China Declines CPEC Terms With Pakistan
Source: PIB
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Overview
- News in Brief
- Features
Why in the News?
China has refused to further expand cooperation in the areas of energy, water management, and climate change under the multibillion dollar China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), signalling a strain in the friendship between the two all-weather allies
News in Brief
- Cash-strapped Pakistan also gave up its opposition to setting up a new imported coal-fired power plant in Gwadar in Balochistan province and agreed to a number of Chinese demands to address Beijing’s concerns.
Features
- After the proposal from Chinese President Li Keqiang in 2013, the preliminary study on this project was done in 2014 which acknowledged the hostile environment and complicated geographic conditions but prioritized the importance of having a China-run port near the Gulf of Oman.
- Post this corridor is functional, existing 12,000 km journey of oil transportation to China will be reduced to just 2,395 km.
This is estimated to save China $2 billion per year. - China had already acquired control of Gwadar Port in 2013.
- Originally valued at $46 billion, the value of CPEC projects was worth $62 billion as of 2020.
- China refers to this project as revival of the Silk Road.
Indian objections
- India’s objections to Chinese activity in Pakistan-administered Kashmir dates back to the 1970s, when the People’s Liberation Army built the Karakoram Highway that linked China’s far-western province of Xinjiang with northern Pakistan.
- The GoI, which shares tense relations with Pakistan, objects to the CPEC project as upgrade works to the Karakoram Highway are taking place in Gilgit-Baltistan, territory that India claims as its own.
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