With my own eyes: The Pakistani/Chinese Friendship Project

Welcome to the famous Karakoram Highway - which is once a gravel road of boulders (25km/h) or a silky smooth transformed driving experience (70km/h) on a well maintained concrete road with side pavements. Our bodies in the car experience the Pakistan-China friendship project first hand by being driven the thirteen hours from Islamabad to Skardu by car! We drive on the new Silk Road through the northern part of Kashmir, called Gilgit Baltistan , which is now administered by Pakistan and has 18 people per square kilometer. The province is part of a larger area that China, India and Pakistan are fighting over.?

Of course, we have Peter Frankopan's books on the New Silk Roads in our backpacks - as China's Road and Belt Initiative unfolds right before our eyes. Beyond Islamabad, large road signs announce the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project. The celebrated friendship, which is growing Pakistan's GDP by 8% annually, is worth about $62 billion to China today (around $40 billion has been invested by China). Friendships are vital - India, the common enemy, is very close. Later, we will reach the end point of our journey, the Gasherbrum glacier, which is guarded by three Pakistani military camps, because it is exactly in this remote mountain region that China, India and Pakistan meet, and the map shows the strategic area of conflict.???

It is late afternoon as our minibus spirals higher and higher on the single-lane highway. We pass gigantic, prison-like camp facilities with bunkhouses, walls, barbed wire and guard towers (we hear that Chinese prisoners often do the work). We see dozens of huge trucks and excavators, pass construction sites of overwhelming size for dams, hydroelectric plants, substations, infrastructure, more watchtowers. In between, a large Chinese-style house with pagoda roofs, the house of the commander-in-chief??

In this gigantic valley, the Indus river slams down with uncanny power, we come to the point where the waters and glaciers of the Hindu Kush, the Karakoram, the Himalaya meet. We just passed the viewpoint for Nanga Parbat! A whale in these rivers would look like a trout in our rivers, small. I look at everything with awe.?

What is the Pakistani-Chinese friendship all about? The coveted Gilgit-Batistan province has incredible amounts of water flowing from its glaciers. Thanks to hydroelectric power plants built by China, energy is generated.?Pakistan provides access from China directly to the Arabian Sea via the Karakoram Highway. But China could also control its friend's water supply because it built and operates its infrastructure. China is a good friend for Pakistan and who can afford to turn down these construction and financing offers (nobody here likes the Americans as allies. (Not even the little masseuse in Islamabad who thinks they are ugly :-)).?

Chinese-funded infrastructure for roads, for dams to funnel tons of clay-colored liquid into cities like Abbottabad (where Osama bin Laden was killed), Peshawar, Rawalpindi, Islamabad. A showcase of geopolitics this afternoon as it gets darker. Of course, we enjoy the live lessons on the highway!?

As we turn right, away from the highway, and approach our destination of Skardu, the road narrows once again, and we are quite awed by the mountains on the left, with large round holes at crazy heights. We are told that gold and gems can be found in the diagonal bands of white stone. Gold miners climb up there (God knows how) and camp out to try their luck. (Later we stop in a small "restaurant" where the owner, after tea, brings an old newspaper page in which gems are wrapped, his trophies, his wealth).?

Less than 20 minutes before Skardu, more excitement awaits us. Again and again stones have fallen on the road, the driver artfully dodges them. Then it happens live, a stone crashes down at great speed right in front of us. The driver instinctively stops, but can't avoid driving over part of the crushed rock. The car comes to a stop and there is an immediate smell of gasoline from the undercarriage. Out, out, I want to get out of the car, I'm afraid that it will start to burn (we get out, but it's diesel :-)).?

If we had been a second earlier, the stone would have smashed the windshield and hit us. Fortunately, our car is repaired in a nearby "workshop" on the side of the road. It doesn't seem to be a big deal here, when we reach our destination everything is done.

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