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China's pearl in Pakistan's
waters
By Sudha Ramachandran
BANGALORE - When Chinese
Premier Wen Jiabao visits Pakistan this month to
inaugurate the Gwadar deepsea port, China will
take a giant leap forward in gaining a strategic
foothold in the Persian Gulf region. It will
advance what a recent Pentagon report describes as
Beijing's "string of pearls" strategy that aims
to
project Chinese power overseas and protect China's
energy security at home.
Gwadar is a fishing village on the
Arabian Sea coast in the Pakistani
province of Balochistan. Balochistan shares borders
with Afghanistan and Iran to the west - Gwadar is just 72
kilometers from the Iranian border. More important
is Gwadar's proximity to the Persian Gulf. It is
situated near the mouth of this strategic body of
water, and about 400km from the Strait of Hormuz, a major
conduit for global oil supplies.
Pakistan
identified Gwadar as a port site in 1964. However,
it was only in 2001 that significant steps toward
making the proposal a reality were taken, when
China agreed to participate in the construction
and development of the deepsea port. The arrival of
the United States in late 2001 in Afghanistan - at China's
doorstep - nudged Beijing to step up its
involvement in the Gwadar project. In March 2002,
Chinese vice premier Wu Bangguo laid the
foundation for Gwadar port.
China's
involvement in the Gwadar project is immense. The
total cost of the project is estimated at US$1.16
billion, of which China has contributed about $198
million for the first phase - almost four times
the amount Pakistan has forked out for this phase
- which includes construction of three
multi-purpose ship berths. China has invested
another $200 million toward building a highway
connecting Gwadar port with Pakistan's largest
city, Karachi, which is also a port on the Arabian
Sea.
The second phase, which
envisages nine more berths, an approach channel and
storage terminals, will also be financed by China.
In addition to its financial contribution, China
has sent about 450 engineers and provided
technical expertise for the project.
In recent years, bilateral trade has
steadily increased between China and Pakistan, with a
35% rise to $2.4 billion in 2004, half the
trade volume registered between China and India.
The balance of trade remains overwhelmingly in
China's favor, whose exports amounted to $1.8
billion compared with Pakistan's $575 million. Both Pakistan
and China have highlighted the immense economic
returns that development of the Gwadar port holds
out for the two countries, as well as others in
the region.
For Pakistan, the economic
returns from Gwadar port stem from its location
near the Strait of Hormuz, through which 40% of
the world's oil passes. Gwadar could emerge as a
key shipping point, bringing Pakistan much-needed
income, and when combined with the surrounding
areas could become a trade hub, once road and rail
links connect it to the rest of Pakistan,
Afghanistan and Central Asia.
A road from
Gwadar to Saindak, said to be the shortest route
between Central Asia and the sea, is under
construction. Gwadar would provide landlocked
Afghanistan and the Central Asian republics with
access to the sea. Goods and oil and gas reserves
from these countries could be shipped to global
markets through Gwadar port. Pakistan's business
community seems to be in favor of Gwadar port
being designated a free trade zone and an
export-processing zone.
The development
of Gwadar could bring economic gains to backward
Balochistan province as well. The infrastructural
development of the province could make it an
attractive investment destination. Meanwhile, land
prices around Gwadar are said to be shooting up.
China's gains
Zia Haider,
an analyst at the Washington-based Stimson
Center, writes that Gwadar provides China "a
transit terminal for crude-oil imports from Iran and
Africa to China's Xinjiang region". The network of
rail and road links connecting Pakistan with
Afghanistan and Central Asian republics that is
envisaged as part of the Gwadar project and to
which China will have access would provide Beijing
an opening into Central Asian markets and energy
sources, in the process stimulating the economic
development of China's backward Xinjiang region.
But it is the strategic significance of
Gwadar port that is perhaps more important for
Pakistan and China - and a number of other
countries as well. For Pakistan, Gwadar's distance
from India is important. The value of this
distance becomes evident if one considers how
vulnerable Karachi port, which handled 90% of
Pakistan's sea-borne trade in 2001, is to Indian
pressure.
During the
1971 India-Pakistan war, India's blockade of Karachi had
a serious impact on the Pakistani economy. Again
in 1999, during the Kargil conflict, India
threatened to blockade Karachi port. That Gwadar is
situated 725km to the west of Karachi, which makes it
725km further away from India than Karachi,
provides "Pakistan with crucial strategic depth
[vis-a-vis India] along its coastline", writes
Haider.
For China, Gwadar's
strategic value stems from its proximity to the Strait
of Hormuz. About 60% of China's energy supplies
come from the Middle East, and China has been
anxious that the US, which has a very high presence in
the region, could choke off these supplies to
China. "Having no blue-water navy to speak of, China
feels defenseless in the Persian Gulf against any
hostile action to choke off its energy supplies,"
points out Tarique Niazi, a specialist in
resource-based conflict, in the Jamestown
Foundation's China Brief.
A presence in
Gwadar provides China with a "listening post"
where it can "monitor US naval activity in the
Persian Gulf, Indian activity in the Arabian Sea
and future US-Indian maritime cooperation in the
Indian Ocean", writes Haider. A recent report
titled "Energy Futures in Asia" produced by
defense contractor Booz Allen Hamilton for the
Pentagon notes that China has already set up
electronic eavesdropping posts at Gwadar, which
are monitoring maritime traffic through the Strait
of Hormuz and the Arabian Sea.
Drawing
attention to China's "string of pearls" strategy,
the report points out that "China is building
strategic relationships along the sea lanes from
the Middle East to the South China Sea in ways
that suggest defensive and offensive positioning
to protect China's energy interests, but also to
serve broad security objectives". The port and
naval base in Gwadar is part of the "string of
pearls".
The other "pearls" in the string
include facilities in Bangladesh, Myanmar,
Thailand, Cambodia and the South China Sea that
Beijing has acquired access to by assiduously
building ties with governments in these countries.
The Pentagon report sees China's efforts to
defend its interests along oil shipping sea lanes
as "creating a climate of uncertainty" and threatening
"the safety of all ships on the high seas".
This perception overlooks the fact that China's
"string of pearls" strategy has been triggered
by its sense of insecurity. The United States'
overwhelming presence in the Gulf and the control
of its exercises over the Malacca Strait, through
which 80% of China's oil imports pass, has
contributed enormously to Beijing's fears that
Washington could choke off its oil supply, in the
event of hostilities over Taiwan.
China's
foothold in the Arabian Sea has set off alarm
bells in India, Iran and the US. For India,
China-Pakistan collaboration at Gwadar and China's
presence in the Arabian Sea heightens its feeling
of encirclement by China from all sides. Iran sees
the development of Gwadar port in its neighborhood
as likely to erode the significance of its ports -
especially Chabahar port that India has helped
construct - to Central Asia and Afghanistan.
However, Iran's good relations with Afghanistan
and the Central Asian republics would help it
maintain its advantage vis-a-vis Pakistan's Gwadar
port.
Ultimately, the extent to which
Pakistan and China are able to reap economic and
strategic gains from the Gwadar project would
depend on the challenges to it from within their
borders. The Gwadar project is bitterly opposed by
Baloch nationalists who see it as yet another
example of Pakistan's Punjabi-dominated ruling
elite siphoning away Balochi wealth and resources
without this backward region or its people
gaining.
For instance,
it is non-Balochis who are said to have gained from the
sharp rise in real estate prices around Gwadar.
This has, not surprisingly, triggered angry
and violent attacks on pipelines carrying oil from
Balochistan and on those working on the Gwadar project. Last
May, three Chinese engineers were killed and 11
others, including nine Chinese and two Pakistanis,
were injured in a bomb attack by the Balochistan
Liberation Army.
Pakistan has often blamed
"a foreign hand" (read India or Iran) for the
violence in Balochistan. But the threat to the
port project or the oil pipelines comes from
disaffected Balochis. Similarly, Uighur
separatists angry with Beijing's "Hanification" of
their land, could target Chinese workers at
Gwadar.
Unless Islamabad ensures that the
Baloch people have a sizeable share of the
prosperity that is expected to come from Gwadar
port, and Beijing ensures that the Uighurs gain
from the trade with Central Asia, both Pakistan
and China could find the scale of their economic
and strategic ambitions diminished.
Sudha Ramachandran is an
independent journalist/researcher based in
Bangalore.
(Copyright 2005 Asia Times
Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us
for information on sales, syndication and republishing.) |
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