The US & others working with Pakistan

[Dayuhan]

I suspect that that road is not commercially viable. The maintenance costs will be very high. Just snow removal in the winter will be a huge task and I imagine that keeping gas stations open at 4700 metres elevation is not at all easy. The photos depict very steep almost vertical slopes bordering the road in places. Rock fall mitigation in those areas is a never ending task involving steel nets, blasting, rock removal and still the rocks fall unpredictably and close the road and even on occasion crush cars. That is how it is in Colorado with I-70. In fact when the Interstate highway system was built it was advised that I-70 not follow the route it does and be constructed as it is because the maintenance costs would be so high. I imagine the length of road requiring rock fall mitigation on that road is far longer than along I-70 in Colorado. A road that high might require special trucks too. The total transport expense must be something.

This is a military supply road. But given the terrain and the expense and the vulnerability of all the bridges I wonder if it is even viable for that purpose.

Red China will pick up the maintenance expenses on the Pakistan part of the road but if they ever lose interest does Pakistan have the resources to maintain this thing?

David, the text did mention the lake and landslide but it was at the very bottom of the article.

I have to wonder about it as well. The idea that Chinese goods will be trucked over the highway and exported through Karachi seems totally incompatible with reality. Most Chinese manufacturing is on the east coast and it's far cheaper and easier to simply load goods onto container ships and send them where you want them to go. There are good reasons why the old "silk road" routes fell into disuse, modern maritime transport is a lot cheaper, easier, more efficient. Just imagine the number of truckloads of goods required to fill one container ship, and the logistics of moving them from China's industrial east to Karachi...

I can see some goods destined purely for Pakistan using the route, but re-export through Karachi doesn't sound very practical.

Even as a military supply route there would be real limitations. Hypothetically, a prospective Chinese base at Gwadar or elsewhere could be supplied via this route without having to navigate waters that might be controlled by an enemy. That same enemy, though, would easily be able to close the KKH via sabotage or an air strike. Given the geography and isolation and the already demonstrated ability of a single landslide in the right place to force major rerouting and extended closure, it seems a very vulnerable route to be relying on in any strategic scenario.

Certainly the route is potentially useful to China, enough so to make it economically justifiable, but it's probably an exaggeration to call it a strategic game-changer.

PS: What people often fail to realize about these projects is that they form an effective way of moving money from the Chinese exchequer to Chinese companies, and often to favored individuals as well. The government pays Chinese construction companies to do the work. Subcontractors are involved. Lots of payments made, lots of convenient opportunities for some of that $400 million to wander away. If a project doesn't seem to make economic sense (not saying this one doesn't, but on a general level) and money still flies into it, there's a good chance that the project is largely intended to get money moving around so that some of it can be diverted. Corruption is very widespread in China and the amounts involved are large.