How the Indo-US Silk Road in South East Asia should be different from CPEC

Let’s face it! Pakistan is doomed! It is hard to imagine a country in the 21^st century so willingly offering itself to an eventual subjugation by a foreign power, especially one that has a colonial past. What is even more surprising is that the masses believe the CPEC project to be some form of an economic salvation.

The modalities of CPEC are all too familiar. China will offer high interest loans to Pakistan, with a promise of handsome returns that will supposedly come from transit fees. But, essentially the money will go from one bank account in China to another in the same country. None of the Pakistani companies are being used to build the massive infrastructure, so they won’t see a dime of that loan. 

Chinese companies will play a dominant role in each and every sector, including agriculture. The spin to this loot is that Pakistan will benefit from the technology transfer, and auxiliary industries can benefit from the investment. 

Picture this: a few decades from now Chinese firms will become a crucial part of the Pakistani economy, most of the citizens will be working for a Chinese firm directly or indirectly. There will be a large influx of Chinese into the country, and trade will eventually be dominated by the Yuan. You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to figure out that the South Asian country will first become a colony and eventually transition into a part of the Chinese empire. 

This process will be slow, but relentless. There is no stopping it. The Pakistani military’s hatred of India has blinded it of the economic and social consequences of their love for the northern neighbor. For now, they will be happy to play the role of trigger men for China.

To counter this, the US and India have restarted thinking about linking up with South East Asia. Many of the countries in this region have territorial disputes with China, and they have the best chance to deal with this problem as a collective.

Therefore, the New Silk road project can’t be a unilateral project of India and US. It has to be a multilateral system, with varied sources for funding. It should be a partnership with participating nations, taking into account their needs and sensitivities. Particular attention should be paid to the economies, and the scale of the project should not be such that it adds unsustainable debt. 

Unsustainable debt is one of the problems with the CPEC. The US, I believe, used this strategy effectively for a long time to get political capital from debtor nations. China appears to have taken this approach on steroids, with a plan that will eventually grant it full control over the economy of Pakistan. This should not be repeated in South East Asia.

India will do well to remember that the reason the country is loved in Afghanistan is because it approached with good faith. Building hospitals and roads that are needed there with no strings attached was the right way to go. Winning the hearts of the people by working for their benefit will eventually yield results, as opposed to economic ploys to control a government.