CPEC: Prospects of OBOR and South-South Cooperation

Abstract

South-South Cooperation (SSC) has been a recurring theme in the global discourse but it neither resulted in self-reliance of the South nor it could yield in the political and economic liberation of the South. The major obstacles in its ways have been the North’s overarching control over the international system and the South’s incapacities to address its own shortcomings. The renewed economic cooperation among developing countries seems to be undoing the strictures imposed on them before, be it by default or by design. In this milieu, China’s ascendency to the global economy and its massive investment in Asia and Africa has set the stage to analyse Beijing’s policies and projects of SSC promotion. President Xi Jinping’s One Belt One Road (OBOR) initiative is a huge opportunity for the South to reinvigorate their socio-political and economic ties. While implementing OBOR’s flagship project, China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), Beijing adhered to the five principles of peace and shunned the traditional intrusiveness of the North. It generated hope and avenues for altering the economic landscape in Pakistan, which illuminated the path of cooperation among developing countries and brightened the prospects of OBOR even more.