China-Pakistan Economic Corridor: 'Panicked' Beijing envoy meets Imran Khan

ISLAMABAD: It appears that a video posted two days ago by Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) party that showed the former cricketer vigorously exercising, with a caption asking Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to be "very afraid" — may have scared more people than just Sharif.

That's because a panicked Chinese ambassador to Pakistan asked for a meeting with Imran and met him late yesterday, to be assured that Chinese investments in Pakistan — especially the $51 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor+ — aren't a target of PTI's November 2 'Occupy Islamabad' anti-Sharif protest, several Pakistani newspapers reported today.

PTI and Imran plan to completely shut down the capital city of Islamabad during the protest against Sharif's "lack of accountability" after being implicated in the Panama Papers leak, and his alleged inaction on the Kashmir issue .

The meeting with Imran was requested by the Chinese ambassador Sun Weidong, a PTI source told Pakistani newspaper The Nation. The two reportedly met at Imran's residence in Bani Gala in Islamabad.

"The gist of the meeting, according to PTI sources, was to dispel the impression that the party's ongoing accountability movement against the prime minister was somehow meant to sabotage the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor+ ( CPEC),"reported another Pakistani newspaper, Dawn, today.
It added that the PTI leadership "waxed lyrical" about China's ongoing support for Pakistan "at all regional and international forums. That latest support came in the form of China blocking India's attempt to name the Pakistan-based terror outfit Jaish-e-Muhammad in the Goa Brics declaration on Sunday.

At the meeting yesterday, Imran "also appreciated the CPEC initiative, calling it a game changer, expressing good wishes for the successful completion of the project. As regards his party's protests, Imran said the PTI protests were aimed at ending corruption and promoting accountability,"The News International wrote.


In fact, an editorial in a state-run Chinese newspaper last month, gave a hint about Beijing's misgiving about CPEC. The editorial was published after TOI reported that some 15,000 Pakistani soldiers are guarding about 7,000 Chinese working on the CPEC in the face of growing number of attacks on the project.

It said the rising cost of protecting Chinese workers on the project was "becoming (a) big problem in efficiently pushing forward the projects".
The CPEC will connect China's largest province Xinjiang with Pakistan's Gwadar port in Balochistan. It passes through Pakistan-occupied- Kashmir and Balochistan, both of which are home to a long-running insurgency.