I just got back from the Essay exam. On the whole, it was a fairly easy with paper 3-4 current affairs based topics. I opted for

'CPEC and it's socio-economic implications for the region and the world'

The topic is a little misleading and devious. Right off the bat, a few things jump out. Firstly, the focus is on the regional and global implications of CPEC and not on its domestic Pak/China impacts. Secondly, the focus is on socio-economic implications.

I could tell straight away that:

• It would be very difficult to write 2500+ words without mentioning either the local impacts or regional/global strategic impacts
• So they had to be included but in a way that relates them to the main topic at hand.

Hence, this is the outline I came up with:

Introduction
- Intro to CPEC
- Scope and aims of CPEC

Main Body
To properly address the regional and global implications of CPEC, we start by addressing its implication on Pakistan and China.

Implications on Pakistan
- List Socio-Economic benefits
- List some negative points such as debt burden etc.

Implications on China
- List advantages to China of trade routes etc
- List strategic advantages of maintaining presence in South Asia/Arabian sea

Then we move on to regional implications
Positive impacts:
- Enhanced connectivity in Central Asia will bring sea access to landlocked republics + access to Chinese market.
- Iran will get huge market for gas
- Energy market from the Middle East
- Afghanistan appreciates Chinese attempts to secure peace

Negative impact (here we must shift a little from socio-economic to strategic):
- India feels cornered
- Indian actions; arms race etc.
- Debt burden on countries

Global implications (since most of CPEC's benefits are regional, this makes me think the examiner wants us to mention the global strategic implications)
- Must be viewed in context of shift from unipolar to multipolar world
- US pivot to Asia
- US and India working to counter Chinese influence in South Asia
- Japan wary too
- India-Aus-Japan-US alliance to counter OBOR

My own opinion and conclusion:

- CPEC is ultimately an infrastructure and trade program, that doesn't inherently harm anyone
- Increasing transparency will go a long way to countering local opposition and pacify Indians
- Pakistan should assure the US of continued relationship independent of China
- By working together, the entire region can experience economic growth and poverty reduction which will ultimately reduce tensions with cohesive development.

[~2200 words total]

Respected members feedback is appreciated. Do you guys feel this is a good enough essay? One thing I should mention is that my outline was super detailed and 3.5 pages. I hope that doesn't cause any issues.

how much pages. i write 13.

Except for Pakistan part, which is irrelevant, it is a nice attempt.

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The pessimist complains about the wind,the optimist expects it to change,the realist adjusts the sails.

Including the outline? I wrote 13 pages too. My outline was 3.5 pages and the essay was 8.5 pages.

Yes, you are right strictly speaking the China part is not relevant either. I tried to tie it up with the regional balance by saying: "To understand regional implications we must first understand the implications for Pakistan/China itself". Hopefully, it will work out.

Thanks for the feedback, hope everyone gets a good result.

I think you have done justice with Essay. I would have attempted with the same approach but with few modifications: Positive implications for Pakistan should be discussed (in detail) under regional implication, OBOR cannot be completely shunned when CPEC implications are discussed at the global level. OBOR has six corridors and CPEC is one of them.

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Once more into the fray, into the last good fight I’ll ever know. Live and die on this day.

I think you have done justice with Essay. I would attempt with the same approach but with few modifications: Positive implications for Pakistan should be discussed (in detail) under regional implication, OBOR cannot be completely shunned when CPEC implications are discussed at the global level. OBOR has six corridors and CPEC is one of them.

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Once more into the fray, into the last good fight I’ll ever know. Live and die on this day.

Good effort best of luck

Sent from my HTC 10 evo using Tapatalk

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My success can only come from ALLAH
[Quran 11:88]

what marks did you get finally?

Were u able to get through?