THIS is in response to Cyril Almeida’s comment ‘Chinese whispers’ (April 19). The editorial ‘Long road to China’, published on the same day, is also on the same subject. Comparing the two, I found that the editorial is balanced and well-founded.

‘Chinese whispers’ is predicting failure and only talks about negatives. The editorial lists what is being offered and also mentions the possible stumbling blocks which have to be removed by Pakistan to make all this a success. It also refers to the positives that happened due to investments made by the Americans in the 1960s where they helped in undertaking vast hydrological infrastructure development projects like the Mangla and Tarbela dams, canals, power generation and transmission systems. Similar investments on a wider scale are now being offered by the Chinese.

Mr Almeida talks about the past experience of the Punjab government with Turkey where lots of promises were made. Unfortunately, not much has happened there. He feels we will see the same result with the Chinese. Looking at the past, could anyone have predicted what China would be in 2015? Moreover, China and Turkey are different and cannot be compared.

When the Chinese set their eyes on anything, it gets done. They decided to construct the world’s biggest dam against all odds and made the Three Gorges dam, producing 18,000 MW of power. Now they are working to tap the ice caps of Tibet for a water-parched Beijing. To meet this objective, they constructed a railway line in Tibet along with a network of motorways to take their men and machines to the area.

On the Yarlung Zangbo river called the Brahmaputra in India, China is constructing a series of dams that will produce 38,500 MW of power. The water from the Yarlung Zangbo will be taken to Beijing thousands of kilometres away, crossing the mighty Yangtze Kiang River through an underground tunnel and connecting it to the Huang Ho river.

Nothing can stop China from doing what they are signing on. We must work on the issues pointed out in the editorial to keep pace with the Chinese and make it easier for them. While we stand to gain much from these projects, at the same time China also gets a shorter and cheaper trade route to the Middle East, Africa and Central Asian states which they cannot get from anyone.

It pains me to see that an article in Dawn is projecting a pessimistic view. I don’t hear any Chinese whispers; I hear a roar.

S. N. Iqbal Raza

Karachi

Published in Dawn, April 26th, 2015

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