As Pakistan remains embroiled in internal power struggles, its external friends and foes wonder where the country is politically and economically headed. The circumstances post 26th Amendment offer enough evidence to forecast the political direction Pakistan has taken. The economic distress is writ large too.

The decision of Qatar's Al Thani Group to withdraw its $2.09 billion investment from Pakistan's Port Qasim Power Project underscores Pakistan's growing reputation for broken contracts and unpaid obligations. No surprise foreign direct investment plummeted to a mere $26 million by September this year — compared to India which boasts more than $81 billion in the same period. The Qatari group's pullout — preceded by the exit of global firms like Shell, TotalEnergies, Pfizer, Sanofi, Telenor, Uber, IGI and Microsoft inter alia and partial or full closure of even domestic prime producers such as Gul Ahmed Textiles — epitomises a fractured system that is asphyxiating under the acute indifference and incompetence of a power-centric elite that loathes real reform.

The China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) — often touted by Minister Ahsan Iqbal as a game-changer, a phrase our Chinese friends never favoured — suffers from the same malaise: lofty, irrational talk, little walk. Over a decade into CPEC, a number of Chinese academics, intellectuals and officials, who had dreamed of an economically viable,........

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