The prospects of the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC): the importance of understanding western China

ABSTRACT

The China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) announced in 2015, is a $60 billion package of Chinese-led investment in roads, railways, energy, and industry. It is part of China’s new Eurasia-wide Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The likely impact of CPEC is controversial. Some scholars argue that CPEC will generate prosperity, regional equality and rapid economic growth in Pakistan. Other scholars argue, however, that CPEC will lead to debt and to the economic and political subordination of Pakistan to China. The existing discussion of CPEC has a near exclusive inward-looking focus on Pakistan. Some scholars, mainly from outside of Pakistan, have looked in more detail at China, but principally from an international relations perspective. Missing from all of this discussion is how economic change in China, particularly in western China, will influence the likely economic outcome of the CPEC. This paper makes an effort to begin to fill this gap.

KEYWORDS:

• China
• Pakistan
• economic growth
• investment
• infrastructure

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Matthew McCartney

Matthew McCartney, Associate Professor in the Political Economy and Human Development of South Asia. Based at the Oxford School of Global and Area Studies (OSGA) since 2011 and former Director of the South Asia programme. I studied economics at Cambridge University, University of Oxford and SOAS. My research interests focus on the political economy of comparative economic growth in South Asia, particularly India and Pakistan, the role of the state in late industrialisation, and most recently the impact of the Chinese Belt and ROad INitiative (BRI) on South Asia.