Silk Cage Series – Webinar II: Corridor, Client, or Catalyst? CPEC and Beijing’s Strategic Leverage from Pakistan to the Indian Ocean
Debates surrounding the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) revolve around a central question: is CPEC primarily an economic development initiative, or does it function as a strategic instrument through which Beijing reshapes security alignments from South Asia to the Indian Ocean? While framed as a growth corridor vital to Pakistan’s development, CPEC is increasingly viewed as a mechanism that embeds long-term strategic leverage, linking continental access to maritime reach. This tension between development and security anchors the discussion of this webinar.
CPEC occupies a distinctive place in China’s external strategy. Designated as a “flagship corridor,” it connects China’s western regions to the Arabian Sea, providing Beijing with an alternative pathway to the Indian Ocean while deepening its strategic partnership with Pakistan. Unlike other Belt and Road projects, CPEC has been explicitly securitised from its inception, reflecting China’s growing concern with protecting overseas interests, personnel, and infrastructure. This evolution mirrors broader shifts in Chinese foreign policy under Xi Jinping, particularly the articulation of the Global Security Initiative (GSI).
The GSI reframes security in expansive terms, emphasising regime stability, opposition to external interference, and the protection of development pathways. In the context of CPEC, this translates into deeper Chinese involvement in Pakistan’s internal and external security environment. Security cooperation, intelligence coordination, counterterrorism engagement, and the protection of Chinese assets are increasingly institutionalised alongside economic investment. CPEC thus becomes not only a development corridor but also a security corridor, where economic infrastructure is inseparable from strategic oversight and political alignment.
Gwadar Port exemplifies this land–sea convergence. Promoted as the maritime terminus of CPEC, Gwadar links China’s continental ambitions to the Indian Ocean Region. While officially civilian and commercial, Gwadar’s supporting infrastructure, access arrangements, and security presence raise persistent questions about dual-use potential and long-term strategic intent. Within the GSI framework, port security, maritime logistics, and regional stability are presented as collective goods, yet they simultaneously enhance China’s operational familiarity and strategic reach in the Indian Ocean.
Another central debate concerns asymmetry and agency. Pakistan has actively pursued CPEC to address structural economic challenges and strategic isolation. However, growing financial exposure, renegotiated power-sector contracts, and the expanding role of Chinese firms and security personnel increasingly shape Pakistan’s policy choices. The deepening security dimension of CPEC under the GSI framework risks narrowing Islamabad’s strategic autonomy, binding economic recovery and regime stability more closely to Beijing’s preferences.
For India, CPEC represents a dual challenge. It traverses India’s territory, raising sovereignty concerns, while Gwadar extends China’s strategic presence into India’s western maritime neighbourhood. Together, these dynamics reinforce perceptions of strategic encirclement, linking continental pressure with maritime vulnerability. More broadly, CPEC illustrates how China leverages security cooperation and economic asymmetry to reshape regional balance without overt military confrontation.
For external actors, including the European Union, Japan, and the United States, CPEC raises critical questions about security governance, infrastructure transparency, and the externalities of development-led security frameworks. Competing connectivity initiatives exist but often lack the integrated economic-security coherence that characterises China’s approach.
This webinar, as part of the Silk Cage Series and second in the series, examines CPEC as a strategic mechanism through which China operationalises the Global Security Initiative across South Asia and into the Indian Ocean. By situating CPEC within China’s evolving security doctrine, the discussion will explore how corridors evolve into control, and what this means for regional stability and order. This webinar, part of the Stockholm Center for South Asian and Indo-Pacific Affairs’ (SCSA-IPA) research project titled “The Silk Noose: China’s Power Architecture in South Asia and Indian Ocean Region,” aims to address the following questions in general:
- How does the Global Security Initiative reshape the strategic logic of CPEC?
- In what ways has CPEC evolved from an economic corridor into a security-linked influence mechanism?
- How does Gwadar connect China’s continental strategy with its Indian Ocean ambitions?
- To what extent has CPEC altered Pakistan’s strategic autonomy and security posture?
- What are the implications of CPEC for India’s, Europe’s, and other powers’ continental and maritime security environment?
Speakers:
Elizabeth Threlkeld is a Senior Fellow and Director of the South Asia Program at the Stimson Center. Threlkeld has been with Stimson since 2018 and previously served as the Program’s Deputy Director. Her research interests include nuclear competition in Southern Asia, regional security dynamics, and geopolitics in the Indo-Pacific. Before joining Stimson, she served as a Foreign Service Officer with the U.S. Department of State in Islamabad and Peshawar, Pakistan, and Monterrey, Mexico. Threlkeld previously worked in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq, where she managed development interventions on gender-based violence and ethno-sectarian reconciliation. She has additional work and educational experience in China, Taiwan, and Turkey, and began her career with the Asia-Pacific Security Program at the Center for a New American Security.
Dr. Joshua T. White is a C.V. Starr Distinguished Professor of Practice at Johns Hopkins SAIS. He is currently an Anderson Scholar at SAIS Europe in Bologna, serves as the Faculty Co-Lead for the Asia Focus Area, and is the inaugural director of the U.S.-ASEAN and U.S.-Pacific Institutes for Rising Leaders. He is also a Non-resident Fellow in the Foreign Policy program at The Brookings Institution. He previously served at the White House as Senior Advisor & Director for South Asian Affairs at the National Security Council, where he staffed President Obama and the National Security Advisor on the full range of South Asia policy issues pertaining to India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and the Indian subcontinent, and led efforts to integrate U.S. government policy planning across South and East Asia.
Prof. Ajay Darshan Behera is the Director of MMAJ Academy of International Studies, Jamia Millia Islamia University, New Delhi. Until recently, he served as the Coordinator of its Centre for Pakistan Studies. Previously, he held several academic and research positions, including Officiating Director of the Centre for Strategic and Regional Studies at the University of Jammu, Assistant Research Professor at the Centre for Policy Research (CPR), New Delhi, and Fellow at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA), New Delhi. He was awarded the Kodikara Fellowship by the Regional Centre for Strategic Studies, Colombo, in 1996. He has also been a Visiting Fellow at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and at the Brookings Institution, Washington, D.C.
Dr. Brendon J. Cannon is an Associate Professor of International Security at Khalifa University, Abu Dhabi, UAE. He earned a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Utah, USA (2009) and held previous academic positions in Tokyo and Nairobi. His research is at the nexus of international relations, security studies, and geopolitics. He has published on topics related to regional security and geopolitics, the arms industry, and shifting distributions of power across the Indo-Pacific. Cannon’s articles appear in Defence Studies, Small Wars and Insurgencies, Asian Security and Third World Quarterly. His new book, edited with Kei Hakata, is Indo-Pacific Strategies: Navigating Geopolitics at the Dawn of a New Age (Routledge, 2021).
Mr. Ryohei Kasai is a Visiting Associate Professor at the Center for South Asian Studies, Gifu Women’s University, Japan. Working on international relations of South Asia, history of Japan-India relations, and Japan’s Asia policy, he teaches these subjects at Yokohama City University and Komazawa University in Tokyo. He previously served as a political researcher/advisor for Japanese Embassies in Beijing, New Delhi, and Islamabad. Since June 2022, he has worked with the Japan-India Association as a director of the board (till June 2024) and an advisor (June 2024 to date). His recent works in English include “Confluence of Strategic Factors: Japan, India, and the Indo-Pacific,” in Srabani Roy Choudhury ed, India-Japan Partnership: Abe the Game Changer, KW Publishers, 2024. He is the translator of the Japanese editions of Dr. S. Jaishankar’s The India Way: Strategies for an Uncertain World and Why Bharat Matters, published by Hakusisha in November 2022 and March 2025, respectively.
Moderator:
Dr. Jagannath Panda is the Head of the Stockholm Center for South Asian and Indo-Pacific Affairs (SCSA-IPA) at the Institute for Security and Development Policy (ISDP), Sweden. Dr. Panda is also a Senior Fellow at The Hague Center for Strategic Studies in the Netherlands. As a senior expert on China, East Asia, and Indo-Pacific affairs, Prof. Panda has testified to the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission at the US Congress on ‘China and South Asia’. He is the Series Editor for Routledge Studies on Think Asia.