Global News Journal

from Afghan Journal:

In Pakistan’s Gwadar port, Chinese whispers grow

First, China helped develop Pakistan's Gwadar port from scratch on the Baluchistan coast to take the pressure off the country's main port of Karachi, a few hundred miles to the east. Now Pakistan's defence minister has said that it would like its long-time ally to build a naval base at Gwadar, which sits on the doorstep of Gulf shipping lanes, less than 200 kms from the mouth of the Straits of Hormuz.

China, which provided more than 80 percent of the port's $248 million development cost, has moved quickly to distance itself from Pakistani Defence Minister Ahmad Mukhtar's remarks about a naval base in Gwadar. The foreign ministry said China was not aware of any such proposal.

While China has stood by Pakistan in its hour of embarrassment following the discovery of Osama bin Laden living in relative comfort in a garrison town, it might be squirming a bit at its ally's rather aggressive portrayal of their ties. The last thing it needs is to trigger off another round of alarm bells in the region about its big power objectives in the Indian Ocean, especially when it is not ready yet.

As Gideon Rachman wrote in the Financial Times this week (behind a paywall) the Chinese may be wincing at the appearance of the story about building a military base on the Pakistani coast in the Western press "because it will heighten the perception that China is overplaying its hand in the Pacific; an idea that has helped America to strengthen its military alliances across the region."

The spectre of Chinese ships including perhaps the aircraft carrier that is under development and submarines operating from Gwadar is sure to feed insecurities in the region, drive countries to ramp up military spending and deepen alliances.

India, already worried about an increasingly assertive China, will be sufficently alarmed to pour more funds into its navy besides deepen ties with the United States and of late Japan to balance its interests in the region. Already the Indian Defence Minister A. K. Antony has expressed concern about the growing defence ties between China and Pakistan.

from Pakistan: Now or Never?:

Is Baluchistan more strategically significant than Afghanistan?

Baluchistan, Pakistan's biggest province, rarely gets much attention from the international media, and what little it does is dwarfed by that showered on Afghanistan.  So it is with a certain amount of deliberate provocation that I ask the question posed in the headline: Is Baluchistan more strategically significant than Afghanistan?

Before everyone answers with a resounding "no", do pause to consider that China - renowned for its long-term planning - has invested heavily in Baluchistan, including building a deep water port at Gwadar on the Arabian Sea to give it access to Gulf oil supplies.  The region is rich in gas and minerals; attracting strong international interest in spite of a low-level insurgency by Baluch separatists. 

Bordering both Iran and Afghanistan, it lies along the sectarian and geopolitical faultlines that have fissured the region  since the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran and Soviet invasion of Afghanistan later that year. Its capital, Quetta, is often cited by Washington as a haven for the Afghan Taliban in the so-called Quetta shura, who operate independently of the more secular Baluch separatists. 

The province is also a source of friction with India, with Pakistan accusing it of using its presence in Afghanistan to fund the Baluch separatists, a charge Delhi denies.  Whatever the rights and wrongs of that argument, you can be fairly sure that anywhere lying on the intersection of Indian, Chinese and Pakistani interests will be strategically far more important than it might appear on the surface.

In that context, Forbes Magazine has a must-read take-out on China's drive to develop its presence in Baluchistan.

"In the Pakistani province of Balochistan, South Asia and central Asia bleed into the Middle East. Bordered by Afghanistan, Iran and the Persian Gulf, and well endowed with oil, gas, copper, gold and coal reserves, Balochistan is a rich prize that should have foreign investors battering at the gates," it says.  "But for a half-century it has been the exclusive playground of the Pakistani government and its state-owned Chinese partners. China would prefer it to stay that way."

For an entirely different view, Informed Comment has a guest contribution up by Berkeley academic Kiren Aziz Chaudhry. The arguments can be a bit distracting if you don't buy into conspiracy theories about the reasons for the U.S. presence in Afghanistan. But do persevere until you get to the point where the writer identifies Baluchistan as the main centre of interest for the many rivalries across Afghanistan and Pakistan:  "The fulcrum is the province of Balochistan. And within Balochistan, the pivot is the dusty, obscure coastal town of Gwadar. Gwadar has a spanking new deep water port. Wheels within wheels. Devices within devices."  It's worth reading through to the end, if nothing else but because this little known part of the world deserves as many different voices as possible.

from Pakistan: Now or Never?:

And now the Chinese navy in Somali waters…

Chinese naval ships may soon be steaming into the Gulf of  Aden to join a growing fleet of international warships fighting  Somali pirates.

A first probably for a navy that has long confined itself to its own waters, the move is certain to stir interest in the strategic community stretching from New Delhi to Washington.

Chinese state media on Wednesday quoted Vice Foreign Minister He Yafei as telling a UN Security Council meeting that Beijing  was considering sending naval ships on escort duty in the troubled waters.

On the face of it, as Beijing would argue, too much should not be read into its naval deployment off the Somali waters. Theirs will be one of a number of navies patrolling the region such as the United States, India, Greece, Saudi Arabia, France, Russia, Britain and Pakistan. Besides, Chinese vessels have been attacked by the pirates in recent months giving them as much justification for escort duty as anyone else operating there. The latest was on Tuesday when a Chinese fishing vessel was seized in the Gulf of Aden, along with three other ships including a yacht.

But China's military has been the subject of relentless scrutiny and any move it makes will be closely watched especially in regional capitals such as Tokyo and New Delhi. India, one of the biggest navies in the Indian Ocean boasting of an aircraft carrier group, has long looked over its shoulder watching for signs of a creeping Chinese naval presence in the Indian Ocean.

If nothing else, its role in helping Pakistan build its Gwadar port on the Baluchistan coast  is a matter of concern for Indian navy planners who worry that the deep water port is a key element of China's "String of Pearls" strategy of  extending its influence from the South China Sea through the Indian Ocean and on to the Arabian Gulf through  a chain of outposts.