• Friday, March 29, 2024

HEADLINE STORY

Days after China, Pakistan’s invite to third countries, India issues warning against joining ‘illegal’ CPEC

Passengers ride in a newly built Orange Line Metro Train (OLMT), a metro project planned under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a day after an official opening in the eastern city of Lahore on October 26, 2020. (Photo by Arif ALI / AFP) (Photo by ARIF ALI/AFP via Getty Images)

By: Shubham Ghosh

DAYS after all-weather friends China and Pakistan invited any country joining the multi-billion dollar China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) for “mutual beneficial cooperation”, India called the project an “inherently illegal, illegitimate, and unacceptable” endeavour and warned that any country participating in it would mean infringing India’s geographic sovereignty.

Arindam Bagchi, the spokesperson of India’s ministry of external affairs, said on Tuesday (26), “We have seen reports on encouraging proposed participation of third countries in so-called CPEC projects. Any such actions by any party directly infringe on India’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

The CPEC is a collection of infrastructure projects that are under construction on Pakistani soil since 2013. It was originally valued at $47 billion but went up to $62 billion in 2020. New Delhi has always objected to the project since it passes through territories of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

“India firmly and consistently opposes projects in the so-called CPEC, which are in Indian territory that has been illegally occupied by Pakistan. Such activities are inherently illegal, illegitimate, and unacceptable, and will be treated accordingly by India,” Bagchi added.

New Delhi’s stern warning comes at a time when Beijing has been wooing the Taliban government in Afghanistan and devising plans to link the land-locked country through all-weather roads via Pakistan.

The latest invitation by the Chinese and Pakistanis to other nations to join the project comes after reports of the project getting hit by a number of factors surfaced. While there are allegations of rampant corruption at the ground level, local people have resisted in Pakistan’s Balochistan province and last but not the least, engineers and workers from China at the project sites have been targeted by Islamic fundamentalists.

The CPEC is 3,000 kilometres in length and under it, a cluster of infrastructure projects aim to set up a series of contiguous economic and trade hubs with road and rail infrastructure, linking regions such as China’s western province of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region and the new Gwadar port in Balochistan.

The CPEC, which the Pakistani media claims is running behind schedule, is part of China’s major Belt and Road Initiative which plans spreading of Beijing’s investments in road and connectivity to bring markets in Central Asia and Europe closer.

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