The much-trumpeted high level official visit of prime minister Shehbaz Sharif to China is at its tail end. It is a high-level visit with high expectations as a significantly high number of federal ministers, dignitaries and advisors supported by an equal number of government functionaries and around 100 business leaders from Pakistan are reported to have accompanied the prime minister.

To narrate, in generic terms, such high level visits from Pakistan to China in the past, notably, after the roll out of CPEC (China Pakistan Economic Corridor), were bullish at both ends with Pakistan taking home few mega projects to be paid for in installments over the years. Pakistan is now struggling against the payback challenge and the mood at the current visit is bearish with no project for Pakistan to carry back home.

Pakistan’s addiction to loans with a mindset that ‘somebody else at some other time would pay for it’ has resulted in Pakistan becoming a perpetual loan seeker from the IMF. The country has derailed the CPEC that was once considered as a game changer for the economic and fiscal sustainability of the country. The name of the game is to turn loans into revenue generation and profitability, but this is something which gets lost in the muddled governance of the country.

The current visit of the prime minister is devoted to the path of soft targets; notably, business-to-business meetings, showcase of China’s spectacular rise as a world leader in technological excellence and trust-building between the government of Pakistan and China, which suffered setbacks on security concerns for Chinese citizens in Pakistan and an enabling business environment in Pakistan under the background of a setback to China-sponsored projects in Pakistan. The soft targets, under the prevailing economic and fiscal challenges, may work better for........

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