ABSTRACT
Announced in 2013 and since then dubbed a game-changer, the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is a multifaceted project that has the potential to significantly influence South Asia’s turbulent environment. In particular, while tightening Islamabad’s cooperation with Beijing, the CPEC may eventually bring significant shifts within the India-China–Pakistan strategic triangle. By augmenting China’s presence in South Asia to an unprecedented extent and traversing the disputed territories of Pakistan-administered Kashmir, the project directly counters India’s interests in the region and obligates New Delhi to reassesses its strategic priorities and approaches. Indirectly, by appealing to most South Asian states, China’s connectivity projects undermine India’s regional and global leadership capacities, which are core components of the Indian state’s desired identity. This chapter contributes to this topic by presenting and analysing the narratives surrounding the CPEC in India, the ways in which it is transforming the Indian state’s relationship with Pakistan, and India’s regional and global standing as an emerging great power. It also exposes the way the two all-weather friends, as China and Pakistan call each other, want India to be perceived in Pakistan and beyond South Asia. The chapter draws on English-language publications by Indian and Pakistani think tanks and research institutes triangulated with primary sources such as policy documents, public opinion polls, media and semi-structured interviews with opinion shapers, including with academics, journalists and other civil society representatives.
