India is surrounded by sea on three sides, it's really unnecessary for India to connect to other countries since India is already connected with Pakistan, Bangladesh on land. It's understandable that India is not interested in OBOR.
Indian's concern over Kashmir also make sense, however it's very easy to work around, in the worst case by postpone the 1 or 2 projects in Kashmir or simply develop these projects by Pakistan's own money, no more than 1 billion dollars I estimate. Then how India argue over CPEC again? I don't know how this argue would end.
CPEC is primarily for domestic economy development of Pakistan, rapid growth economy can help to resolve lots of internal issue, e.g. stability of Baluchistan. Lots of analysts emphasize on connection to western part of China, Xinjiang, however, this is most likely impractical, I'm not saying it does not work, Karakoram Highway was initially built on military purpose at the cost of 1 worker sacrificed per kilometer, you can image how tough was the penetration into the convergence of Hindu Kush, Himalaya and Pamirs back then. Along with service of Y20, this road has few meaning for military purpose. In 2010, an earthquake blocked the road for 5 years. This road basically only work smoothly in summer. Railway ? Forget it. The following are some picture of Karakoram Highway:
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The following picture is transporting by boat after the earthquake in 2010, Gilgit Baltistan.
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The following picture is the road fixed in 2015 to work around the lake formed in earthquake in 2010.
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Before earthquake, there was roughly 3000 trucks cargo enter Pakistan thru this road per year, between 2010 - 2015, the number reduced to 600-700 trucks per year.
I spend so much to address the following issue or concern:
1) Transport oil and gas via this road? it's impossible.
2) Large volume cargos from Xinjiang? it's impossible, not to mention southern Xinjiang has few induestries and only 10 million residents. You can image the price of these goods.
this road does help people in Gilgit Baltistan to make them have job and business opportunity in some extent.
Pakistan and China signed FTA in 2006, effectively kicked off in 2007, there's no issue of Chinese goods flooding into Pakistan for reason of CPEC, it's already there before CPEC by sea route.
Energy and goods transportation through this routine is not core of CPEC. Many projects are invested in Baluchistan where is one of the core direction. The economy development of Baluchistan is ignored or postponed for a long time due to political issue. The economy development of this region require an infrastructure like Gwadar port. I still don't fully understand how Gwadar port is used. An obvious fact is, Baluchistan is rich in mineral resource, and near Persian Gulf, the oil and gas region. Pakistan probably develop mineral and refined oil and chemical industry in Baluchistan, fishing and fruit agriculture is also a good direction.
Most industries of Pakistan exist in Sindh and Punjab which are traditionally wealthy provinces, these projects will help resolve electricity shortage and boost its industrialization.
If we examine the map, take Pakistan as the center, the left side is Iran, 80 million population, 85% literate rate, has a relatively decent industry compared with countries of this region, already has an upper hand. The right side is India, 1.3 billion people roughly same GDP per capita as Pakistan, India has better industry compare with Pakistan however India is still a service orientated economy, India has to speed up industry development to achieve higher and faster growth. BD, a nation with 160 million people, lots of infrastructure projects are ongoing and its economy is doing pretty good in the past few years. The south side is East Africa, China is investing in Ethiopia to build infrastructure and industrial park, the far east side is SEA which is also attracting investment from all over the world. In short, Pakistan need shift focus on domestic economy development to boost its industrialization otherwise, Pakistan would have to face fierce competition in the future, this is also same for India. From East Africa to SEA, this region is the area subcontinent can directly trade either by land or by sea, any country fall behind will have to pay a much higher price to catch up.
. india left alone . hypothetical anti China block
