Pakistan occupies an elevated role in China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and hosts its ‘flagship’ project, the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). It has attracted the largest volume of investments under the BRI and opened itself comprehensively to its transformative potential. This book provides a comprehensive analysis of CPEC’s impact on Pakistan’s economy, politics, and society, covering its developmental benefits as well as resulting controversies.

Interdisciplinary and international experts capture the complexity of CPEC, presenting new empirical data in the form of interviews, archival materials, and documentary evidence. Covering topics ranging from agriculture to the environment, gender to security, they focus on local outcomes challenging prevalent narratives about the BRI as a strategic, China-driven vehicle to transform other countries in its image. They argue that examples like CPEC should be understood as interactive processes between China and its international partners, which produce interdependent relations between them. Beyond the case of CPEC, these findings contribute to the burgeoning field of ‘Global China’, through a comprehensive yet granular assessment of the first ten years of the BRI’s flagship project.

Join us for this book launch to hear more about the volume from both the editors and the authors of the various chapters. The volume is available to preview and order at the following link: https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/edit/10.4324/9781032633411/china-pakistan-belt-road-initiative-pascal-abb-filippo-boni-hasan-karrar. 

Event details: 

Chair: Dr Pascal Abb (Peace Research Institute Frankfurt)

Panellists: 

Dr Eram Ashraf (Independent Scholar)

Dr Filippo Boni (The Open University)

Dr Hasan Karrar (LUMS)

Dr Tayyab Safdar (University of Virginia)

Dr Zahid Shahab Ahmed (National Defense College, UAE)

Dr Saba Shahid (Forman Christian College)

Dr Gul-i-Hina van der Zwan (Leiden University)