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The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is often portrayed as the flagship project of the new economic and political architecture envisaged by China as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). With official figures suggesting a $62 billion CPEC-related investment, the economic corridor has dominated Pakistan's domestic and international politics since its launch in 2015. While a great deal of attention has been devoted to the regional geopolitical repercussions of CPEC, the contours of CPEC's impact on Pakistan's federal system and interprovincial relations have not yet been explored. This is surprising since the conceptualisation of CPEC, and the manner in which its multiple projects are being implemented (or not) within Pakistan, has re-awakened grievances surrounding federalism and the location of power within Pakistan. This is because concerns have been raised about whether Pakistan's poorest provinces (Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the 'semi' province of Gilgit-Baltistan) will reap the benefits from China's investment or whether these benefits will be enjoyed mainly by the Punjab. In this context, this paper seeks to answer one key question: has CPEC strengthened or weakened the provinces visa -vis the federal government? Organised around interviews conducted in 2015, 2018 and 2019, the analysis demonstrates how the construction of the economic corridor is acting as a centripetal force in Pakistan's federal structure, despite the potential for such a large level of external investment to redress the disparities between provinces. Against such backdrop, the paper assesses the implementation of the early-harvest projects in three key CPEC-related areas: transport, energy and the development of the port of Gwadar.

The Impact of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor on Pakistan’s Federal System