NATION BUILDING THROUGH CPEC

Abstract

Pakistan today confronts mega problems. It has been a victim of hybrid warfare for
decades. Pakistan has been a hostage of International Financial Institutions (IFI). Even if
we question, we question consequences and not the root causes. It is time to adopt a new
‘development paradigm’ that may meet our future needs. Pakistan does not lack in
talented people but the local aristocratic power elites have become the protagonists,
facilitators and handlers of hybrid war by making it sure that critical policy making and
governance institutions are headed by incompetent and irrelevant people. That is how the
western powers’ hybrid war strategy ignited an ‘implosion’ in the former Soviet Union in
1991. This template was repeated in the Middle East and North Africa to precipitate ‘colour
spring’ revolutions, destabilizing the entire region. The 21st century has catapulted
Pakistan once again to a new level of geo-political and geo-economic importance. The
Chinese knew that ‘if China is the future, Pakistan holds the key’. China Pakistan
Economic Corridor (CPEC) is a mean to an end i.e. economic take off of Pakistan. If
official business continues as usual, CPEC is likely to be a ‘missed opportunity’.