The Wedge Strategy of Debt-Trap Diplomacy: Navigating Great Power Competition in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor

Abstract

This research article examines the "Debt-Trap Diplomacy" (DTD) and its impact the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) it asks whether DTD functions primarily as an objective economic diagnosis or as a discursive instrument deployed within broader geopolitical competition. Employing a sequential exploratory mixed-methods design grounded in Critical Social Science, the study triangulates the Critical Discourse Analysis of Western policy texts with thematic data from elite practitioner interviews. Findings reveal that the DTD narrative is strategically deployed as a "wedge strategy" by external actors to constrain Pakistan's foreign policy and destabilize its strategic alliance with Beijing. Furthermore, a comparative fiscal analysis demonstrates that Pakistan's debt distress stems from indigenous structural pathologies and Western multilateral conditionalities, not Chinese project finance. The study concludes that this discursive trap severely erodes Pakistan’s functional sovereignty and recommends evidence-based strategic communication to reclaim economic and diplomatic autonomy in a multipolar world.