Aletho News

ΑΛΗΘΩΣ

China to Build Second Foreign Naval Base, This Time in Pakistan

Sputnik – 05.01.2018

China is planning to build its second foreign naval base in Pakistan following the ribbon cutting ceremony for its first overseas base in Djibouti last July.

Sources close to the People’s Liberation Army have confirmed to the South China Morning Post that a Chinese naval port is being built at a strategic location on Pakistan’s southern coast.

“China needs to set up another base in Gwadar for its warships because Gwadar is now a civilian port,” Zhou Chenming, a Chinese military analyst, told the South China Morning Post on Friday. “Gwadar port can’t provide specific services for warships,” Zhou said; hence the need for a new base.

Gwadar is less than 50 miles east of the Pakistan-Iran border and sits in Balochistan Province, where fiercely independent Baloch nationalists have waged guerrilla wars against both the Pakistani and Iranian governments. “Public order there is a mess,” Zhou said.

“China and Pakistan have found common ground in terms of maritime interest in the region,” Pakistani analyst Sheikh Fahad says. “Gwadar port can be used for joint naval patrols in the Indian Ocean, further increasing the naval outreach of China and Pakistan in the region. Gwadar port will increase the countries’ naval movements and further expand defense cooperation, especially in the naval field,” Fahad noted.

In mid-December, Lawrence Sellin, a retired US Army Reserve colonel, reported for the Daily Caller that high-ranking Chinese and Pakistani officials had met in Beijing to discuss future projects.

Last June, a Pakistani diplomat said China’s help was needed as an “equalizer,” pointing to the naval base as all-but-inevitable. “Previously it was the US and Saudi Arabia… Now it’s China,” the diplomat told NBC. A Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman later dismissed the report as “pure guesswork,” but now it seems the port will, in fact, be built.

Experts have noted that India is keeping a close eye on the development of China-Pakistan relations. “China finds it very useful to use Pakistan against India and ignore India’s concerns, particularly on terrorism issues. That has created a lot of stress in the relationship between Beijing and Delhi,” Rajeev Ranan Chaturvedy, a researcher at the National University of Singapore, told SCMP.

But “Indian naval capabilities and experience in the Indian Ocean region are fairly good — much better than Pakistan and China,” Chaturvedy said.

January 5, 2018 - Posted by | Militarism | ,

8 Comments »

  1. China is doing what the British Empire did in the 1800’s and the American Empire did in the 1900’s……..What goes around comes around…….

    Like

    Comment by Brian Harry, Australia | January 5, 2018 | Reply

    • Wrong. China is not imperialistic.

      Like

      Comment by I Speak | January 11, 2018 | Reply

      • Here is a statement about imperialism from China’s constitution: –

        “China consistently opposes imperialism, hegemonism and colonialism, works to strengthen unity with the people of other countries, supports the oppressed nations and the developing countries in their just struggle to win and preserve national independence and develop their national economies, and strives to safeguard world peace and promote the cause of human progress.”

        http://english.gov.cn/archive/laws_regulations/2014/08/23/content_281474982987458.htm

        Like

        Comment by I Speak | January 11, 2018 | Reply

        • Elegant! Thank you…reads like something the United Nations and — ahem — certain scofflaw hypocrites on the world stage might well adopt as guiding principles and then work to make them work.

          Like

          Comment by roberthstiver | January 11, 2018 | Reply

          • There’s no BS and lies with the Chinese. I think they have always tried to strictly adhere to their constitution. See the link below to an article about Zhou Enlai at the Bandung Conference in Indonesia in 1955. You can search the internet for various copies of his landmark speech.

            http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2015xivisitpse/2015-04/23/content_20515150.htm

            Like

            Comment by I Speak | January 13, 2018 | Reply

            • Thanks for reminding me of Chou Enlai (as his name was spelled back then), the statesman-diplomat in my history who deserves the term more than any other, worldwide. I admired him in the early ’60s and never lost that respect. An anecdote: a Bangladeshi-Pakistani Muslim friend, elegant and intelligent, was the daughter of one of Pakistan’s early PMs. She accompanied her father to Beijiing (Peiping then) and sat on Chou’s knee (perhaps age 7, perhaps that same 1955)!

              Like

              Comment by roberthstiver | January 13, 2018 | Reply

              • Chou Enlai, in the 1960’s, was once asked(by an American Diplomat) what he thought of the outcome of the French Revolution(in the 1780/90’s)………He thought for a while and replied, “It’s too early to tell”……………I think the Chinese always look at the ‘Long view’, whereas we in the West look at today, this week, this year.

                Like

                Comment by Brian Harry, Australia | January 13, 2018 | Reply

  2. Tweeter Trump’s and Hellish Haley’s recent bombast about Pakistan (among others) will only make China more willing and ready to extend its influence and global reach. Go China!

    Like

    Comment by roberthstiver | January 5, 2018 | Reply


Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

« Previous | Next »