Article: Pakistan’s Reliance on Chinese-Built Power Plants Is Strangling Its Economy
This article reported on immense strain on Pakistan’s economy due to their reliance on Chinese-built power plants for electricity. The ultimate consequence of this, other than an economy beyond repair, relations between both Asian countries are worsening. With most of the country being lower income or facing poverty, the strain on electricity bills from these beijing-made-powerplants has caused widespread public dissent. This deal was originally part of the larger goal of establishing a trade corridor between China and Pakistan as well boosting Pakistan’s economy — for which the opposite has happened. This deal between Pakistan is also part of a larger initiative by China to entice developing countries with their advanced technologies for economic benefits, which is seen to be effective for their own development. Overall, Pakistan’s relying on Chinese power plants for electricity has shown to overwhelm the poverty-stricken population. The demand for these expensive power plants have decreased, leading a wave of families switching to solar panels for their electricity. Pakistan’s government has planned to negotiate on cutting up the country’s bills by up to a fifth, additionally wanting to negotiate the terms of the long-term contracts with private operators and the Chinese power plants. This piece gives insight to how the relations between these two countries, which were already worsening, is plummeting substantially from an economic lens as well. This, of course, ties in with the political upheaval following Islamabad-based Chinese citizens being killed by intrastate militant groups in Balochistan from my last blog post. With that still being an ongoing issue, I doubt that these goals of renegotiations will go far, if anything, they’ll be delayed. Islamabad would have to gain control of their separatist militias in order to potentially increase probabilities of successful negotiations, but to do this, even more civil unrest is to occur. From China’s point of view, they have already proposed a solution to their personnel being killed on Pakistani soil: Chinese security intervening on Pakistani soil to deal with the issue themselves. This poses an issue of sovereignty for Pakistan, however, so they must seek another way to entice China for renegotiations. On a global scale, I can possibly Pakistan relying on other larger economies such as the US for power or increased aid. But I do not think that’ll be too successful with Trump’s new administration as he greatly cut aid sent to Pakistan in his first term. With the soured relations between Pakistan and China, it is unclear how Islamabad plans to relieve their own economy which is dependent on successful negotiations with China, an ally that isn’t too fond of Pakistan at the moment and won’t be unless they gain some sort of control of their internal separatists.