#历史开讲 #
The year 2023 of "bad schooling"
2022 has just passed, and the grim situation facing Pakistan has begun to be highlighted one by one.
At the end of January, much of Pakistan lost power supply due to a power network failure.
The blackout directly affected the lives of more than 200 million people. The cause of the incident was an abnormal increase in voltage at a power station in Sindh Province, which affected circuits throughout the country.
At the same time as the power outage, Pakistan's security problems have not stopped. Also at the end of January, a mosque in Peshawar was attacked, and the death toll has now exceeded 100.
While Pakistan's domestic situation is in chaos, its neighbor Afghanistan is not idle. Shortly after the Peshawar attack, border clashes broke out between the two countries.
The successive "black swan" events have frequently begun, and Pakistan's leaders are anxious about this. Some even boldly predict that 2023 may be the most collapsed year for Pakistan.
Poor domestic economic status
Combined with the recent news, there are two thorny issues that are plaguing the railway.
First, domestic security problems are frequent, and the life safety of residents has been seriously affected.
Second, the country's economic growth is weak, and the unemployment rate has remained high for a long time.
Pakistan's per capita GDP in 2022 is about $1,700, which is one of the lowest economies in the world. Its total GDP is only about $350 billion.
You know, India's total GDP in 2022 is $350 million, nearly 10 times more than Pakistan. What is even more exaggerated is that Pakistan's economic situation is even worse than that of Bangladesh, which is also an economically weak country.
Sitting on a territory of nearly 800,000 square kilometers, Ba Railway has a population of about 234 million. In terms of population density, although it is not as good as the eastern provinces of the mainland, it is also a densely populated country.
Like India and Bangladesh, Pakistan has a large population but a poor economy, with more than 20% of the population living in poverty and half of the population not even completing compulsory education.
In the context of global consumption-led economic growth, nearly 40% of Pakistan's citizens have little savings, and it is impossible to talk about developing the economy.
According to the assessment reports of some international economic organizations, Pakistan's ideal economic growth rate must be higher than 7% to meet the demand for economic growth due to population growth.
Excluding inflation, Pakistan's economic growth rate over the past two years has been 6% and 6.2% respectively.
In the world's mainstream countries, this economic growth rate is very dazzling. But such a rate of growth is disappointing in Pakistan. What's more, its economy is still negative in 2020.
We know that economic growth should be commensurate with population growth. But Pakistan's economic development lags behind its population growth rate.
As early as a few years ago, the economic problems of Pakistan Railway made the local people dissatisfied. In 2022, 30% of local young people will not find jobs after graduation.
The agriculture-based industrial structure has brought down the local economy when disasters strike
In Pakistan's economic development history, agriculture has always played the role of industrial pillar. About 60 per cent of Pakistan's population today settles in rural areas and makes a living from agriculture.
In the 70s, Pakistan's economic situation was slightly better than that of India and Bangladesh. The economies of these countries also started with agriculture.
Later, Bangladesh and India actively carried out economic reforms, brought in external enterprises, exploited the advantages of the local population to develop industries, and formed export-oriented, labor-intensive industrial clusters.
In contrast, the economic development model of Pakistan Railway has not undergone major changes in decades. Its industry and services are closely related to agriculture.
As a large agricultural country, Pakistan's cotton textile industry is relatively developed, accounting for 36% of industrial output value. Sixty percent of its export trade is cotton textile products.
Pakistan's service sector is not high, and most workers make a living by wholesale and selling agricultural products. Therefore, the rise and fall of the country's service sector depends on the face of agriculture.
Pakistan's economic structure is rare. Objectively speaking, the township agricultural economy is the main economic pillar of the railway.
As mentioned above, the large-scale power outage of Pakistan Railway is actually closely related to its industrial structure. Pakistan's heavy industry is very weak, and most of the power network has been in operation for nearly 60 years – which is also the cause of frequent power failures in Pakistan.
The massive power outage at the beginning of the year left Pakistani residents complaining. Because this power outage not only seriously affected the lives of residents, but also hit the textile industry in Pakistan.
Due to the huge power failure, the local textile industry suffered a loss of nearly 70 million US dollars.
But such losses are not unrelated to the economic structure of Pakistan Railway. Its economic structure is highly dependent on the primary industry, resulting in the country's lack of resistance to natural and man-made disasters such as agriculture.
For a long time, the economic development of Pakistan Railway depends on the face of God. Once the climate in certain years is not compatible with the growing conditions of agricultural products, other industries of Pakistan Railway will suffer with it.
Debt is high and the pressure on the Pakistani government is multiplied
At the beginning of 2023, Pakistan's economy has reached a point where it is not optimistic.
Pakistan's defense minister said in an interview that due to the low economic growth rate, the country's economic crisis has continued to appear, and the government is on the verge of bankruptcy.
At present, Pakistan's foreign exchange reserves are only $2.9 billion. By comparison, it had more than $6 billion in debt to repay in February.
If Pakistan's economy continues to deteriorate, its foreign exchange reserves will soon be depleted and it will default on its debt as never before.
Without the help of other countries to resolve its debt problems, Pakistan would be bankrupt and even in social chaos.
Congenitally inferior natural environment
As a major resource country, Pakistan's proven coal resources have reached 180 billion tons. Natural gas reserves are close to 500 billion cubic meters. Moreover, Pakistan has a large number of young people, and its development potential should be good compared to developed countries that lack a young workforce.
But as it stands, Pakistan's GDP per capita is only the eighth lowest in Asia.
In contrast, India, the old rival of Pakistan Railway, is at the international advanced level in its aerospace industry, software development, and military equipment manufacturing. Pakistan, on the other hand, can only hold back when it comes to industrial development.
Despite its abundant reserves of natural resources, Pakistan faces constant development challenges.
Most of Pakistan is a tropical desert with extremely rare precipitation, which has led to severe water shortages.
According to relevant statistics, Pakistan's per capita water resources are only 4% of the world average. In such a water-scarce environment, agricultural development will be greatly restricted, let alone the start of industry.
Every year when water is scarce, Pakistan will experience varying degrees of agricultural production reduction. Even on some extremely dry days, drinking water for locals can be a problem.
In addition, Pakistan's climate is also very difficult - excessive rainfall during the rainy season and frequent flooding; During the dry season, crops cannot grow, and floods and droughts often cycle together.
Pakistan's land is located at the junction of plates, the natural environment is extremely unstable, and various disasters are very frequent.
In 2010, a once-in-a-century flood hit Pakistan, causing economic losses of more than 40 billion yuan. In 2020, Pakistan was plagued by locust plagues again, and the coronavirus pandemic hit agriculture with severe losses.
In the past 2020, Pakistan was hit by large-scale floods, affecting more than 30 million people and killing more than 1,000.
Pakistan's historical legacy
In addition to successive natural disasters, frequent political turbulence is also an important factor in Pakistan's development difficulties.
Strictly speaking, the birth of Pakistan was not all smooth sailing. In 1947, the British retreated from the Indian mainland, resulting in the partition of India and Pakistan.
After independence, Pakistan also often spent time in storms. Since the founding of the country, Pakistan has had three mutinies and experienced a total of 25 years of warlord rule.
There are many ethnic groups in Pakistan, and although everyone believes in Islam, the gap between different ethnic groups has led to the birth of many political factions in Pakistan. That is, Pakistan never formed a decent central government.
The proliferation of different nationalities makes it easy for people's dissatisfaction with real life to be intensified, and some nationalities take the opportunity to engage in separatist activities. Not only that, extremist organizations in Pakistan are also rampant, often uniting with foreign forces to carry out riot activities.
Although Pakistan has good diplomatic relations with Western countries, Islamic countries and China, it is unable to get along with its neighbors and can be described as enemies on three sides.
The departure of the British led to the question of what is now Kashmir. Pakistan and India exchanged fire three times in order to fight for the region.
On December 17, 1971, the conflict between India and Pakistan officially ended. However, the friction between the two sides on the border issue continues, and there is no sign of ending until today.
Affected by the situation in Afghanistan in recent years, the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan has become a base for many terrorists, posing a serious threat to Pakistan's national security.
Relations between Pakistan and Iran are no better. Although both are Islamic countries, differences in sects and doctrines have led to frequent contradictions between the two countries. Like India, the territorial dispute between Pakistan and Iran has long been unresolved – all related to the withdrawal of British colonialists.
Considering that the border areas are facing pressure in three directions, Pakistan has to give priority to military development, and the people's livelihood in the country has not improved for a long time.
With long-term assistance from China, why is it so difficult to get out of poverty?
1951 year. New China, which had just been founded, formally established diplomatic relations with Pakistan at that time. For more than 70 years, the two countries have maintained good international relations.
As a community of interests and a land neighbor of China, much of Pakistan's infrastructure has been built with China's strong assistance.
In the previous Indo-Pakistani war, Pakistan fell into a passive disadvantage due to the lack of armored vehicles. In an emergency, the Pakistani authorities applied to China for assistance.
After receiving the news, taking into account the time and cost required for tank manufacturing, the Chinese side directly transported some tanks in service to Pakistan, which solved the military dilemma for them.
The close international relations between China and Pakistan are obvious to the people of the whole world. In the mouths of Chinese netizens, Pakistan is even more vividly referred to as "Pakistan Railway".
For the people's livelihood of Pakistan Railway, China has also attached great importance to it after the establishment of diplomatic relations.
Many of Pakistan's existing power systems, roads, railways, bridges, water conservancy systems, etc. have been completed with China's international assistance.
For example, the 1,032-kilometer-long China-Pakistan Highway. When building roads, in addition to long mileage, it also faces the test of complex terrain. During the construction of the highway, the number of people killed in the line of duty exceeded 700. The sheer size of this project is difficult to match even on the Qinghai-Tibet 318 Highway.
Looking at the current economic situation of Pakistan Railway, a question immediately appeared in the minds of Chinese netizens: Why is China's economic development status still worrying after many years of aiding Pakistan?
In fact, this has a lot to do with Pakistan itself. It is important to remind you that China's foreign aid is not without ceilings, after all, China is still among the developing countries.
In the actual assistance process, we have paid more attention to infrastructure cooperation, aimed at creating opportunities for Pakistan's economic development, rather than direct economic assistance alone.
As mentioned earlier, Pakistan's agriculture is the backbone of the country's economy. However, due to the increase in population, the agricultural products produced in the country can no longer meet the demand. As a result, Pakistan Railway imports grain from foreign countries every year.
In fact, everyone understands the economic benefits of agriculture. Some people will ask: If the mainland of Pakistan introduces foreign capital, will the situation be better?
To tell you the truth, it's not that they don't want to bring in external companies, it's that the local conditions simply don't allow it.
Relations between Pakistan and India have been strained for a long time. Even if many people's understanding of India remains at the level of dirt, India has made great efforts in military affairs in recent years
In recent years, India has continuously carried out military reform and introduced advanced military equipment from the West, including the latest warships, armored vehicles, tanks, military aircraft, etc. Can Pakistan sit still in the face of an increasingly powerful India?
In order to cultivate its strength against India, Pakistan's annual military spending is rising. You know, the unit price of the fourth-generation fighter is about 50 million US dollars, and a new light tank is worth tens of millions of dollars. This is the prevailing price internationally.
Of course, some people believe that China-Pakistan relations are so unbreakable, why not Pakistan import a large amount of Chinese armaments? Compared to Western countries, China's prices are definitely cheaper.
However, even if the relationship between Pakistan and the mainland is good, and China's military equipment exports to it are close to the cost price, for Pakistan, a large agricultural country, military investment is still a gold-swallowing beast. This is undoubtedly detrimental to the economic development of the country.
Therefore, if Pakistan wants to develop the economy by bringing in external enterprises, Pakistan's economic strength is not enough. After all, it is difficult to raise an army every year, let alone introduce policies to attract foreign investment.
Second, the security situation of Pakistan Railway is not a small problem. If you look at the world map, Pakistan borders Afghanistan to the north and India, a military power, to the south. Moreover, the international relations between the three are already enough. In the midst of such tensions, which foreign company would dare to invest in Afghanistan?
Moreover, terrorist forces in Pakistan are increasingly rampant. Under India's covert operation, the separatist forces within Pakistan are also ready to move. In recent years, China's staff assigned to aid Pakistan have been repeatedly attacked by terrorism, and the degree of concern of international capital about Pakistan's security situation has also intensified.
Epilogue and personal opinion
In any case, real crises such as political division, economic difficulties, and food shortages will have to be faced by Pakistan in the future.
For a long time, Pakistan's development model has been widely criticized, and it is difficult to effectively improve the local people's livelihood. The series of crises caused by this have also begun to become public this year.
Although countries and international organizations around the world actively provide loans to Pakistan, it may be even more difficult to repay the principal and interest due to the economic crisis.
Even if countries around the world provide assistance to Pakistan to improve its development plight, Pakistan's own problems are difficult to solve, and no amount of aid will cure the symptoms.
In short, Pakistan's process of overcoming difficulties is still a long way off.