On the occasion of the 88th anniversary of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (CLA), Pakistan’s Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Raheel Sharif has said: “I reiterate our firm resolve that any attempt to obstruct or impede this (China Pakistan Economic Corridor) project will be thwarted at all costs.” The much anticipated China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project, which has been touted as a transformative endeavour for Pakistan’s economy, will be faced with several obstacles during its implementation and even perhaps after completion. Since the CPEC is meant to traverse Balochistan, opening up trade routes for China via Gwadar, the security concerns alone will pose a significant hurdle. There have been several attacks on Chinese personnel working in Pakistan in the past, which explains the COAS’s repeated reiterations of the military’s commitment to making sure that the CPEC project goes through unhindered. In a meeting in Quetta, Chief Minister Balochistan Dr Abdul Malik Baloch announced that Rs two billion would be allocated to creating a new special force comprising 1,100 personnel for the Gwadar Safe City Project. He said the federal government would be approached for funding the force. This enhanced security spending already points to the costs of the sustained security the CPEC will need. For CPEC to be successful, or even viable, the Corridor and Gwadar port will have to be made secure, both during their construction and afterwards. There are fears that the continuing nationalist insurgency in Balochistan may threaten the project. If the security threats are not managed, CPEC may suffer and international entrepreneurs will not want to use these insecure trade routes. The COAS’s belief that the military will ensure the security of Gwadar and the Corridor remains to be tested, since the military has not been able to completely quell the nationalist insurgency so far, despite several military operations and the ubiquitous presence of the Frontier Corps in Balochistan. Perhaps the state needs to take a different approach in tackling the long-standing issue of Balochistan and try to reach a political settlement through negotiations, particularly given the CPEC stakes. One of the reasons that the nationalist insurgency is continuing is that the people of Balochistan do not believe that the Centre represents their interests, because of the long-standing neglect of the province’s development and the rights of its people. One of the reasons that China is building CPEC is to promote growth in its largely underdeveloped western regions. Pakistan’s Centre will only be able to assure the Baloch that CPEC will truly benefit them if it addresses their age old grievances and seeks a peaceful solution. A purely military solution may prove elusive, as it has throughout Pakistan’s history since independence. *