This week’s visit to Pakistan by China’s President Xi Jinping was an important breakthrough as both countries focused on mutual economic development and looked at ways to support stability and security with projects in Pakistan’s remote areas. Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif linked the economic aspects of the Chinese visit to the on-going fight against terror and Beijing’s military links with Islamabad.
The high point of the visit was confirmation that a corridor would be built linking Kashgar in western China to the deep sea port Gwadar in south-west Pakistan. The corridor is not just a road, rail and pipeline link, which would be important enough in their own right, but is also envisaged as a new economic free-zone that will encourage a whole range of projects in some of the more remote parts of Pakistan that have seen little economic development from the central government for decades. Critics will say that these areas are unstable and do not deserve this bonanza. Optimists will say, however, that without such large-scale development, there is little hope of stopping the miserable cycle of poverty leading to radicalisation and violence.
