Belt and Road Initiative in Central Asia and its Implications for Pakistan

Abstract

China has been developing new commercial tracks worldwide to make its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) productive and to physically and economically link the neighboring CARs with itself. In this regard, China has been taking collaborative actions towards CARs to establish business linkages and building forward-looking infrastructure. Reciprocally, the welcoming gestures of the CARs towards these arrangements are becoming conspicuous. On the contrary, the West calls it Chinese efforts to put CARs in a strategic loop by helping their ailing economy. This paper, therefore, attempts to explore the advancement of BRI and the responses of the Central Asian Republics (CARs) towards this new development. In addition, the evolving situation shows that increasing partnership between the CARs and China significantly impacts the foreign and domestic policies of Pakistan because ChinaPakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is aligned with the BRI policy documents. Consequently, any new development in BRI will have substantial trickle-down effects on Pakistan. In this context, this article further examines the impact of the Silk Road Economic Belt (SREB), as a core of BRI, on Pakistan. henceforth, the article reviews regional connectivity projects under BRI and calculates the potential impact of BRI on the political, economic, and societal spheres of Pakistan.