Gwadar port about China's interests, not Pakistan's: US think-tank
WASHINGTON: China has both commercial and military interests in the Pakistani port of Gwadar, the US think-tank community has told lawmakers, but Islamabad of late is realising that the Chinese investment there is more about its own economic and strategic interests.
The strategic Gwadar Port in Balochistan province is being built by China under a multi-billion economic corridor. According to media reports last month, Pakistan may allow China to build a military ( naval ) base in Jiwani area which is close the strategic Gwadar port being developed by Beijing.
At the same time, recent developments indicate the Pakistani leadership has increasingly been realising that Chinese investment is more about the latter's economic and strategic interest, members of the community told lawmakers during a Congressional hearing on Pakistan by the House Foreign Relations committee. To counter Indian influence, the Paki Deep State has virtually "sold" their country to the Chinese, without thinking about the strategic consequences of their action
"Going back a decade, a lot of Indian strategists were concerned about and publicly complaining about the possibility China would build a string of pearls of port facilities and logistics facilities along the Indian Ocean rim...
"But I think they may have just come a decade too early, because what we have seen in recent years is that China does have plans for military facilities and installations," he said in response to a question from Congresswoman Ann Wagner.
"There have been reports of rising tensions. Pakistan also refused Chinese assistance for Bhasha dam because the conditions were too stringent. Pakistan's minister for shipping told the senate that 90 per cent of the revenue from Gwadar will go to China," said Aquil Shah, a non-resident scholar in the South Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and Wick Cary, assistant professor in the Department of International and Area Studies at the University of Oklahoma. The Chinese are concerned about the safety of their nationals working in Pakistan . The expected backlash against the Chinis is likely to increase, rather than decrease !
A route through Gwadar offers China its shortest path to the oil-rich Middle East, Africa, and most of the Western hemisphere, besides promising to open up remote, landlocked Xinjiang. Indian objection to this project ( which the US agrees !) only centers around the fact that the road passes through disputed ( Kashmir ) territory