Balochistan poises together as much significance for Pakistan as much as it does for the China. Balochistan offers the longest land ride of the corridor which culminates on the wet juncture in the form of Gwadar Deep Sea Port which is the key to the Oceanic grand diplomacy of Belt and Road. The timely and exclusive Chinese attention on Balochistan around current pandemic times in principal spirit is what is required. If the already backward Balochistan is hit, as it is on its way, by the pandemic, it would not be able to recollect its socio-economic fragments for long which will halt the CPEC levying shocks on China’s post pandemic global politics in South Asia.
Balochistan is the mineral depository of the country and has the hugest deposits in the region like Copper and Gold, Iron, Chromite just to name a few outmatching any of such depositories in South Asian region. The rich and minerals active Tehtyan belt goes crossing the South-Western parts of Balochistan. The province mineral wealth remains unexploited and unexplored. There are definite occurrences of precious minerals in various parts of the province. A raw assessment is that if the mineral sector is developed on industrial and technological scales, it could mechanize the entire engine of national economy.
Secondly, the province has geostrategic significance as it harbors borders with two countries and by nature offers a key line to connect the landlocked Central Asian Republics to the warm waters of Indian Ocean. The province is half the size of the country in terms of area and is the least populated province with demographic anomalies. The Belt and Road Arc which goes around the essential CARs comes in jotting through Balochistan providing the most direct route favored by the laws of physics in terms of favorable displacement. The Gwadar Sea port where the Belt and Road finally culminates in its southern episode is the prospective epicenter of geo-politics with regional influence and international economic value. Gwadar is sensitively significant as it would, by geographic location, render Chahbahar of Iran and the Gulf Ports matchless to its potential geophysics.
Another significant feature of Balochistan is its sparse population which is comprised of 12 million people over half the size of the national land mass. The population composition is rural with Quetta, the provincial capital, as the only urbanized center of the province where major economic and commercial activities take place. Lesser population offers more room and space for industrial buoyancy with more environmental space to boom out of equation of limitations imposed by environmental hazards and demographic densities. The asphalt connectivity throughout the province has been on an ever increasing range which is belittling the acess impediments. As CPEC runs through the entire strip of Balochistan and is populated on its banks by all ethnic communities along the line so it is not just economic flow line but is one which cements together the socio-cultural terrain of the province too. Every ethnic group thus falls a beneficiary to the Corridor and creates the win-win scenario for all. This wins the CPEC the tribal consolidation preventing the threats of law and order.
Simultaneously, the province of such significance remained the center of strategic pivotal always. First it worked as hinterland for the USSR-Afghan-US War and then to its continued fallout up recently of the War on Terror. This well establishes the strategic depth the province transcends into while sharing borders with Afghanistan, the Graveyard of Empires. Baluchistan’s economic and commercial viability has never been thus explored hid behind the mantillas of defense and strategic priorities. This increased the levels of misery of livlihood and the occurrence of poverty, illiteracy, unemployment and crimes attuned an upward mobility. The province could be classified as the most backward of the entire five sister provinces due to non prioritization of life standards.
Now, as the pandemic advances its attack on Balochistan, there is everything which is put at stake for the survival of the province. The province has the weakest economic mobility to withstand any challenge posed by the pandemic. The institutional preparedness to witness such sudden and emergent outbreaks is also nonexistent. When compared to other provinces, there are humble to no chances of surviving the pandemic for the province on its own.
The current COVID-19 statistics are terrifying. The total number of tests so far conducted in Balochistan is just around 3000 of which a staggering 230 are confirmed cases setting a COVID-19 positivity rate of 7.29% which further means we are looking at confirmed corona cases of more than 87000 people in Balochistan demanding contingency planning for nearly one lac infected people. So far established quarantine centers are only able to accommodate 14000 people. The need for establishing more quarantine centers is evident with all state of the art medical input. The testing frequency is very low in Balochistan which needs a rapid increase.
If there is any COVID-19 cure till yet, it is isolation, social distancing and lockdowns the triplets of which have similar adverse socio-economic affects which the already impoverished people are in no way ready to withstand as these may cost their lives. They are caught between the devil and the deep sea. They observe lockdown, starvation will kill then and should they do away with such observance, COVID-19 will consume them.
Balochistan therefore gains significantly crucial importance to China as does Shanghai. The Chinese interaction with Balochistan is not a new experience to get jotted down as their affinity is decades old where Chinese already have good enough experience stretching for more than four decades now in commercial and industrial mega projects. The reassessment of Balochistan was rehashed by Beijing in the Belt and Road scenario where Balochistan has now acquired a decisive role for furthering the Chinese international diplomacy down beyond the India Ocean. The Chinese management of the Gwadar sea port is the most significant of the Chinese-Balochis primacy. The Chinese comprehension of the province is at length a well grasping one and so does their immediate assistance must be.
Saving Balochistan is just as good enough as saving the Belt and Road Initiative which is now climaxing as a well developed Doctrine. The immediate Chinese intervention in withholding the socio-economic rupture of the province by assisting the businesses not to fall, and the people not to die in exponential numbers by timely providing medical expertise and equipments will save not only the poor people of the province but would also enable the bolstering of the Belt and Road Initiative and setting the tone for international humanism of Chinese Uniqueness in the neo post pandemic world.
