As Shehbaz visits China, the hope and unfulfilled promise of CPEC

Pakistan's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif is on a five-day visit to China, his country's biggest and most important ally. The second phase of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is expected to be formally announced during the visit. The $62-billion CPEC, which was launched in 2015, is part of President Xi Jinping's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), aimed at expanding China's geopolitical influence through billions of dollars of investments in infrastructure projects in around 100 countries. The CPEC would facilitate the construction of power plants, road and rail networks, and the deep-sea port of Gwadar in Pakistan. For China, the project…