Everything that you have said supports the argument that China is setting CPEC up for massive growth. The idea that they are building surplus power, roads, connectivity to entrap Pakistan is ridiculous. Yes, it's perfectly possible to fall into a hole with poor management, so it's not an entirely bad situation if they have put tough incentives to get CPEC going.
The CPEC investment is too big for Pakistan to handle in case there's a failure, especially considering the high external debt that Pakistan already has. Roads, power etc are good, but they don't automatically start generating revenue on their own. You need to follow that up with investment in revenue generators, like factories. Who are going to be the investors for the follow up investment? Chinese?
Everybody thinks CPEC is an investment, it is not. These are just expensive loans for basic infrastructure. Loans that the Pakistani taxpayer is subsidizing for the sake of Chinese companies. Such concessions are valid only if the company in question is bringing in technology and high tech jobs. But coal power plants are nothing. This is not what we call "investment" in saner parts of the world.
The argument the Pak govt is making is, "Nobody in their right mind will make such investments into Pakistan, only the Chinese are willing to do it".
The question nobody is asking is, "If others see risk, then why is China willing to take that risk?"
Of course, I'm sure that if Pak govt gives guarantees on returns and buys power at exorbitant rates, then many countries will be willing to invest.
And last I checked, the dam is not part of CPEC.
The dam was removed from CPEC because the Chinese attempted to take control of it. Not just take control, but they wanted another dam project of equal size and take ownership of that as well.
But the Chinese are saying the dam is still under discussion.
Hambantota is completely opposite to what is being achieved in CPEC. First of all CPEC is to connect by land, a massive landlocked Central Asia and Western China to middle east and the sea. You cannot bypass it like Hambantota, which was a secondary sea route.
I am referring to the political aspects of Hambantota, not the business aspect. There was no business aspect to it, it was doomed to fail from the beginning. But that's where the problem lies. The Lankan and Chinese authorities knew the project would fail, but they went ahead with it nonetheless.
But the Lankans also know that India will protect them from a major crisis with the Chinese, like how we leased the airport in Hambantota. Pakistan does not have such a security blanket.