Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan’s aide and special assistant of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) affairs, Khalid Mansoor, has accused the United States of cooperating unlawfully with India to sabotage the CPEC project.
On Sunday, October 24, 2021, Mansoor claimed that the US authorities have plotted to block Pakistan’s multi-billion dollar project and economic helping hand. The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) was announced in 2015 and is known as one of the most aspiring projects of Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative.
Pakistan Prime Minister’s aide accuses India and USA of conspiring to ‘sabotage’ the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor projecthttps://t.co/mUg99sRoBO
— OpIndia.com (@OpIndia_com) October 24, 2021
Mansoor’s claims
Pakistan’s capital Islamabad is the seventh-largest developing financial recipient of Chinese overseas development financing. Currently, there are 71 projects worth $27.3 billion in progress under CPEC in Pakistan. Pakistan had replaced Asim Saleem Bajwa with Khalid Mansoor recently as the new head of the CPEC, the Pakistan component of China’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative. The move was an attempt by Pakistan to please China, as Mansoor is thought to be a favorite of Beijing.
According to the Pakistan Prime Minister’s aide Mansoor, Pakistan will not forgo any of its benefits. They also expressed their wish to develop some involvement and see how it can benefit both countries. He further said that Europe and the United States view CPEC as a move by China to expand itself politically, strategic and in business influence. He said that the Phase II of CPEC will be a more significant magnitude order than Phase I.
Claims from the West
Western thinkers commentators have said that CPEC is an economic trap that will surely cause debt and increase China’s influence in the domestic economies of Pakistan. Mansoor also said that he had a detailed discussion with the American embassy officials and that the United States is “taking the stocks of the economic and political consequences” of the withdrawal from a region might bring.
China’s conspiracy
While the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is a global infrastructure development program envisioned by Chinese Premier Xi Jinping, where infrastructure loans are given to developing countries, China is investing in more than seventy countries under this plan. If the government fails to pay back the loan amount, then China takes permanent control of the host country’s resources. BRI focuses on building airports, roads, seaports in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.