China and the Global South’s Development Imperative: A Look at the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor

Abstract

This paper traces the global rise of China as well as its growing role vis-a-vis South–South development cooperation, particularly looking at the case of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. It argues that, though China has historically faced similar developmental challenges experienced by other global South countries, China’s current path of autocentric development challenges the capitalist-imperialist world-system by undermining traditional transfers of surplus value from the latter’s peripheries to its core. This paper further argues that greater South–South cooperation between China and other global South countries, like Pakistan, could free up political space for these countries to emerge from a state of structural dependence on the global North, and embark on trajectories of autocentric development of their own. This, however, is contingent on the state of class struggle in these global South countries, in order to ensure that the processes and outcomes of this development are ecologically sustainable and people-centered.