The players of the new great game are struggling to control the proposed transnational energy pipeline routes, and Gawadar is China key node in the game.
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China is set to take operational control of Gwadar, the deep-sea port built
with financial and technical assistance from
China on Pakistan’s south-west coast,
after the Port of Singapore Authority (PSA) has decided to pull out of a
40-year port management and development contract signed in 2007. Now
China will also operate the port, which is strategically located close
to the Pakistan-Iran border and the Strait of Hormuz in south-western
Balochistan province.
Ports and shipping minister, Babar Khan
Ghauri, has confirmed that the government has issued a no-objection
certificate to quit the contract held by the PSA, which is going to sell
its shares to a Chinese company. The Singaporean firm decided to quit
the Gwadar project after Pakistan's government failed to transfer land
needed to develop a free zone, as was promised under a 40-year
concession deal signed in February 2007 during former president Pervez
Musharraf's regime. Since its official opening in March 2007, the Gwadar
port has been unable to become fully operational because of the
unsettled issues between Islamabad and the PSA.
Gwadar is an important coastal town in
Balochistan. The port has the potential to serve as a secure outlet as
well as a storage and transshipment hub for the Middle East and Central
Asia oil and gas supplies through a well-defined corridor passing
through Pakistan. China has contributed about $198 million of the
initial investment for the port project.
Under the development plan, Gwadar port
will be connected with China's western province of
Xinjiang through rail and road links.
China's eastern seaboard ports are 3,500 kilometres away from the city
of Kashgar in western China, whereas the distance from Kashgar to Gwadar
is only 1,500 kilometres. The port facilities are thought to be ideal
for China's booming economy. Even if Chinese companies and exporters
handle their own cargo, it would make Gwadar port one of the busiest in
the region.
China is supposed to do as operator is to relaunch the Gwadar oil refinery project, which was halted in 2009, probably because of security concerns in the volatile province. The refinery will have a total capacity of 19 million tonnes of oil per year. The petroleum products produced in Gwadar refinery may be transported to Kashghar in western China by pipeline. The proposed refinery and the oil pipeline is actually a part of a planned Pakistan-China energy corridor.
Gwadar port, through the proposed energy
and trade corridors, gives western China access to the sea. Crude oil
imports from Iran, the Arab Gulf states and
Africa could be transported
overland to north-west China through the port.
China considers Gwadar very important for its oil trade, as the present choke
point is the Strait of Hormuz,
which is becoming congested. In particular, a strategic pipeline from
Gwadar to China's borders enables Beijing to import oil from Saudi
Arabia. In 2006, King Abdullah reportedly asked Islamabad to help Saudi
Arabia to extend oil exports to China.
China is the world's second largest importer of oil, with 80 per cent of
imports going through the unsafe
Strait of Malacca. A railroad and
oil pipeline linking Gwadar with Kashi in western China provides Beijing
with the shortest possible route to the oil-rich Middle East, avoiding
the Strait of Malacca and the dangerous maritime routes through the
South China Sea, the East China Sea and the Yellow
Sea. Chinese engineers have already completed a feasibility study for a
railroad and oil pipeline, which would enable Gwadar to handle most of
the oil tankers headed to China.
The operational control of the port will
also enable the dragon to swim in the Indian Ocean, which is
strategically important for China as it expands its influence across the
region. To ensure the security of shipments along existing routes, a
Chinese naval presence at Gwadar could also patrol the Indian Ocean sea
lanes. What upsets Washington and New Delhi is the Chinese naval
presence near the Strait of Hormuz and its strategy of building a
"string of pearls" presence on the Indian Ocean rim.
The US considers Chinese presence in
Gwadar a threat to its fleet in the Middle East and also to the
strategic oil trade to the Far East and Europe. The US military bases
on the Arabian Peninsula expect an interception threat to their
communications from Chinese bases in Gwadar.
The quest for energy security has made
India and China competitors in the global energy game.
China's involvement in Gwadar is
believed to be guided by its interest in turning the port into a transit
terminal for Iranian and African crude oil imports.
Beijing's growing stakes in the
port send ripples of anxiety in New Delhi, which interprets it as a move
to control strategically important energy sea lanes.
As a competitor of China, India is
engaged in developing Chabahar port in Iran that also provides access to
the countries of Central Asia and Afghanistan bypassing Pakistani
territory. With Chinese involvement in Gwadar and Indians in Chabahar,
the two ports are likely to emerge as strategic competitors in the
region.
The players of the new great game are
struggling to control the proposed transnational energy pipeline routes,
and Gwadar is China's key node in the game. It enables China to become a
regional policeman monitoring the supply routes for its energy shipments
from the Middle East. In fact, China is going to have a key card in its
hands as Gwadar port will play a pivotal role in all the major
trans-regional pipelines originating from the Middle East, Iran or
Central Asia.
The Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline was
originally planned to extend from Pakistan to India in 1993. The United
States has been opposing the project because of Tehran's nuclear
ambitions. After India's withdrawal in 2009, Beijing showed interest to
join the project and to build an Iran-Pakistan-China gas pipeline, which
could provide a secure overland gas supply.
___________________________________________________________By Syed Fazl-e-Haider
The Statesman
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