China–Pakistan economic corridor projects development in Pakistan: Local citizens benefits perspective

• Date: 01 February 2019
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/pa.1888
• Published date: 01 February 2019

ACADEMIC PAPER

China–Pakistan economic corridor projects development in

Pakistan: Local citizens benefits perspective

Shamsa Kanwal

1

|Ren Chong

1

|Abdul Hameed Pitafi

2

1

School of Public Affair, University of Science

and Technology of China, Hefei, China

2

School of Management, University of

Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China

Correspondence

Ren Chong, University of Science and

Technology of China, 96 Jinzhai Road, Hefei,

China.

Email: renchong@ustc.edu.cn

China and Pakistan have initiated a mega project with the name of CPEC (China‐

Pakistan Economic Corridor). CPEC projects in Pakistan are an initial stage, and

government officials and policymakers expected that CPEC projects are beneficial

for local Pakistani community, as this project generates several business and employ-

ment opportunities for local citizens. This research study examines the benefit of the

CPEC projects and its influence on local Pakistani citizen's living standards. Data

were collected online using the Google platform from 310 citizens, residing in all

provinces of Pakistan. In total, 310 samples were analyzed and reported, and for data

analysis, SPSS version 21 and AMOS 8.0 tools were used; the findings of this study

validate most of the hypothesis. Based on results, this study discussed the local

Pakistani community benefits with numerous factors such as perceived education,

income, and employment. Results of this study will guide the officials and

policymakers of CPEC to gain local citizen's support for the CPEC development pro-

jects and designs policies accordingly for the future projects. This study also provides

important guidelines for CPEC policymakers and officials.

1|INTRODUCTION

As a developing country presently, Pakistan is facing multiple chal-

lenges involving economic, noneconomic, technology, education,

infrastructure, low skillful labor, high rate of taxes, and poor residential

assets (Khan & Ahmed, 2007). For that reason, government authorities

and policymakers are designing different development projects to

quicken the speed of economic growth. Among these ventures,

China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is one in all of them. CPEC

was officially declared when President General Pervez Musharraf met

with President Hu Jintao at Beijing in 2003 (Kousar, Rehman, Zafar,

Ali, & Nasir, 2018). It is the part of One Belt One Road (OBOR) project,

which is initiated by the Chinese Government in 2013 (A. Hussain,

2017a; E. Hussain, 2017b). OBOR is a mega project, which connects

Asia with Africa and Europe (Du & Zhang, 2018). CPEC is also the larg-

est project between Pakistan and China, which connects Kashghar

Xingjiang province with Gawadar port Baluchistan Pakistan (Chen,

Joseph, & Tariq, 2018). Specifically, CPEC is the name of multiple pro-

jects including energy projects, health centers, education institutes,

several economic zones, and interconnection of the road, train tracks

in all over the Pakistan (Tehsin, Khan, & Sargana, 2017). CPEC is a

mega project that is dreamed by the Chinese government and will

be materialized by the Pakistani government, and its benefit will pos-

itively be transferred to the local Pakistani community (Kousar et al.,

2018). Nevertheless, research findings related to CPEC projects and

local community reactions and benefit are insufficient and controver-

sial (Liaqat Ali, Mi, Shah, Khan, & Imran, 2017; T. N. Ali, 2018). For

example, on one hand, few scholars found that local community of

Baluchistan and Khyber‐Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) province is despondent

with the development of Gawadar port project because local commu-

nity perceive that they are ignored by officials in employment and are

fearful before due to security issues in the area (Liaqat Ali et al., 2017;

T. N. Ali, 2018). On the other hand, several scholars and government

officials reported that CPEC is beneficial for local residents in all the

aspects because living standard of local residents will be changed

through the development of this mega project (F. Ali, 2017; Liaqat

Ali et al., 2018; Tong, 2015), and this yielded mixed results. Therefore,

local community perception and benefit is necessary to investigate the

support for CPEC project development.

In recent years, the importance of understanding local citizen's

benefit and needs has received scholarly attention. Local residence

benefit is highly discussed, and one of the most researched topics in

Received: 1 October 2018 Accepted: 13 October 2018

DOI: 10.1002/pa.1888

J Public Affairs. 2019;19:e1888.

https://doi.org/10.1002/pa.1888

© 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/pa 1of12