UPSC 2018 GS-III · 10 marks · 150 words

The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is viewed as a cardinal subset of China’s larger ‘One Belt One Road’ initiative. Give a brief description of CPEC and enumerate the reasons why India has distanced itself from the same.

What “Enumerate” demands

list the items completely and precisely, with just enough detail to identify each.

The characteristic failure: discursive prose where a precise list was asked for.

What a top answer must contain

These are the checkable specifics from the marking standard for this question — the actual case, committee, datum or thinker, not an instruction to “give examples”.

  • CPEC: about $62 billion of road, rail, energy and port projects linking Kashgar to Gwadar, launched 2015, BRI's flagship corridor
  • Sovereignty objection: CPEC runs through Gilgit-Baltistan, territory India claims as part of Jammu and Kashmir
  • Strategic concerns: Gwadar's dual-use potential and the String of Pearls; PLA Navy access to the Arabian Sea
  • Process objections India stated at BRF 2017: lack of transparency, unsustainable debt burden, no consultative process
  • India's alternatives: Chabahar, INSTC, Asia-Africa Growth Corridor, and later IMEC

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