In 2015, China and Pakistan signed the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) agreement connecting both countries with about 58 projects worth about US$62 billion (S$83 billion): eight projects to develop Pakistan's Gwadar port, city and airport in Baluchistan, 21 coal, hydro and solar power plants, power transmission lines, highways, railways as well as a fibre optic cable project.
China saw an economically prosperous and stable Pakistan as politically advantageous and wanted to create a geostrategic connectivity corridor from its resource-rich Muslim Xinjiang province to Pakistan's Gwadar city and port.
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