About seventy-six years ago, a newly independent Pakistan became one of the first Muslim countries to recognize the People’s Republic of China. Formal diplomatic relations between the two states were officially established in 1951. Consequently, an alliance was created between the two that has managed to outlive governments and wars on both sides. Importantly, in 1971, Islamabad helped arrange Henry Kissinger’s secret visit to Beijing to meet up with Premier Zhou Enlai. Over the years, Beijing has also reciprocated these gestures. It has repeatedly backed Pakistan up at the UN Security Council on Kashmir. Various forms of defence cooperation, such as the construction of the Karakoram Highway (KKH) and the agreement on the joint production of JF-17 Thunder jets, have given real merit to the “iron brothers” narrative. The most visible form of this partnership, however, lies in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), an offshoot of China’s own Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). 

Since 2015, CPEC has served as the flagship project of China’s BRI. Worth $46 billion when it was first launched in 2015, the figure has now grown to roughly $62 billion as additional financing rounds continue to be approved over the years. CPEC’s own secretariat asserts that 14 energy projects have been completed that have added around 8,020 MW to the grid. Alongside this, one HVDC transmission line has also been put into place. Additionally, six more energy projects are currently in the pipeline, which also includes a 300 MW coal-fired power project at Gwadar. Undeniably, these energy projects under CPEC’s umbrella have eased the acute blackouts and chronic shortages experienced by Pakistan's national grid prior to 2018. All in all, this demonstrates the tangible development benefits that can be achieved through such bilateral initiatives.

In contrast to this, the Gwadar and infrastructure aspects of CPEC illustrate the transitional challenges that are typical of large-scale infrastructure sequencing. For........

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