CPEC Gives a spurt to Liberation Effort In Baluchistan
The acquisition of Gwadar port, exclusion of Baloch firms and labour from Gwadar in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project has heightened the existing feelings of an Occupied Baluchistan. The Baloch nationalist forces have wholly rejected the project as this has sold Baluchistan to the Chinese.
All tribal forces in Baluchistan have opposed CPEC and nationalist groups have been involved in various actions against the project.
Consequently CPEC has served to further exacerbate the divide between people of Baluchistan and Pakistan due to the exclusionary and Punjab-centric planning.
Gwadar has seen protests against CPEC in the specific context of fish resource exploitation by Chinese trawlers.
Many of the local fishermen vacated their fishing spots due to the construction of Gwadar port in hope of a better future. However, the Pakistan government granting fishing permission to the Chinese fishermen ignited widespread unrest.
This unrest culminated in a 28-day sit-in in 2021, led by Jamaat-i-Islami (JI), in which a massive number of people, including men, women, and children, participated. The protesters ended the sit-in after an agreement with the Pakistan government.
The Pakistan government accepted all the demands of the protesters, calling these demands legitimate.
However, many Balochs fear that these demands would not be fulfilled by Pakistan. A recent bomb blast on a Chinese convoy symbolizes the deep distrust of Baluch forces against China-led development, which they view as extractive and exploitative.
CPEC is adding to accumulated feelings among the Baloch population towards Occupation of their country.
While Pakistan now sees the CPEC as the key to “lifting” millions of Pakistanis out of poverty, at the same time controversy will continue to hound the ambitious infrastructure-building project.
In the past, China has pressured Pakistan to review its 18th constitutional amendment (2010) – in particular, its transfer of powers and resources to the Baluch Province – so that CPEC projects could be advanced without “provincial hurdles.”
Ever since the CPEC’s inauguration, there has been controversy about the eastern and western routes of the scheme’s projects.
Provincial and nationalist forces have highlighted what they see as the deliberate neglect of the western route, which lies along more underdeveloped regions of Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) and Baluchistan without intersecting the more developed Punjab provinces, which is on the CPEC’s eastern route.
The original route-planning was altered in ways that only benefit central Punjab.
