A Tale of Rice and Copper: A World-Systems Analysis of Chinese Hegemony in Pakistan (2024)

By: Toufic Sarieddine

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Synopsis: This book explores Chinese investments in, and cooperation with Pakistan under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Analyzing the BRI’s Pakistan limb, the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), the book illustrates the hegemonic tug of war between Washington and Beijing in Pakistan. There, China demonstrates its capacity to imprint its modus operandi onto peripheries through channels such as institutions, law, and currency, its economic dominance in production, trade, and finance through the control of quasi-monopolies on high-yielding economic processes (especially renewables and hard infrastructure) fostering trade surpluses which ultimately establish a net stream of inward revenue from Pakistan-as-periphery, military dominance to safeguard these revenue streams and furnish security to Islamabad, and cultural hegemony to socialize it at the level of the individual through media cooperation, state-wide language courses, and foreign education. The book addresses the need for an in-depth and comprehensive examination of a state under the Belt & Road Initiative, and will be of interest to scholars of China, South Asian affairs, international relations generally, and of geopolitics.