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Caravan Trade to Neoliberal Spaces: Fifty years of Pakistan-China connectivity across the Karakoram Mountains

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 June 2020

HASAN H. KARRAR Open the ORCID record for HASAN H. KARRAR [Opens in a new window]
HASAN H. KARRAR*
Affiliation:
Lahore University of Management Sciences Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

Located along Pakistan's central Asian margins, the high mountain region of Gilgit-Baltistan borders Afghanistan and India, and since 1969 has connected Pakistan to China. In this article, I argue that over the last 50 years, expanding forms of connectivity between Pakistan and China were localized in Gilgit-Baltistan through three processes: (1) from 1969, overland connectivity between Gilgit-Baltistan and western China has enabled Pakistan to imagine and project expansive ties—and geopolitical aspirations—that transcend the border areas where the cross-border trade was initially localized; (2) unfolding ties between the two countries were accompanied by new material exchanges: initially barter trade and regulated caravans, followed by private commerce in the mid-1980s and, finally, economic corridor development under the Belt and Road Initiative; and (3) Chinese investments in Pakistan were part of a new cycle of global accumulation. Concurrently, in the wake of transnational investments, local governance in Gilgit-Baltistan adopted neoliberal administrative measures: the prioritizing of investment capitalism, the privatization of public goods and services, and securitization.

Type
Research Article
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 55 , Issue 3 , May 2021 , pp. 867 - 901
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

Acknowledgements: The people I have met and the people I have travelled with in both Gilgit-Baltistan and Xinjiang were instrumental in helping me appreciate the connectivity—and the change—I have described here; without their generosity, patience, and good humour this understanding could never have been possible. Ayesha Jalal, Eva Hung, and Tak-Wing Ngo, David Butz and Nancy Cook, and Rune Steenberg invited me to present earlier versions of this research at Tufts University, Hang Seng University of Hong Kong, Brock University, and at the Aga Khan University's Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilizations. Ayesha Jalal, in particular, offered a thorough critique that was instrumental in how I would frame this research. The two anonymous reviewers for Modern Asian Studies provided expert, supportive comments while saving me from errors, and Norbert Peabody offered valuable advice on framing and presentation. I am grateful to all.

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