Caravan Trade to Neoliberal Spaces: Fifty years of Pakistan-China connectivity across the Karakoram Mountains

Abstract

AbstractLocated along Pakistan's central Asian margins, the high mountain region of Gilgit-Baltistan borders Afghanistan and India, and since 1969 has connected Pakistan to China. In this article, I argue that over the last 50 years, expanding forms of connectivity between Pakistan and China were localized in Gilgit-Baltistan through three processes: (1) from 1969, overland connectivity between Gilgit-Baltistan and western China has enabled Pakistan to imagine and project expansive ties—and geopolitical aspirations—that transcend the border areas where the cross-border trade was initially localized; (2) unfolding ties between the two countries were accompanied by new material exchanges: initially barter trade and regulated caravans, followed by private commerce in the mid-1980s and, finally, economic corridor development under the Belt and Road Initiative; and (3) Chinese investments in Pakistan were part of a new cycle of global accumulation. Concurrently, in the wake of transnational investments, local governance in Gilgit-Baltistan adopted neoliberal administrative measures: the prioritizing of investment capitalism, the privatization of public goods and services, and securitization.