China is poised to take over operational control of a strategic deep-water Pakistani seaport that could serve as a vital economic hub for Beijing and perhaps a key military outpost, officials said.
The construction of the port, in the former fishing village of Gwadar in troubled Baluchistan Province, was largely funded by China at a cost of about US$200 million. It has been a commercial failure since it opened in 2007, because Pakistan never completed the road network to link the port to the rest of the country.
Chinese control of the port would give it a foothold in one of the world’s most strategic areas and could unsettle officials in Washington, who have been concerned about Beijing’s expanding regional influence.
The port occupies a strategic location between South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. It lies near the Strait of Hormuz, gateway for about 20 percent of the world’s oil.
China’s interest is driven by concerns about energy security as it seeks to fuel its booming economy. It wants a place to anchor pipelines to secure oil and gas supplies from the Gulf. Beijing also believes that helping develop Pakistan will boost economic activity in its far western province of Xinjiang and dampen a simmering, low-intensity rebellion there.
Some experts view Gwadar as the westernmost link in the “string of pearls,” a line of ports from China to the Gulf that could facilitate expansion of the Chinese navy in the Indian Ocean.
That has sparked concern in both the US and India.
Pakistan’s Cabinet agreed on Wednesday to a proposal for a company owned by the Chinese government, China Overseas Port Holdings Limited, to purchase control of the port from Singapore’s PSA International Pte Ltd (PSA), which won a bid in 2007 to operate the port for 40 years.
Pakistan views China as one of its most important allies and a counterweight to the US, which has given Islamabad billions of US dollars in aid but is often viewed as a fickle taskmaster.
China is expected to pay US$35 million for control of the port to PSA and two other groups that own an interest, said Aqeel Karim Dhedhi, one of the other shareholders.
A senior Pakistani official said that Beijing has agreed to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to finish a 900km road that would link the port with Pakistan’s north-south Indus Highway, facilitating overland transport from Gwadar to China.
It will still be a tough drive, passing along the Karakorum Highway that winds through the rugged mountains of northern Pakistan and then into China’s Xinjiang Province via a border crossing point at an elevation of 4,693m. The path is often blocked by snow in winter.
Even so, the route will cut the overland distance from China’s western provinces to the sea in half, from about 4,000km to China’s east coast, to just 2,000km south to Gwadar.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion