{"id":419,"date":"2018-04-09T16:11:19","date_gmt":"2018-04-09T10:41:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/?p=419"},"modified":"2018-04-12T13:14:54","modified_gmt":"2018-04-12T07:44:54","slug":"cpec-to-be-extended-to-afghanistan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/cpec-to-be-extended-to-afghanistan\/","title":{"rendered":"CPEC to be extended to Afghanistan"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<li>The controversial <strong>China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC)<\/strong> &#8211; the flagship project of China&#8217;s ambitious <strong>Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)<\/strong> &#8211; is being <strong>extended to Afghanistan<\/strong>\u00a0the<strong> Asian Competitiveness Annual Report<\/strong> stated.<\/li>\n<li>The report was released here on the sidelines of <strong>China&#8217;s Boao Forum for Asia (BFA)<\/strong> annual conference. The BFA was formed by China in 2001 on the lines of the <strong>World Economic Forum<\/strong> in <strong>Davos<\/strong>, and holds its meeting every year.<\/li>\n<li>The BRI has injected &#8220;fresh vitality&#8221; to Asia&#8217;s economic cooperation and helped the continent to reshape its international relations. China in December 2017 had unveiled its plans to extend the $50 billion CPEC to Afghanistan which has sparked concerns in India.<\/li>\n<li>Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi during his meeting with his Pakistan and Afghan counterparts had offered to extend CPEC to Afghanistan.<\/li>\n<li>The multi-billion-dollar BRI, the pet project of Mr. Xi has become a major stumbling block in India-China relations as CPEC has been listed as its \u201cflagship project\u201d.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3 style=\"text-align: justify;\">Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)<\/h3>\n<ul style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<li>&#8220;Belt and Road&#8221; is a massive trade and infrastructure project that aims to link China \u2014 physically and financially \u2014 to dozens of economies across Asia, Europe, Africa, and Oceania. It was initially called<strong> One Belt and One Road (OBOR)<\/strong>, but in mid-2016 the official English name was changed to the Belt and Road Initiative.<\/li>\n<li>The main focuses of the &#8220;Belt and Road&#8221; initiative &#8211; also known as &#8220;One Belt, One Road&#8221; &#8211; are in infrastructure, transportation, and energy. It consists of two parts: The &#8220;Belt,&#8221; which recreates an old Silk Road land route, and the &#8220;Road,&#8221; which is not actually a road, but a route through various oceans.<\/li>\n<li>The <strong>Silk Road<\/strong> was an ancient land route across Europe and Asia that connected traders and travellers from regions like the China, Persia, and the Roman Empire. Merchants used to transport silk and other commodities by camel or horse along those roads.<\/li>\n<li>As of January 2018, 71 countries (including China) are taking part in the project. They include India, Pakistan, Poland, Turkey, New Zealand, and Russia. Altogether, these 71 countries represent a third of the world&#8217;s GDP.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC)<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a $62 billion China funded \u2018flagship project\u2019 within China\u2019s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI),.The CPEC connects western China with <strong>Gwadar port<\/strong> on Pakistan\u2019s southern coastline in Baluchistan province. Along the Corridor route, the plan envisages connectivity thorough road and rail networks, power production units and <strong>Special Economic Zones (SEZ\u2019s)<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>CPEC, amongst all the BRI land and sea corridors, will set the tone for others. That is why China is dedicated to the goal of having the project completed in three phases by 2030. Involving only one country \u2013 Pakistan, the CPEC provides China with direct access to the Indian Ocean. The route shortens western China\u2019s distance to the Arabian Sea from 13,000 km to just 3,000 and cuts the transit time from 45 days to only 10.<\/li>\n<li>India has protested to China over CPEC, which is being built through <strong>Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK)<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/CPEC.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-422 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/CPEC.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"690\" height=\"370\" srcset=\"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/CPEC.jpg 690w, https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/CPEC-150x80.jpg 150w, https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/CPEC-300x161.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 690px) 100vw, 690px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/tft0916-a-d.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-423 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/tft0916-a-d.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"483\" srcset=\"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/tft0916-a-d.jpg 600w, https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/tft0916-a-d-150x121.jpg 150w, https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/tft0916-a-d-300x242.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Source: The Hindu<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The controversial China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) &#8211; the flagship project of China&#8217;s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) &#8211; is<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":420,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[123],"tags":[310,309,311,308,315,313,317,314,316,312],"class_list":["post-419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-current-affairs","tag-asian-competitiveness-annual-report","tag-belt-and-road-initiative-bri","tag-boao-forum-for-asia-bfa","tag-china-pakistan-economic-corridor-cpec","tag-gwadar-port","tag-one-belt-and-one-road-obor","tag-pakistan-occupied-kashmir-pok","tag-silk-road","tag-special-economic-zones-sezs","tag-world-economic-forum"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=419"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":540,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419\/revisions\/540"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}