General Raheel Sharif’s repeated promises of overseeing the successful completion of China’s largest planned investment in Pakistan, clearly underlines the strategic dimension of a largely economic initiative.

Last Friday, General Sharif, Pakistan’s widely respected army chief, came out with his latest remarks on the matter of Pakistan’s relations with China in further elaborating the thinking within the influential armed forces.

While presiding over an event at the Chinese embassy in Islamabad to celebrate China’s Army Day, General Sharif renewed his commitment to oversee the two countries team up to maximise the “dividend of our geo-strategic relations”.

It is amply clear that China’s promise to invest up to $46 billion (Dh 168.949 billion) in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) will eventually be a game changer for Beijing’s closest ally in south Asia. The plan is built upon investments intended for new power generation projects, high speed highways, gas pipelines and oil supply routes linking China’s western Xinjiang province to the coastline of south western Pakistan.

China has already laid the ground for the plan by investing in a deep sea port adjoining the city of Gwadar in Pakistan’s Balochistan province. The plan has further lifted China’s already strong profile across Pakistan where it is seen as a reliable friend, a close ally and indeed a brotherly country.

During the 68 years of Pakistan’s existence as an independent state, China has been the only country that has supplied Pakistan with military hardware even when crucial supplies by players such as the US were placed under sanction. Among the many enduring landmarks of this relationship, one is indeed the Karakorum highway built in the 1970s which opened up Pakistan’s Gilgit-Baltistan bordering Xinjiang to the rest of the country.

On the military front, Pakistan’s successful rise to join the world’s relatively few manufacturers of fighter aircraft only became possible when Beijing agreed to help the country manufacture the JF-17 fighter plane. More recently, an agreement for China to provide up to eight new submarines for the Pakistan navy will eventually plug an important gap in Pakistan’s defences.

This multifaceted relationship has many dimensions that can be amply detailed in a series of discussions and the list would just continue to go on.

However, General Sharif’s remarks clearly present an upside opportunity and a downside potential risk. The upside is indeed marked by General Sharif’s own rising profile as a credible figure who has boldly led Pakistan through an ongoing fight against extremists, to the point where General Sharif and the army are widely seen as the best guarantors of Pakistan’s most vital security interests.

His promise to oversee the successful completion of China’s landmark promise to Pakistan essentially lifts the credibility of an initiative that will change the face of the south Asian country. Unlike the Pakistan of today with the many surrounding challenges, a Pakistan of the future following the completion of China’s projects will become a markedly different country.

Political and economic challenges

The downside potential risk is however marked by Pakistan’s many internal contradictions driven mainly by the country’s many political and economic challenges. The transition to democracy since former General Pervez Musharraf stepped down in 2008 has only witnessed the deterioration of Pakistan’s outlook. While Pakistan’s politicians eagerly note their commitment to the successful completion of the Chinese projects, their ability to translate promises into action remains in question.

Unlike Musharraf’s last year in office, which was marked by mounting political opposition to his rule, Pakistan’s economic trajectory has simply headed southwards. In his final year in power, Musharraf oversaw the inflow of at least $8.5billion (Dh31.21 billion) in foreign investments ranging from entries to the stock market to direct investment and receipts from privatisation all combined together.

Just seven years later, Pakistan receives well below $1billion annually under these heads in a clear indication of where the country is heading. The change can largely be attributed to the blatant loss of credibility surrounding the ruling structure of today. This indeed marks a significant risk to the prospects for China’s planned investments in a country which remains Beijing’s close ally. And yet, it is also a country surrounded by widespread uncertainty that can easily demolish prospects for the future.

This requires Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who is not related to General Sharif, to get his act together. Beyond paying much in terms of mere lip service, the prime minister needs to assemble the entire parliament to formally offer its unequivocal support to the planned Chinese investment. In recent months, the squabbling between some politicians over the route to be adopted for the CPEC has indeed unleashed concerns over the ability of Pakistan’s political class to remain united in support of this vital project.

For China, the successful completion of the CPEC will open up new avenues for the development of its western regions, notably Xinjiang which has also seen periodic violence from a numerically small group of separatists. At the very least, a much shorter distance between western China and the world’s vital oil lanes of the Middle East will benefit Beijing in more ways than one. China’s continued economic prosperity could well be further fuelled by closer connectivity to the Middle East.

But this element of interest to China will also help Pakistan transform itself in more ways than one. Unlike the country’s present challenges posed by uncertainty driven from weak economic prospects, Pakistan could transform itself in to an important destination for new investors. In the process, the CPEC could help lift standards of living across some of Pakistan’s least developed areas, notably the province of Balochistan. Indeed, in the ultimate analysis, General Sharif’s wisdom needs to be matched by the country’s democratic rulers, as squandering the opportunities provided by the coming CPEC will only tantamount to possibly Pakistan’s biggest historic blunder.

— Farhan Bokhari is a Pakistan-based commentator who writes on political and economic matters.