Protecting the Belt and Road Initiative: China’s Cooperation with Pakistan to Secure CPEC

Boni, Filippo (2019). Protecting the Belt and Road Initiative: China’s Cooperation with Pakistan to Secure CPEC. Asia Policy, 14(2) pp. 5–12.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/asp.2019.0024

Abstract

As China’s interests and investments expand globally under the new economic and political architecture envisaged with the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), so do the risks. China’s global ambitions have progressively exposed Chinese assets and nationals abroad to an increasing set of challenges, ranging from threats emanating from terrorist groups and separatist movements to cautious and critical views about Chinese investments and personnel working in foreign countries. Among the more than one hundred countries that have now signed up to BRI, Pakistan, through the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), epitomizes most of the challenges that Beijing is confronting in the implementation of its BRI-driven international design. 1 CPEC—designated by Chinese premier Li Keqiang as the initiative’s “flagship project”—represents an ideal test case to assess how China is aiming to secure its investments