On this episode of China Uncensored,
the Chinese Communist Party loves
Pakistan’sprime beachfront property.
Welcome back to China Uncensored.
I’m Chris Chappell.
This is Gwadar.
It used to be a sleepy fishing town
on the coast of Pakistan.
But over the past several years,
with Chinese investment
of hundreds of millions of dollars… …this once a sleepy fishing town
has morphed into a deep-sea port …
…and a giant gateway for trade.
Now controlled by the Chinese regime.
Ah, progress.
The state-owned China Overseas Ports Holding Company Limited,
or COPHC, “has proudly taken over”
and will be calling the shots
for the next 40 years.
The port, Gwadar,
is near the mouth of the Persian Gulf.
That area—the Strait of Hormuz—
is a key shipping route.
About 20% of the world’s oil
flows through there,
plus a huge quantity of regular cargo.
Gwadar is especially important to China
because it connects the western part of China
to the Arabian Sea through Pakistan.
And that gives China easier access to
the Middle East, Africa and Europe.
The port is a lynchpin linking land and sea
in Xi Jinping’s One Belt One Road Initiative.
One Belt One Road is a network
of trade corridors that connect
China with the rest of the world
and make it easier for China
to acquire raw materials,
export Chinese goods,
and project its influence across the globe.
The trillion dollar One Belt One Road
is marketed as the “new silk road,”
a purely economic initiative
meant to evoke a romantic age
where silk flowed west
along ancient trade routes.
Only now, instead of silk,
it’s cheap plastic toys.
The Chinese Communist Party insists
that One Belt One Road is about
peace and prosperity.
But not everybody is so sure.
The Center for Strategic and International Studies,
a think tank, points to
the “string of pearls” theory.
The “string of pearls” is the idea that
China plans to develop a string of military bases
along the Indian Ocean to support
extended naval missions
and expand its military reach.
The report says that even if China
doesn’t establish naval outposts directly,
by investing in trade-related infrastructure
around the world,
China is creating places
“with Chinese characteristics.”
These are locations that can serve
as support for the Chinese Navy,
but technically let China say
they’re not expanding military bases.
“What, us expand our military?
No!
We want ‘prosperity for all—
not global hegemony.’”
But, places with Chinese characteristics
would still “affect the security calculus
of India and the US in the region,
as well as set a precedent,
potentially for application in Europe.”
In other words,
these places could give
the Chinese Communist Party
similar advantages to having military bases,
but the Party gets to deny
that they’re military bases.
So they can call the military “string of pearls”
part of their trade corridor.
But in Pakistan, China is bold enough
to call a spade a spade.
At least that’s what two separate reports claim—
from the South China Morning Post
and the Washington Times.
China is building a joint naval
and air base for Chinese forces,
just a short distance up the coast from—
you guessed it—
the port of Gwadar that they now control.
Sources “familiar with the deal” say
a group of Chinese People’s Liberation Army officers
met with Pakistani military officials in December
and hammered out a deal that would see
the port of Jiwani,
about 15 miles away from Gwadar,
become a Chinese military base.
It would have a small airfield be upgraded
to “handle large Chinese military aircraft.”
And it might also require the forced relocation
of “scores of residents living in the area.”
Don’t worry, the Chinese regime
is very skilled at forced relocations.
They’re scheduled to break ground
for the base in Jiwani this July.
Jiwani will be China’s second offshore military base.
Its first offshore military base
was launched last year—
in the small,
hilarious African nation of Djibouti.
The former Foreign Secretary of India,
Kanwal Sibal, is not surprised.
He predicted it back in 2014,
when China was getting
extra chummy with Pakistan
over the mega-port in Gwadar.
He wrote that “China will, inevitably,
follow up with its commercial footholds
in the Indian Ocean with naval ones.”
It’s not always great to be right.
Ok, it usually is.
Retired US Army Reserve Colonel Lawrence Sellin
writes that China’s Jiwani base
a sign of “Chinese militarisation
of Pakistan, in particular,
and in the Indian Ocean.”
He said the combination of Chinese military bases
in Djibouti and Pakistan would “not only [be]
capable of dominating vital sea lanes
in the Arabian Sea,
but boxing-in U.S bases
in the Persian Gulf”
and outflanking the US navy.
And the retired Colonel warns that
more Chinese military expansion
could be on the way,
using what he calls
“debt-trap” tactics.
That’s when the Chinese regime
lends you tons of money.
And then when you can’t pay it off,
they offer to forgive the debt in exchange
for strategic infrastructure
or natural resources.
It’s like borrowing money
you can’t pay back
from your friendly neighborhood loan shark.
Except instead of breaking your legs,
he makes you lease him your legs
for 99 years.
Like what the Chinese Communist Party
did in Sri Lanka.
“There is concern that the Chinese
will transform its 99-year lease
of the Sri Lankan port of Hambantota
into another naval base,
the exact ‘debt-trap’ method
the Chinese used in Djibouti.”
So then the Party would have a naval base
right off the southeast coast of India.
To match its new Pakistani military base,
which is just to the west of India.
India is not happy.
Especially because they’ve seen what happens
when China builds bases,
sorry, islands,
in the South China Sea.
So what do you think about China’s plans
to build a military base in Pakistan?
Leave your comments below.
Once again, I’m your host, Chris Chappell.
See you next time.
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