CPEC is not economic but geo-strategic project for China: American scholar Christine Fair

Mar 14, 2019

Geneva (Switzerland), Mar 15 (ANI): American scholar C. Christine Fair believes that multi-billion dollar China Pakistan Economic Corridor is not an economic corridor but a geo-strategic asset for China to strengthen its military prowess. Speaking at a side event titled “Economic development and HR repercussions: CPEC why Balochistan bleeds?” during the 40th Session of UN Human Rights Council she categorically raised repercussions of CPEC project in Pakistan where the human rights violations are on the rise since after the launch of this ambitious project. While speaking to ANI American scholar C Christine Fair said, “It’s not an economic corridor. For economic corridor to be truly economic it needs to be economic viable. And there is nothing viable about this economic corridor. It costs about 6 times much to move crude to Gwadar up into Xinjiang then it does the same crude to ground line of communication. And, moreover Karachi port itself is not at capacity, there is still unused capacity in Karachi. And if you look at the map, you bring stuff to Gwadar which has to move to Karachi and then it has to go to North. So, why not simply move things to Karachi. It does not make any sense economically. So scholars like myself, I feel this is geo-strategic so that Chinese be able to get military port at Gwadar”.