I have noticed that the Noonies keep attacking Gen (Retd.) Asim Bajwa a lot because of his CPEC role. They behave like as if they came up with the concept. I wonder if they would ever accept the reality of how it came about and what the original goals were. #CPEC

I will share text from @safridis's article on CPEC. He wrote this in 2017 back when the PML-N was in its last months of power.

"Pakistan headed by General Pervez Musharraf had been engaged in Free Trade Agreement (FTA) negotiations with China and in 2005 made a formal offer to create a “Trade and Energy Corridor” linking the Arabian Sea port of Gwadar with Kashi in China’s Western Region."

"The focus was to link Pakistan’s existing National Trade Corridor (NTC) development program with CAREC’s trade corridors to be finalised by 2008."

"From November 2006 onwards the governments of Pakistan and China considered a series of core and periphery projects to form the “Trade and Energy Corridor”.

In Nov 2008 NDRC’s 12th FYP task force proposed to bring Pak into the fold of CAREC. In 2010, Pakistan formally joined CAREC and its “National Trade Corridor Improvement Program” (NTCIP) was integrated into CAREC’s Corridors 5 & 6 with a view to complete integration by Aug 2018"

"NDRC launched a formal study (2008- 2012) assisted by Pakistan’s Planning Commission and considerable assistance from China’s Tsinghua University and Pakistan’s National University of Science and Technology (NUST)."

These were the projects which were bilateral Special Economic Zones, upgrading Pakistan’s NTC motorway program, utilising indigenous coal reserves to bridge Pakistan’s energy gap, creating a petrochemical complex at Gwadar, (cont.)

pipelines between Gwadar and Xinjiang to feed into the West-East Pipeline Project, Railway corridors between Pakistan, China, Central Asia and Europe.

"in early 2013, the initial Feasibility Study and Preliminary Design for the Pakistan-China “Trade and Energy Corridor” was approved by NDRC and shared with Pakistan for approval with the aim to complete the corridor by the mid-term review of the 14th FYP in August 2023"

"it is important to consider that while institutions in China and Pakistan had been working to formalise what is now CPEC since 2008."

"The National Development and Reform Commission of the People’s Republic of China (NDRC) was more focused on institutional developments and internal reforms to integrate both CPEC and CAREC into China’s wider plans for SREB"

"Pakistan’s priorities shift ed from institutional towards political goals. The PML-N govt launched a widely publicised marketing campaign to marry CPEC with the ‘vision’ of the Prime Minister who took office in June 2013"

"CPEC transformed from a strategic ‘program’, that took years to develop and considerable institutional cooperation, to a ‘project’ of the then PM’s vision. Phrases like ‘game-changer’ and ‘gift to the nation’ were banded about while almost all CAREC projects,

in various stages of completion, were re-branded as the brainchild of that vision. After 2013 CPEC became almost entirely discourse driven with little emphasis on the institutional work needed to build upon the preceding decade."

"In a marked shift from strategic institutional planning towards political short-termism based on election cycles, much of CPEC’s impetus was lost. CPEC’s transparency was a clear casualty."

"The re-orientation towards strategically unimportant but politically impactful schemes in the PM’s home province gave rise of severe criticism among other provinces and the Planning Commission’s minister dissuading voices of criticism from becoming voices of dissent."

"While NDRC consolidated industrial and economic capacity of its internal regions, Pakistan was busy re-issuing updated maps to end political speculation over CPEC’s route manipulation."

"Rather than transparently emphasise the level of credit undertaken to facilitate CPEC and create internal capital markets to fund and sustain provincial and district level projects, Pak had been busy obscuring CPEC’s costs through inventive redefinitions of FDI, Debt and FPI"

This is what he concluded his well-written article with

"To reap the maximum benefits available to it through CPEC and SREB, Pakistan will have to return CPEC to an institution driven long-term program emphasising strategic and sustainable economic and regional gains rather

than transform CPEC into a project of political discourse focused on short-term election cycles delivering incremental benefits at unsustainable costs."

You can read the article in full over here https://www.globalvillagespace.com/cpec-a-chinese-vision-since-2005/
There is also another piece he wrote for Qissa Khwani. http://qissa-khwani.blogspot.com/2016/01/qk-cpec-backgrounder.html

There is also this great thread written by him in 2015, which should give you a better idea https://twitter.com/safridis/status/594508066500046848