The China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is one of the pivotal components of China’s high profile BRI. facilitating connectivity, China promotes a vision where a ‘win-win’ situation of mutual benefits can be achieved. Invoking a 2000 year old history that China shares with Central Asia, Eurasia and other parts of the world, President Xi Jinping has been persistent in conveying that the BRI, including the CPEC, aims to revive regional connectivity through, infrastructure development, trade and investment in industry from which development dividends can be shared across the world. Openness and inclusive growth thus form core principles of this ‘project of the 21st Century’ while any skepticism over the geo-strategic ambitions of the BRI have categorically been rejected by the Chinese leadership. Yet, some academia, policy experts, ThinkTanks and social activists in the Western world and Asia remain suspicious.
