The Belt and Road as political technology: Power and economy in Pakistan and Tajikistan

Abstract

While celebrated as a new ‘win-win’ initiative, Belt and Road narratives sidestep the fact that current investment regimes originating in China must contour to existing political economies in host countries. Drawing on the examples of Pakistan and Tajikistan, both of which share land borders with China, and both of which have been eager recipients of recent Chinese investments, we forward two arguments: (1) In both countries the narrative of connectivity promoted through the Belt and Road Initiative builds on previous bilateral engagements with China. (2) Within Pakistan and Tajikistan, engagement with China has enabled the utilization of BRI as a political technology for domestic purposes, with the attempt to rule, re-define, order and exploit. Put differently, new investments from China serve to consolidate existing authority structures.

Introduction

Taking Pakistan and Tajikistan as examples – both of which share a border with Xinjiang and both of which are eager for Chinese investment – we inquire how BRI projects operate within the confines of existing local political economies.

We argue that in Pakistan and Tajikistan, the current BRI narrative of connectivity builds on previous bilateral engagement with China, reflecting how BRI projects are embedded in domestic power structures. We emphasize how in Pakistan and Tajikistan, bilateral relations with China, infrastructure projects, technical expertise, logistics, along with family politics and offshore accounts serve as political technology: the application of knowledge to purposefully re-define, re-order, and re-calculate state and society (Tironi and Barandiaran, 2014).

Current Chinese investments and loans open spaces for further consolidation of power by elites who leverage new capital and technology; as such, inward flows of Chinese capital under the BRI umbrella have not transformed polity in Pakistan and Tajikistan. Instead, in both countries they have allowed for the further entrenchment of authority structures: in Pakistan, this is evidenced in a military bureaucratic apparatus – within a fragile democratic setup – that has projected expertise to manage new projects under the BRI. In Tajikistan, by contrast, Chinese investments help reinforce a patrimonial and ‘kleptocratic’ regime. Trickle-down benefits from newly built infrastructure notwithstanding, BRI presents domestically as an opportunity for power holders – the military in Pakistan, and the patrimonial elite in Tajikistan who have governed since 1993 – to deepen control and extract rent.

Pakistan: Expertise and logistics

The visual depiction of the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) – BRI’s extension into Pakistan – is cartographic. On a typical CPEC map, the two extremities of Pakistan constitute two nodes of the corridor, one at Khunjerab, the 4697 metre-high crossing between China and Pakistan, and the other in the south, at Gwadar. Between these nodes is a web of roads, representing pathways for new or upgraded infrastructure; initially estimated at $46 billion, recent projections for Chinese investments in Pakistan are closer to $60 billion.

The building of CPEC infrastructure is the purview of a state in which the military and the bureaucracy have served as two clusters of power over 70 years of Pakistan. Alavi (1972: 61) famously argued that Pakistan’s ‘bureaucratic-military’ nexus created an extensive apparatus of social control. Likewise, Jalal (1990: 295–296) observed how a ‘state of martial rule’ had begun to emerge even during the first decades of Pakistan’s existence, when the military was successful in not only moulding the administrative machinery of the newly independent country, but in pursuing development strategies (see also Karrar, 2019: 395–396).

The Pakistani military positioned itself as a public works provider, notably through the Frontier Works Organization (FWO), established in 1966, and the National Logistics Cell (NLC), established in 1979. Both organizations function as businesses, seeking contracts – and public funds – for infrastructure construction and maintenance. Large-scale projects, such as the Tarbela dam, construction on which began in 1968, fused developmentalism with military–bureaucratic control. Outside of hydrology, the major project in the 1960s was construction of the 800-kilometre Karakoram Highway connecting Pakistan to China. Construction began in 1966 by the Army Corps of Engineers, out of which the FWO emerged.

Decades later, the FWO remains well positioned for new projects under CPEC. Consider a feature on CPEC in the Shanghai Business Review that opens with the FWO. Portrayed as ‘one of the world’s premier construction companies’, it describes how FWO crews ‘cut a path’ through high mountains following the ‘mythical Silk Road’ ‘immortalized’ by Ibn Battuta and Marco Polo. The article quotes FWO Director-General describing FWO work in technocratic terms: ‘We must take an institutionalized approach … form a policy framework … harmonize all the aspects of the Corridor including planning, management and implementation’ (Bucher, 2016: 33). CPEC balances Chinese technical expertise – which has been a hallmark of Beijing’s foreign engagement in the new millennium (Nyíri, 2006; Yeh and Wharton, 2016) – with the military bureaucratic apparatus ensuring that the projects are implemented.

If the 1960s marked a highpoint of developmentalism, then the next period of military rule, the 1980s, were instrumental in developing another expertise: logistics. Following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the mujahidin were supplied through Pakistan. The shipment of weapons and supplies from the port of Karachi upcountry to mujahidin factions required new logistics, managed by the newly formed NLC. Today, the NLC offers services in construction, tolling, freight transport, as well as managing dry ports and border terminals. It describes itself as ‘the most credible name in logistics and construction’. This opinion was shared by the China Daily (2017) which describes NLC as Pakistan’s ‘premier’ logistics organization, with a ‘leading role in managing CPEC logistics’.

Infrastructure and logistics are mechanisms that enable BRI investments in Pakistan; crucially, they fall under the ambit of military bureaucratic authorities. Yet, expertise is not isolated from the social environment (Karrar and Mostowlansky, 2018; Mostowlansky, 2019). Engineering projects are not realized through mathematics and metrics only. Technical expertise exists in a social sphere and creates new relations (Harvey and Knox, 2015: 10). Complementing expertise in infrastructure, it was expertise in logistics that led to the ‘controlling and shaping the natural world’ (Mukerji, 2010: 402). This functions as a source of power creating social order ‘through large-scale, imposed, material projects’ (Mukerji, 2010: 403).

Tajikistan: Cronies and extraction

As a landlocked mountainous country with a population of around nine million, Tajikistan has been largely absent from discussions on BRI. However, the case of Tajikistan is important because of how BRI serves as a political technology for domestic purposes. Currently, at least 45% of Tajikistan’s imports are from China and China holds 53% of Tajikistan’s debt (Uran Kyzy, 2019).

Tajikistan’s relationship of dependency with China predates BRI by more than a decade. The end of the Tajik civil war in 1997 led to a closer relationship between Tajikistan and China. The 2004 opening of the Kulma pass between the two countries was an important signpost (Mostowlansky, 2017: 32) leading to increased yearly trade and new infrastructure projects. Farmland has been leased to Chinese companies that operate in highly heterogeneous fashion (Hofman, 2019: 152), Chinese companies have entered the mining sector and financed cement plants, and the Tajik army has participated in counter-terrorism and counter-narcotics exercises with PRC troops that have recently set up a base in the border triangle of Tajikistan, China and Afghanistan. While this relationship was previously described as bilateral friendship (dusti), it has now become part of BRI.

The Kulma land route between China and Tajikistan was opened after resolution of a border conflict dating back to the colonial period when Russia unilaterally delimited its Pamir boundaries. During the Soviet period, this conflict remained unresolved and only when independent Tajikistan attained fragile stability in the early 2000s was a new border agreement possible, whereby Tajikistan ceded 980 square kilometres to China in 2011 (Kraudzun, 2011: 176). While this was a fraction of China’s claims, many citizens perceived this cession of land as the Tajik president Emomali Rahmon’s sell-out for private gains. Family businesses undergird Tajikistan’s economy where the presidential entourage engages with different Chinese actors in corporate relations. In these dealings, Tajikistan’s land and its population are resources that require encirclement, extraction and corridors, established through securitization and offshore schemes.

Cooley and Heathershaw (2017) have argued that significant proportions of Chinese investments in Tajikistan are likely to end up on the accounts of presidential ‘cronies’ who take over Chinese funded infrastructure projects and extract profits. While evidence is fragmentary and anecdotal, the Dushanbe–Chanak highway – opened in 2010 with 80% Chinese funding and now part of BRI – provides insights into these processes (Cooley and Heathershaw, 2017: 180). Shortly after the opening of the 345-kilometre highway tollbooths appeared; operated by Innovative Road Solutions, a company registered in the British Virgin Islands, with no prior experience in business. Despite concerns of residents along the road unable to afford daily commutes and despite allegations that Innovative Road Solutions is, in fact, run by the president’s son-in-law, the company continues to operate, keeping its ownership concealed due to its offshore location and the support of the Tajik parliament (Mathesius, 2010; RFE/RL, 2010).

It is well established that Emomali Rahmon’s children and their families, as well as other relatives, are heavily invested in all sectors of Tajikistan’s economy (Esfandiar, 2014; Sorbello, 2017). In addition, the presidential family is in charge of a range of key government positions. For instance, between 2011 and 2015 the president’s son Rustam Emomali held positions in customs administration, including as its head (Putz, 2017). Concurrently, other family members have run transport businesses and logistics companies involved in trade with China (Cable, 2009) – allowing nearly unrestricted regulation. Hence, BRI, and its predecessor agreements, have been part of a political technology that has enabled the expansion and entrenchment of a political dynasty over two decades.

Conclusions

In 2013, when Xi Jinping announced the Silk Road Economic Belt, he had evoked a timeless connectivity. This connectivity is purportedly apolitical in disavowing ideology. In subsequent iterations, state narratives amplified ‘win-win’ and ‘mutual benefit’ for some 60 countries signed onto the newest Silk Road. Nevertheless, connectivity – as well as loans and investment regimes – do not exist in historical and political vacuums (Marsden and Mostowlansky, 2019: 2). As the examples of Pakistan and Tajikistan indicate, Chinese investments entangled with existing power structures. In both cases presented in this article, previously established authority structures leverage BRI for their own purposes: Pakistan’s bureaucratic military apparatus and Tajikistan’s ruling elite employ such political technologies to consolidate power, and extract and protect privilege through infrastructure and logistics, and offshore schemes. These skills did not develop after BRI, but rather build on local political practices and historically longer connectivity with China.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Footnotes

Hasan H Karrar is Associate Professor in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at the Lahore University of Management Sciences. His research and teaching focuses on contemporary Chinese and Central Asian history and political economy.

Till Mostowlansky is a Research Fellow at The Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, where he leads a project on Muslim humanitarianism in High Asia. He is the author of Azan on the Moon: Entangling Modernity along Tajikistan’s Pamir Highway (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2017) and a member of the ERC funded project ‘China, Law and Development’ at the University of Oxford. Further research interests include infrastructure, mining and mobility.

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