A time of complexity

The creation of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor is having an effect on the status of Gilgit-Baltistan region

The creation of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is having an effect on almost everything it impinges upon, including the status of the Gilgit-Baltistan region, which has been in dispute since Partition. This has been claimed by India, but the CPEC is stirring the possibility of change. The Chinese, who are bankrolling the project, are expressing concern about the legality of any work that is undertaken across territory that is the subject of international dispute. As has been pointed out by a Chinese official, “China cannot afford to invest billions of dollars on a road that passes through a disputed territory.” This is a point that must have been evident to those that drafted the CPEC in the first place.

The debate within government is around making a shift in a historic position that may have an impact on the Kashmir region generally and at the front of the agenda on the status of the proposed talks due to be held between India and Pakistan. It may be that Gilgit-Baltistan will be the subject of a constitutional amendment, and that for the first time the region be mentioned in the Constitution, bringing the possibility of it being absorbed into Pakistan as an additional province with the new entity able to send two representatives to the National Assembly, albeit only with observer status. Were that ever to happen, purely speculatively, that might ‘allow’ India to ‘absorb’ Kashmir. Were either eventuality to become a reality, it would radically alter the contours of the map and potentially provide the key to unlocking either a Pandora’s Box of troubles or a potential solution to an intractable problem.



Paramount among all the speculation has to be the will of the people themselves, those who live in the regions under discussion. The Chinese would obviously prefer a consensus-based outcome, given the speed with which the CPEC is advancing, notwithstanding the difficulties currently being experienced in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. Whilst we give a cautious welcome to anything that might resolve an old conflict, it must develop in line with the wishes of the people of Gilgit-Baltistan, and nothing less will suffice.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 9^th, 2016.

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