BEIJING: China’s highly touted Belt Road Initiative (BRI) seems to be losing its sheen everywhere, as various issues including work at slow pace and terror attacks slow down the China Pakistan Economic Corridor’s (CPEC) progress.
According to the Hong Kong Post, Beijing is much concerned about the CPEC, which is the centerpiece of the BRI. The sluggish pace of work, frequent terror attacks, and incidences of corruption have slowed it down.
Irked by Prime Minister Imran Khan, many Chinese companies have made complaints to the Pakistan government for “negligible growth” for the past three years.
“They are crying. Chinese ambassador has complained to me that you (Pakistan) have destroyed CPEC and no work was done in the past three years,” said Saleem Mandviwalla, chairman of Pakistan’s Senate Standing Committee on Planning and Development.
Out of 77 CPEC projects, just 15 could be completed since it was announced in 2015, according to Hong Kong Post.
Another major concern that has grappled Beijing with is the attacks on Chinese nationals working on the CPEC projects.
In July 2021, nine Chinese national workers were killed in an attack on a bus in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. The frequent attacks made China annoyed. It demanded Pakistan “to take practical and effective measures” to ensure that similar incidents would not happen again, it said.
In August, two children were killed while three others, including a Chinese national, were injured in a suicide attack targeting a vehicle carrying Chinese nationals near the East Bay Expressway in Gwadar, Balochistan. China stated that all relevant departments at “all levels” in Pakistan must take “practical and effective measures” to implement strengthened security measures.
The embassy also asked Pakistan to ensure proper treatment of the injured Chinese national, who was been shifted to a hospital in Gwadar for treatment, The Express Tribune reported. (ANI)
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