Chinese Attempted Coup Against Pakistan
Four months ago, Pakistan Government ordered an inquiry into the workings of two major coal-fired power-plant projects that were built under the CPEC – Huaneng Shandong Ruyi Energy and Port Qasim Electric Power Company. These companies were found involved in corruption as they had misrepresented interest during construction to loot almost US$226 million from the dollar-strapped Pakistani economy.
This set warning bells to ring in far off Beijing. Xi Jinpiing and his Politburo was aware that so long as the reins were under the control of civilian institutions led by representatives of the people and civil servants, thorough accountability of Chinese master plan at least at some level and at some point in time – if not at once – was possible. Side-lining the civil institutions altogether would allow China to play on both sides of the board.
Prepared for this very contingency, The CPEC Authority was established in October last year using a presidential ordinance (without parliament’s approval) for four months and then was given another four-month extension. The above CPEC Authority quashed the probe immediately.
The supra-constitutional CPEC Authority acting as the CPC’s subsidiary in Pakistan and is responsible for conceiving, implementing, expanding, enforcing, controlling, regulating, coordinating, monitoring, evaluating and carrying out all activities related to the CPEC.
Furthermore, it will have the constitutional power to initiate an investigation and impose penalties against any public office holder (including the prime minister and president of Pakistan) or any other person who is directly or indirectly engaged in CPEC-related activities who willfully resist directions, instructions or specified orders of the CPEC Authority.
Since the Authority has come into existence, its chairman has been a retired lieutenant-general. According to a news report (that soon after its publication was mysteriously taken down), the chairman of the Authority – who, as noted above, is a retired lieutenant-general – will co-chair the Joint Cooperation Committee as the democratically elected planning minister will be removed from this position.
The JCC is the main decision-making body of CPEC. It has members from both Pakistan and China. But every year the Chinese officials at the JCC meetings browbeat the Pakistani officials as they review the making of Xi’s version of the East India Company.
As the world moves toward 2050, Xi’s plan of China’s ultimate control of the majority of the emerging-market economies is becoming crystal clear. At the cost of its sovereignty, territorial integrity and freedom of its people, the “selected” government of Pakistan is finding a permanent place in Xi’s basket.
Since 2016, Xi, the general secretary of the Communist Party of China has been forcing the Pakistani establishment to put pressure on the government (it was Nawaz Sharif’s government back then) to side line the Planning Ministry’s role in the implementation and monitoring of the multibillion-dollar China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).
He pushed for the creation of a supra-constitutional CPEC Authority that would freelance the management of the predatory infrastructure and power-generation projects under his direct command.
The proposal was rejected then, but last year it was again presented before the prime minister of the country – now Imran Khan. The reason given was timely completion of the projects.
This time the prime minister is a full-fledged puppet of the military establishment, and therefore it was easier than before to manipulate the law to fulfil Xi’s desire to take over the Planning Ministry of Pakistan, and in future the country itself.
But Xi wants permanent control. And now that the establishment has its puppet in the Prime Minister’s House, it is putting all of its efforts into making the Authority more powerful and a permanent part of the constitution by pushing it through parliament.
The agreement was so highly confidential that even the secretary of maritime affairs once refused to show it to the Senate Standing Committee on Finance. So one can imagine what an above-the-law sort of deal it must be.
Pakistan’s Ministry of Planning, Development and Special Initiatives one of the most crucial state institutions, whose senior bureaucrats could implicitly scrutinize and resist Xi’s draconian CPEC scheme, as they had access to all of the secret documents on the agreement and were involved, directly and indirectly, in the decision-making process.
Xi doesn’t want the Belt and Road Initiative or any of its components to be held accountable or face resistance. He knows that his Chinese Dream of indoctrination of a majority of free people of the world by 2050 will not be fulfilled if the people of the countries victimized by the BRI come to know about his strategy to destroy their futures and those of their future generations.
Today the attempted coup against the Ministry of Planning is a success; next in the Chinese playbook could be Pakistan’s Defence Ministry, IT Ministry, Human Rights Ministry, Petroleum Ministry and others.
The truth is that China is burdening these countries in debt traps while they are already suffering from intense balance-of-payments crises. Xi will slowly poison Pakistan and other poor economies by creating extreme shortages of foreign-exchange reserves. In the end, these countries will have to accept the invasion of their political and economic systems by the Communist Party of China.
