MOSCOW – This year’s Asian Parliamentary Assembly (APA) just took place inthe southwestern Pakistani port city of Gwadar, the terminal point of theSilk Road’s flagship project of CPEC as well as its mainland-maritimepivot, which importantly allowed Islamabad to show off the progress that’sbeen made thus far on this game-changing initiative. Around 100parliamentarians from 26 countries such as Russia, Iran, and Saudi Arabiaarrived to participate in the event, which was the first high-profilemultilateral one of this level to take place there. The author suggestedback in Spring 2017 during a speech at Pakistan’s National DefenceUniversity (NDU) that the country prioritise hosting large-scale events inthis growing connectivity nexus in order to promote CPEC, proposing at thetime that a brand-new function one day be unveiled provisionally called the“Gwadar Gathering” for bringing together a wide array of academic,political, military, business, and civil society figures.

The two-day APA meeting can therefore be seen as an organisational andlogistical precursor for preparing Gwadar to host even larger functions inthe future such as the unique one that the author suggested. It’s alsorelevant in and of itself not only for the work that the organisationcarried out during this time, but because of the soft power goals thatPakistan advanced as well. CPEC recently secured significant Saudi backingduring Prime Minister Khan’s visit to the Kingdom in mid-September whichwas seen as proof of this project being the “Zipper of Eurasia” in at leastconnecting West Asia with East Asia via Pakistani territory, let alone ofits larger potential in ultimately becoming the “Convergence ofCivilizations” in Afro-Eurasia. These geo-cultural integrationpossibilities could powerfully debunk Huntington’s thesis about theimminence of a so-called “clash of civilisations” if successfullyactualised and thus stabilise the emerging Multipolar World Order.

Accordingly, it only makes sense that Acting President Sadiq Sanjraniemphasised the angle of CPEC’s Asian integration vision and also took thetime to talk about Pakistan’s many sacrifices in the War on Terror. Thislatter part of his remarks drew attention to the peacemaking achievementsthat were made in the Balochistan region over the past couple of years thatenabled Pakistan to guarantee the security of CPEC and therefore make APA’sGwadar meeting a reality. The intention behind doing all of this was tomake the visiting dignitaries feel like their countries have a stake inCPEC’s success, but it also had another motivation to it as well. Showingthe foreign parliamentarians the developmental progress that CPEC has madein Gwadar and the entire Balochistan region, as well as Pakistan’s futureplans for them, exposed the fake news narrative that the supposedly“hopeless plight” of the native Baloch has given rise to a “rebellion” asnothing more than a debunked infowar narrative spread by hostile forces.

The fact of the matter is that approximately 100 visiting parliamentarianssaw that CPEC is delivering tangible benefits to the people of Balochistanand that the Pakistani state has successfully defeated terrorism there,though the region nevertheless remains in the crosshairs of Hybrid Warprecisely because of its strategic significance vis-à-vis the “Zipper ofEurasia” concept and its larger “Convergence of Civilisations” one. Havingsaid that, there should be no doubt in anyone’s mind that the rare attacksthat still occur there every once in a while are due to foreign-backedterrorist infiltrators and not indigenous “rebels”, which former separatistleader Dr. Jumma Baloch proved to the world since switching sides, exposinghow India hijacked his people’s struggle, and launching the OverseasPakistani Baloch Unity organization for rehabilitating his remainingwayward compatriots. As such, it can be said that Gwadar’s hosting of thelatest APA meeting was a success because it informed 26 countries’representatives of CPEC’s grand strategic importance and the peaceful stateof affairs of Balochistan.

BY: Andrew Korbyko: The writer is a political analyst, journalist and aregular contributor to several online journals, as well as a member of theexpert council for the Institute of Strategic Studies and Predictions atthe People’s Friendship University of Russia.