On a warm February afternoon in 2022, I did what women in Gwadar rarely do. I sat in an old bookshop with my father to interview Master Imam Buksh, one of the oldest persons alive in the town today.

The world long suspected it - Pakistan's own economist is now saying it aloud. The country's 'game-changer' corridor has turned into a ghost route. More than a decade after the China-Pakistan Economic ...