AIDN0020420160052 April 20, 2016 Author: Dr. Siegfried O. Wolf Cite the Article: Wolf, SO. "THE PAPER | China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and Civil-Military Relations in Pakistan" IndraStra Global, Vol.002, Issue No: 04, (2016), 0052, http://www.indrastra.com/2016/04/PAPER-CPEC-and-Civil-Military-Relations-in-Pakistan-002-04-2016-0052.html | ISSN 2381-3652

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THE PAPER | The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and Civil-Military
Relations in Pakistan
By Dr. Siegfried O. Wolf
Abstract
The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a multi-billion dollar infrastructure investment project, is heralded as a ‘ game
changer’ for Pakistan’s economy and regional cooperation. Being a crucial part of a major development initiative led by China,
known as ‘One Belt, One Road’ (OBOR), to connect Asia with Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, the CPEC is much linked to
hopes, interests, as well as regional and global geopolitics. However, such a mega project never comes without challenges and
critical questions. Besides the puzzle of the feasibility of its implementation, or potential impacts on the regional cooperation, it
seems that the CPEC development has severe negative impacts on the country’s traditional unhealthy civil-military
relations.
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2. Introduction
Pakistan has been ruled by military forces for around half of its existence, subsequently, it is considered to be a classic example
of a praetorian state. The country’s military perceives itself as the sole guardian of national sovereignty and moral integrity, the
chief initiator of the national agenda and the major arbiter of conflict between social and political forces. Furthermore, civilian
rule was always characterised by unrestricted and persistent power struggles between government and opposition, between
different political institutions (branches of government) and center-region tensions in combination with autocratic styles of
governance, mismanagement, and corruption. This created a situation in which civilians’ lost public support and the army
was able to regain its reputation and ‘moral legitimacy’ to intervene directly in politics. Subsequently, the military (deliberately or
unconsciously) was able to nourish the perception that civilians were neither able to form a sustainable, functioning government
nor capable of running the affairs of the state. Having this in mind and observing the development of the CPEC and respective
projects, one can’t help feeling but it seems that history is repeating itself. More concrete, much of the critic on the CPEC is
focusing on the concrete route of the corridor, the distribution of Chinese investments and the chosen places for energy,
infrastructure, Special Economic Zones (SEZs, industrial and manufactural hubs) projects in favour of Punjab on the expense
in the provinces of Baluchistan and KPK. Taken the facts on the ground and the secrecy surrounding the project into account,
there are no doubts that these critics are justified. However, these debates are missing one significant point: the increasing
institutionalization of a formal role of the military in the country’s political system. By having said this, the article will bring
following arguments forward: Firstly, the way how the CPEC gets implement does not only limit the decision-making power of
civilians (understood as the elected representatives of the people) but also make civilian control over the armed forces even
more unlikely. Secondly, since civilian control of the armed forces is interpreted as a sine qua non for democratic consolidation,
the operationalization of the CPEC is undermining the latest attempt of democratic transition initiated by the 2013 general
elections resulting in the first transfer of power from one civilian government to another via elections. Thirdly, in order to ensure
the implementation of the CPEC, the military was able to build-up a parallel governance structure, exercising legally tremendous
executive and judicial powers.
The CPEC in the context of civil-military relations and civilian control
Praised as a new economic lifeline, the CPEC is supposed to provide the essential link between the ‘land based belt and the
sea road’. In order to do so, the CPEC will connect Kashgar in China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region with Gwadar Port
on the Baluchistan coast in Pakistan’s south-west. According to the plan, the CPEC will be implemented through a ‘1+4’
cooperation structure: the Economic Corridor at the centre and the Gwadar Port, energy, infrastructure and industrial
collaboration as the four key areas. In order to operationalise this endeavour, the corridor is a combination of cross-sectional
components: Infrastructure, trade, connectivity, transport, energy, services among others. It is expected that the CPEC will
boost the country’s economy, attract much needed foreign investments, and uplift the social and economic conditions in the
poorer provinces. In brief, the CPEC is portrayed as unique to change the country’s unfortunate economic patterns and pushes
Pakistan political and geostrategic standing in the region. However, besides several political, administrative, and environmental
hurdles, the major challenge for Pakistan is to guarantee a secure and stable environment for the CPEC development. Being
disappointed about the performance of the federal government in Islamabad in countering terrorism and militancy, the military
got increasingly involved in respective decision making and implementation, weakening the power of civilians.
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3. At the moment, in the context of CPEC development, Pakistan is witnessing the total absence of civilian control. In order to
assess this statement, civilian control is “defined as civilians having exclusive authority to decide on national politics and their
implementation. Under civilian control, civilians can freely choose to delegate decision-making power and the implementation of
certain policies to the military while the military has no autonomous decision-making power outside those areas specifically
defined by civilians”. As such, fully-edged civilian control requires that civilian authorities enjoy uncontested decision-making
power in all significant policy areas, namely Elite Recruitment, Public Policy, Internal Security, External Defence, and Military
Organisation. If the military gain dominance in any of this area, civilian decision power, and control must be seen as serious
challenged.
Losing grip: The decline of civilian decision-making power in the CPEC project
Based on the above-outlined concept of civilian control, one can identify several indications for the further weakening of civilian
decision-making power and democratic governance on the central and provincial level.
First of all, the challenge of ensuring security for the CPEC development had the most significant impact on the civil-military
relations and civilian control in Pakistan. For example, the military organisation got totally out of the hand of civilians exemplified
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4. by the formation of new armed forces in Baluchistan and Sindh, dedicated solely, for the protection of CPEC and related
projects-, a decision solely made by the army’s top brass. Even more remarkable is the increasing autonomy of the army in the
area of internal security which finds its expression in the army’s unilateral decision to launch the Operation Zarb-e-Azb which
started in summer 2014. The decisions to an extent the duration as well as to an extent the operations in geographical terms
of this anti-terrorist campaign was also done by the armed forces themselves. Zarb-e-Azb focused initial on the border areas of
Afghanistan, but the army declared the whole territory of Pakistan as an area of operation. In this context, the major (official)
goal of the country’s security circles is to link the CPEC with the aim of achieving a ‘terror free Pakistan’. Regarding Chief of the
Army Staff (COAS) General Raheel Sharif: "We [Pakistan’s security forces] will not stop unless we achieve our end objective
of a terror-free Pakistan" irrespective of the costs. These costs appeared not only in the form of remarkable human and material
resources but also in the willingness of the soldiers to sideline with civilians and to scrutinize the latest achievements in
democratic transitions for the sake of CPEC implementation.
Another example for autonomous decision-making by the soldiers is the Karachi security operations. Here we have a similar
situation like with Zarb-e-Azb: the decision to carry out decisive measures against terrorists was done by the military and the
rangers (a paramilitary force headed by the army) themselves. The civilian and the civilian government was informed about it
after the decision were made.
Also in the area of public policy, the establishment of the Apex Committees at federal and provincial levels results consequently
into the reducing of the decision-making power of the executive combined with a lack of parliamentarian oversight by the
national and provincial assemblies. In other words, most of the important decisions related to CPEC are done by a military-
bureaucratic hybrid. The establishment of Apex committees aimed at the enhancement of civil-military interaction in order to
improve the security situation in general and to counter terrorism in particular. In this context, the initial tasks of the Apex
Committees were to coordinate security and implement the National Action Plan (NAP) , which was drafted jointly by the
government, parliament, and army.
However, over the time, the Apex Committees have become more important decision-making bodies than the federal and
provincial cabinets. An indicator, therefore, is that the federal and provincial cabinets meet less frequently as compared to
federal and provincial Apex Committees. It is well-known that the Pakistani Army plays since the creation of the country the most
dominant role in politics, directly through a military coup and martial law or indirectly influencing informally the civilian decision-
makers to act in the interest of the military. However, the new administrative set-up of Apex Committees has brought the
military formally in the civilian sector of governance and political, administrative management and strengthens its positions
in all decision-making areas relevant to CPEC and beyond.
A latter phenomenon started already with the enactment of the 21th constitutional amendment which let to new institutional
arrangements like the granting of special powers for the armed forces and the establishment of military courts.
The CPEC – Another lost opportunity to improve civilian governance and control
Despite the traditional dominant role of the military in Pakistan politics, over time and due to extraordinary circumstances – for
example after Pakistan’s armed forces lost wars (and its reputation) against India in 1965 and 1971 or the unexpected death of
military dictator Zia-ul-Haq in 1988 – civilians had exceptional chances to regain control over ‘their’ soldiers and decision-
making and as such to strengthen the political institutions. Against this backdrop, a successful implementation of the CPEC
would create another exceptional moment for civilians to strengthen its position vis-à-vis the military. However, to do
mishandling of the project (lack of political will, capacities, transparency and communication), foremost the halve-hearted
approach of the Prime Minister Sharif’s administration to deal with the challenges of Jihadist terrorists and militancy and to
operationalize adequately the NAP, it created for the army another opportunity to call on the ‘doctrine of necessity’. In other
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5. words, the description of the civilian government as incompetent to ensure security and stability, crucial pre-requisites for the
corridor development, served the soldiers as justification to act autonomously and to take over directly the implementation of the
NAP and subsequently the CPEC development too. In result, civilian lost control over the CPEC decision-making process.
Civilians might continue to be the public façade, but it is obvious that the military top echelon is calling the real shots. As
such, the civilian failed once again to establish supremacy over the country’s armed forces in order to consolidate democratic
rule.
Final thoughts
In order to break out of the historical patterns featured by the army’s dominant role in Pakistan’s politics, an improvement and/or
establishment of civilian control and oversight mechanism are needed. Here, all military-dominated Apex Committees have to be
immediately dissolved and national and provincial assemblies, as well as the respective cabinets, must be in charge again. If
this is not possible because of the complexity of the issue as well as a lack of capacities and capabilities specialised
institutions/bodies must be established under direct (sole) control of the civilian (legislative and executive) institutions. It will be
essential for the country’s democracy that any military representative must be totally removed from any decision-making power
(or not allowed to exercise) and must be obliged to report transparently on the status of security and ongoing activities regarding
the given context and beyond. If measures in this direction will be not successfully carried out, the CPEC will further entrench
the military in the country’s politics and subsequently, harm any attempt to bring the country back into the process of democratic
transition. Today, the armed forces possess the strongest formally institutionalized role in the country’s political system ever. The
military was not only able to extend its institutionalized role in a decision-making process, on the expense of all three branches
of governance (executive, legislative and judiciary), but also to build up a ‘quasi-parallel structure of governance’. In result, the
military does not need anymore a direct take over (coup d’état) the, directly or indirectly, the governance in order to rule the
country.
About the Author:
Dr. Siegfried O. Wolf, is Senior Researcher (member) at the South Asia Institute (SAI), Heidelberg
University, and Director of Research at SADF (Coordinator : Democracy Research Program). He
was educated at the SAI and Institute of Political Science (IPW) in Heidelberg. Additionally, he is a
visiting fellow at the National University of Science and Technology (NUST, Islamabad), affiliated
researcher at the Pakistan Security Research Unit (PSRU, Durham University), and a former
research fellow at IPW and Centre de Sciences Humaines (New Delhi, India).
He is the co-author of 'A Political and Economic Dictionary of South Asia' (Routledge; London 2006),
co-editor of 'Politics in South Asia. Culture, Rationality and Conceptual Flow' (Springer: Heidelberg ,
2015). 'The Merits of Regionalisation. The Case of South Asia' (Springer: Heidelberg, 2014) and
'State and Foreign Policy in South Asia' (Sanskrit: 2010) and Deputy Editor of the 'Heidelberg Papers
in South Asian and Comparative Politics' (HPSACP). Furthermore, he has worked as a consultant for the Federal Ministry for
Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), Germany and is a member of the external group of the Afghanistan-Pakistan
Task Force, Federal Foreign Office, Germany.
Cite the Article:
Wolf, SO. "THE PAPER | China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and Civil-Military Relations in Pakistan" IndraStra Global, Vol.002,
Issue No: 04, (2016), 0052, http://www.indrastra.com/2016/04/PAPER-CPEC-and-Civil-Military-Relations-in-Pakistan-002-
04-2016-0052.html | ISSN 2381-3652
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