By Ding Heng
Extending the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a signature program of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), to Afghanistan was a key talking point in a recent Pakistan-China-Afghanistan trilateral foreign ministers’ dialogue. The meeting was not where this idea was first raised. Afghanistan showed interest in the BRI even before the US withdrawal, with an Afghan delegation participating in a China-hosted BRI forum in 2017.
However, a joint statement issued after the dialogue seems to tell that there is a sense of urgency, especially on the part of Kabul, to push ahead with this idea. Many governments have broken off engagement with the Taliban since its return to power, but Islamabad and Beijing have maintained their ties with the group. To Kabul, this scenario means that embracing the CPEC is probably a viable option to generate economic activity in Afghanistan.
Supporting Afghanistan’s reconstruction is among the top priorities in a position paper released by the Chinese government earlier this year. On top of providing aid, engaging Afghanistan in the CPEC is another important path towards that goal, because the CPEC’s track record says a lot about what the program could potentially bring about if it is extended to Afghanistan.
First of all, the CPEC’s effect in job creation is crystal clear. Data compiled by China’s top economic planning agency shows that since the CPEC was launched a decade ago, it had created 236,000 jobs, including 155,000 jobs for Pakistani workers, as of the end of last year. Pakistani officials predict that the CPEC could result in the creation of up to 2.3 million jobs by 2030.
In the case of Afghanistan, unemployment is a long-lasting challenge. While the international community’s attention is focused on the hundreds of thousands of jobs lost since the Taliban takeover, things were no better during the US occupation. Reuters reported in 2007 that Afghanistan’s jobless rate was about 40% at the time, with many more people underemployed. At this point, it’s difficult to estimate how many jobs the CPEC could create in Afghanistan. However, given the fact that Afghanistan’s population size is only less than 20% of that of Pakistan, the CPEC will certainly be capable of providing a sizable relief to Afghanistan’s unemployment as long as its job creation momentum could be replicated in the country.
Over the years, the CPEC has added some 6,000 megawatts to Pakistan’s power supply capacity. To put this figure into a big picture, the country’s installed electricity generation capacity was 22,812 megawatts in 2013. Power shortage is still an issue in Pakistan today because of its increasing energy demand, but the situation has noticeably improved. An energy crisis that hit the country in 2013 led to power cuts of up to 20 hours a day. When a major blackout occurred in October 2022, it took hours to restore.
In comparison to Pakistan, power seems to be a bigger challenge in Afghanistan. The current power generation capacity in the country is merely hundreds of megawatts, which, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross, only supplies 22% of Afghanistan’s power need. In other words, the power capacity that the CPEC alone has so far created far exceeds the entire need of Afghanistan, meaning that the CPEC has great potentials in addressing Afghanistan’s power shortfall.
Closely related to job creation and power generation is the fact that the CPEC has helped improve the industrial capacity and infrastructure networks in Pakistan. In turn, that means more trade. Topline Securities, a brokerage house, predicted in 2017 that the CPEC would help Pakistan’s exports grow 4.5% a year till 2025, higher than the previous decade’s average of 3%. While in actuality that probably has not been the case due to unexpected factors like the Covid-19 pandemic and last year’s flooding, there is not a lack of highlights. Pakistan’s exports for 2018 increased nearly 10% year on year, and its exports for 2021 was a hike of nearly 13% from 2020.
When it comes to Afghanistan, in theory there’s no reason why the CPEC can’t bring more trade. To some extent, Afghanistan is already benefiting from the CPEC. In 2020, the Gwadar deep-sea port, a landmark CPEC project, began handling transit cargo headed to and from Afghanistan. Afghanistan had traditionally relied on the two southern Pakistani ports of Karachi and Qasim for international trade. By comparison, Gwadar offers a shorter Pakistani overland link for the rapid delivery of goods. On the other hand, if a motorway project linking Kabul and the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar could proceed as planned, transportation along Afghanistan’s traditional transit trade routes will become more efficient. China has already built a section of a motorway between Peshawar and Karachi, cutting the commuting time between that section’s two ends from 11 hours to 4 hours.
Afghanistan’s geographic location means that it can position itself as a regional hub linking South Asia, East Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East to each other. The CPEC alone is perhaps unable to help Afghanistan achieve this goal. This is why Pakistan and China acknowledge that other existing projects such as the Central Asia-South Asia power project and the Trans-Afghan railway would enhance regional connectivity and prosperity, and one important thing will be how to align the standards of different projects.
The CPEC portrays a rosy blueprint for Afghanistan. That being said, Pakistan and China do have a legitimate concern about the security risks of extending the CPEC to Afghanistan. The Taliban seems to have mustered plenty of political will to cut ties with terrorism, pledging it doesn’t allow any individual or group, including the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan and the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement, to use Afghan territories to conduct terrorist activities. Apart from political will, the actual capability in combating terrorism also matters. The construction of the CPEC has witnessed profound China-Pakistan security cooperation, with Pakistan having allocated tremendous security resources to protect CPEC projects. The lessons and inspirations drawn from the cooperation could be useful to safeguarding the CPEC’s future footprints in Afghanistan.
Security is usually seen as the precondition of development. There’s certainly truth to it, but it’s also possible to pursue the two at the same time. Xinjiang, which is one end of the CPEC, represents a good example. The western Chinese region launched its well-known de-radicalization campaign in 2017 with a determination to get rid of terrorism. In the meantime, Xinjiang has managed to achieve a regional GDP growth higher than China’s national figure in 5 out of the 6 years since then. Balochistan, the other end of the CPEC, is another case to look at. The Pakistani province saw multiple attempted separatist insurgencies before the CPEC’s launch, but investments in the region led to a drop in separatist groups. In 2016, more than 800 suspected militants surrendered to Pakistan’s security forces. Both Xinjiang and Balochistan might offer some inspirations on how to address the security concerns of extending the CPEC to Afghanistan.
Afghanistan’s destiny is in the hands of Afghans, but neighboring countries ought to provide assistance, without strings attached, to help the country walk out of poverty and instability. This cause requires commitment and policy continuity. These two things are what the CPEC, which features an ironclad Pakistan-China partnership, can offer.
[The author is a host with CGTN Radio. The opinions expressed in the article are the author’s own. Contact the author: dinghengcri@foxmail.com ]
