BEYOND NUCLEAR: ANALYZING CHINA-PAKISTAN ECONOMIC CORRIDOR AS A STRATEGIC DETERRENCE THROUGH CRITICAL GEOPOLITICS LENS

Abstract

The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), which connects Pakistan’s warm waters to China’s Xinjiang region, is a first of its kind economic network of roads, rails, and pipelines. This study assumes that the strategic depth of CPEC is instrumental. As part of the China’s flagship Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), China’s CPEC investment is above USD 65 billion. Termed as China’s ‘big gamble’ in Pakistan by many, the CPEC passes through the heart of Pakistan’s territory to give China the long desired economic advantage. For Pakistan, CPEC implies that China as investing country would also take an active care of Her investment which is creating not virtual but literal assets possessing real consequences if disturbed, dismantled or destroyed. This investment is linking Pakistan’s economic and geographically significant cultural hubs, making them safer, as any harm coming to them would endanger the integrity of the Corridor. CPEC posits as a potential lifeline for China’s fiscal integrity amid the current and future economic and military conflicts. Thus, this study elaborates the purpose of deterrence which is to prevent a potential conflict as it has been observed in the case of nuclear or other more destructive weapons. Considering this, the CPEC also serves this purpose, though with a different approach. Any country attacking CPEC, or any installation linked to the Corridor, would enrage Pakistan as the caretaker as well as China as the investor. This study will use Critical Geopolitics as a guiding theoretical approach, challenging the traditional geopolitics, particularly focusing the function of CPEC as a deterrent.