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If Clint Eastwood was an adviser to President Xi Jinping of China, he could call himself Inspector "Dirty Harry" Callahan in Magnum Force : "A man must know his limits."
China is now learning the hard way that the pursuit of global hegemony has its limits. The country's Belt and Road Initiative is a massive infrastructural development plan announced by President Xi Jinping in 2013. China plans spending of about $ 150 billion a year, committing nearly one billion dollars. trillion dollars for ports, bridges, pipelines and rail systems linking Europe and Eurasia. North Africa and East and South and Southeast Asia to China. About 70 countries have registered. The main Chinese goal is to establish China as the commander-in-chief of an economic model that is an alternative to democratic capitalism. It is not surprising that Chinese entrepreneurs benefit greatly and that China can get better returns than its American treasuries – hopefully with investment projections. Due to its size and intimidation tactics, China will also be able to reduce its favorable terms of trade. In addition, the state of development in western China would be strengthened.
The Sino-Pakistan Economic Corridor is an integral part of this initiative and places Pakistan directly in the orbit of China, at a time when US aid has been further reduced. Trump's commitment to $ 345 million for the 2018 fiscal year. A $ 62 billion Chinese commitment is expected to support the Corridor, which features the port of Gwadar built and leased to China, located at about 375 miles from the strategic strait of Ormuz. Earlier Chinese aid was engaged on the Karakoram Highway, and Pakistan is producing its main battle tank, Al-Khalid, in partnership with the Chinese, who have also partnered to develop the JF multipurpose combat aircraft. 17 of Pakistan
. all is not good for Chinese belt and road planners. First, they discovered that Pakistan is a bad credit risk. As it was recently reported on July 23 in the Wall Street Journal Pakistan is already behind payments to China for electricity, which is a major component of the Corridor in Pakistan. Not only that, the Journal reports that a heavily indebted IMF bailout by the IMF is scheduled for this fall. Basically a Western solution for Pakistan's financial indulgence, an IMF intervention would show in Beijing that she was guilty of bad business judgment and self-imposed over-stretching. In addition, the IMF's engagement in Pakistan would require more transparency and better governance, which the Pakistani opposition is demanding on the eve of the general elections of 25 July accused of widespread corruption.
factor is regional security: Central Asia has a confluence of elements of al Qaeda, Taliban and ISIS. Pakistan's particular inability to control and contain jihadists would not be good in Beijing. Due to the disaffected Uighur minority in western China, which is Muslim and of Turkish ethnicity, China has an interest in suppressing Islamist dissidents.
A former Cold War ally and partner of the Soviets in Afghanistan in the embrace of China. The partnership between India and the sworn enemy of Pakistan, India, based on strategic alignment to counter China, suppress Islamist jihad, and benefit from trade and commerce. 39, investment, is certainly part of history. The irony is that it is rare to meet Pakistanis who want to study or work in China.
Historians will debate how America and Pakistan have lost themselves. Pakistan's double game – doing just enough to receive continued military and civilian aid from the United States but not enough to defeat mainly Pashtun jihadists – is probably its biggest mistake. And the memory of Osama bin Laden hiding in its precincts from the garrison town of Abbottabad, headquarters of the Pakistani elite military academy, is indelibly engraved in the psyche of Congress and the American people. America's biggest mistake was probably to consider Pakistan solely through the prism of national security as so-called AfPak.
Pakistan is not the only problematic country for the Belt and Road initiative. As also reported by the Journal China's second-largest recipient of largesse, Malaysia suspended a $ 20 billion rail project and possibly others. And Sri Lanka could not pay China for building a port in Hambantota.
China is a newcomer on the world stage as a benefactor of foreign aid and has a lot to learn about political and operational risks. A viewing of Dirty Harry's five films by senior politburo officials may well be their time
Frank Schell is a business strategy consultant and former vice president of First National Bank's Chicago. He is a lecturer at the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago and a contributor to various journals
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