What is the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor?

On December 25, officials from China and Pakistan met in Urumqi, the capital of China’s far western Xinjiang region, for the second meeting of the Joint Working Group on International Cooperation and Coordination (JWG) under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). Attended by China’s Vice Foreign Minister Luo Zhaohui and Pakistan’s Foreign Secretary Sohail Mahmood, the meeting was aimed at taking stock of the CPEC as it turns five. Both sides hailed the progress of the plan despite the pandemic, declaring that both countries’ “close cooperation and mutual support amid COVID-19 has laid the foundation for economic recovery” and “injected new momentum into the construction of the CPEC”.