apartheid-like policies being practiced in Balochistan have made the Chinese a lightning rod for political protest movements like the recentBaloch Raaji Muchimarch or the continuing‘Haq Do Tehreek’. It is providing justification for themilitary operations of Baloch fighterstargeting Pakistani security forces and Chinese projects and personnel.

For the Chinese, CPEC has become a huge dilemma. Politically, it has bombed. Instead of wooing people in Pakistan’s periphery, it hasadded to their antagonisms, many of which are now directed at China. The hifalutin rhetoric surrounding CPEC being a ‘game-changer’ is proving to be quite hollow. While Pakistan remains strategically relevant for China, it is becoming an economic drain. The CPEC projects that are functional are bleeding money. Pakistan isfalling back on payments, especially of power projects set up under CPEC. Many projects critical for CPEC arestalled. And yet, Pakistan is not only asking China to invest billions of dollars innew projects(many of them financially unfeasible) but is also seeking renegotiation onterms of loanstaken for earlier CPEC projects. The Chinese are, however,reluctant to renegotiateold CPEC contracts even for their ‘Iron Brother’. The economic losses associated with CPEC coupled with the mounting security concerns has led to a visible slowdown in Chinese investments.

As far as the Chinese are concerned, losing money in Pakistan was bad enough, but losing lives is unacceptable. This is a message that is now being delivered quite publicly to Pakistan by Chinese officials. The Chinese have made it clear that Chinese investments are now contingent not only on security conditions improving but also political stability and a ‘friendly’ media environment.

As far as the mainstream media is concerned, it has already been tamed in Pakistan by the military establishment. But political stability is a far cry. Efforts to impose a kind of martial law with a civilian façade aren’t succeeding. In fact, they are adding to the instability, actually and perceptually. Improving the security environment is proving to be more elusive and challenging, economically as well as militarily. Even at the current level of Chinese investment of US$ 21 billion, Pakistan is committed to spending over US$ 200 million on security. Although Pakistan has raised nearly two division strength of troops to secure the CPEC projects, the escalating violence has shown that this is not enough.

The Chinese are pressuring the Pakistanis to up their act and do whatever is necessary to ensure security for their projects and personnel. Some years back, the Chinese were reported to have opened their own separate channel with Baloch separatists. They are believed to have used bribes to woo the separatists and prevent attacks on their projects and personnel. But to little avail. The attacks have only increased. Consequently, the Chinese position has evolved from its initial stances of believing that bribes and negotiations could bring things under control to now where they are pressuring Pakistan to launch massive military operations to eliminate the security threats.

In May last, the Pakistani daily Business Recorder had a front page story that China had asked Pakistan to launch another offensive operation similar to Operation Zarb-e-Azb against the militants. Within hours of the story being published, it was promptly removed, even the e-paper version. But a few weeks later the Pakistan government announced a comprehensive new military Operation Azm-e-Istehkam. Within days, after a massive pushback from the citizenry, which opposed any new military operation, the government was forced to backtrack and clarify that it wasn’t an all-out military operation but only a targeted-, intelligence-based one.

Both China and Pakistan are now in a quandary. From the Pakistani perspective, if large-scale military operations are launched—military operations have been ongoing in Balochistan since around 2001—the entire area will be even more disturbed than it is currently. Although Pakistani authorities are claiming there won’t be a grand operation; the targeted operations which have not stopped, are clearly not effective.

Far from being vanquished, the Baloch separatists are ever more powerful, capable, and lethal. They are now the principal adversary and have clearly laid down the terms of engagement viz. any negotiations with them will only be on when and how Pakistani troops vacate Balochistan. As far as large-scale operations are concerned, it is hardly an option. It will overstretch the military which is fighting the TTP insurgency and is ratcheting up tensions by exporting terrorism into India. It will bring all economic activity to a grinding halt. As long as the operations continue, there will be no investment, not just in Balochistan but also in Pakistan. Military operations are an extremely expensive proposition, especially for a treasury that is already empty.

The dilemma for China is how long it can continue throwing good money after bad in Pakistan. What is the economic cost of a strategic policy that revolves around keeping a parasitic basket case like Pakistan as a partner and an ally? There are signs that the Chinese are becoming somewhat tight-fisted in bailing Pakistan out. But there is a double dilemma facing the Chinese. The flagship of BRI cannot be allowed to sink because that would have serious implications for rest of the projects in other geographies. But keeping the flagship afloat is proving extremely expensive in terms of men and money. The other dilemma is that the strategic value of Pakistan is itself questionable if the country is unable and incapable of standing on its own feet. Additionally, there is the Pakistani proclivity of playing China card to woo the United States (US), and the US card to extract more out of China. No surprise then, that there is a kind ofreassessment and re-evaluationof the utility of Pakistan and how much China needs to remain invested in it.

• About the author: Sushant Sareen is a Senior Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation.
• Source: This article was published by the Observer Research Foundation.