THANKS to the politically-motivated remarks made by a US official about the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), the entire nation stands united in rejecting the false propaganda against a mega project that is impacting upon life of the common man in the country in different ways. Apart from the laymen, leadership of various political parties that usually remains at odd with each other on almost every issue, has also come out with strong support for CPEC telling the United States that it is none of her business to meddle in the internal affairs of Pakistan.
As pointed out by Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly Mian Shahbaz Sharif, Pakistan would always remain indebted to China for providing valuable assistance to the country under the framework of the corridor. This is because it was for the first time in the history of the country that concrete steps have been taken to address the chronic problem of load-shedding that was affecting socio-economic progress of Pakistan. In fact, a recent study undertaken jointly by Pakistan and China came to the conclusion that as a result of already completed and under implementation projects, Pakistan would be able to meet its energy requirements for the next ten years up to 2029 and this takes into account the ever-increasing demand due to improvement in living standards of the people as well as industrial and business growth. Power is not the only sector of bilateral cooperation as Pakistan has been able to initiate those infrastructure projects through Chinese assistance that it could not even dream of with its own resources. These projects are not only linking different parts of the country including remote ones together but also accelerate the socio-economic development. The challenges that Pakistan is addressing with Chinese cooperation under the aegis of CPEC were there but no other country including the United States was ready to offer any meaningful assistance to address them satisfactorily. Energy crisis was at the peak during climax of Pak-US partnership but only limited cooperation was extended and even in other fields no one knows where billions of dollars went. As against this, the projects completed with Chinese assistance are visible to all and these are helping overcome problems of unemployment, backwardness and poverty. In this backdrop, opposition to CPEC is, in fact, opposition to progress and prosperity of people of Pakistan and is, therefore, regrettable.
