By Mariah CRWE Newswire Mideast Correspondent
According to some media reports published here in Islamabad the Government of Pakistan has finally decided to give control of the Gawadar port to time-tested friend China.
The control will be taken back from the Port of Singapore Authority and will be handed over to the Chinese. A consensus has been reached at the federal government level and the decision will be implemented once the administrative and legal technicalities are solved.
The Government of Pakistan has solid reasons to do so, as PSA has failed to bring even a single cargo ship to the port. The terms of the agreement make PSA the sole manager of the port for 40 years. PSA also promised to invest $52.5 million but actually didn’t bring even one fourth of it.
If this actually happens, then according to analysts the geopolitical situation of the region will change a great deal and in view of some, perhaps the entire world will be changed.
Gawadar port is located on the shores of the largest Pakistani province of Baluchistan. It is its unique geostrategic location that distinguishes it from the other ports in the region. It connects the oil-rich Middle East, the south Asia and the future energy hub of the world, Central Asia.
In the late 90′s the Pakistani government considering the geostrategic position of Gawadar decided to build a port there. Feasibility reports were prepared during that time.
It was finally in the spring of 2002 that the construction started. It was also decided to build a naval base on Gawadar port. The then Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and the Chinese communication minister Li Shenglin decide that China would provide financial and technical assistance in this regard.
This was the decision that has always been feared by the West and this was the possibility that led the ‘powers’ to play the ‘Great Game’.
It is believed that the USA has always feared that if China gets access to the warm waters through the Pakistani Gawadar port USA will lose its traditional dominance in the Strait of Hormuz. The strait is the traditional route of all oil tankers in the region. US Energy Information Administration had estimated an average of 15 oil tankers that carry approximately 16.5 to 17 million barrels of crude oil pass through the strait everyday. Gawadar port is located just 40 miles away from the Strait of Hormuz.
Through the Strait of Hormuz approximately 40 percent of the world’s oil supply passes.
The huge presence of US forces in the Arab states have always guarded this path and ensured that no one challenges this perpetual American hegemony. The oil embargo imposed by the Arabs during the 1973 ‘Yom Kippur’ war had taught the Americans enough lessons.
It is believed that USSR in 1979 actually wanted to access these warm waters through Afghanistan that cost its disintegration. USA became an open party in the war, and brought Mujahedeen from all over the world to Afghanistan. The American CIA is openly known for the military and financial assistance it provided to the Mujahedeen in their fight against the USSR.
What was the US interest in Afghanistan at that time? To save the innocent perhaps? But many other places in the world have probably demanded the same US attention which it refused to pay. Indeed it was the control of the Strait of Hormuz. ——
When China became industrializing the booming economy demanded more energy resources. The need for energy is growing with every passing day. China has just surpassed Japan as the second largest economy of the world and according to some estimates will surpass the USA as the largest economy of the world in probably 2020. A mere 10 years.
China has made heavy investments in the energy sector of Africa. It has signed agreements with Saudi Arabia, Iran and many other Arab oil rich states. And the Chinese are still exploring new energy resources.
Gawadar port is the place that can provide China easy access to the energy hub of the world. And in Pakistan, its traditional ally, the Chinese tankers could move safely and freely to China.
But perhaps some friends and enemies of Pakistan didn’t like the idea at all. It is believed that to contain any such Chinese plans in the future, the USA in the 1990′s decided to establish a strong presence in Afghanistan. The proponents of ‘conspiracy theories’ believe that in order to justify the invasion of Afghanistan a reason had to be created and that reason was done in the form of the 9/11 attacks.
Though USA maintained a strong presence in Afghanistan it couldn’t do anything tangible to stop China from perusing its plans of investing in Gawadar. The intelligence reports in Pakistan claim that in order to achieve that purpose USA along with its actual friends has decided to create an atmosphere of anarchy in the province of Baluchistan. CIA, Mossad, RAW, Khaad, and MI5 all are believed to be playing an ‘affective’ role in this regard.
It was not only these countries but Pakistan’s western Muslim neighbor Iran, is also reported to have been enthusiastically participating in such activities. India and Iran believe that the port poses a significant threat to their economic interests in the region.
The Iranians fear that Gawadar Port will give a tough competition to the Iranian Chabahar Port that is being built with the assistance of India. Iran and India had signed a pact of strategic cooperation in 2003 when Iranian President Syed Ahmed Khatami visited India.
Besides this the new Indian naval doctrine focuses on guarding the energy routes in the Arabian Sea. India fears that by maintaining a strong naval presence at Gawadar China will be monitoring all its maritime activities. China is already monitoring the Indian maritime activities in Orissa through a port built in Myanmar.
The insurgency in Baluchistan is reaching new heights and the law and order situation is historically worst than ever. Though the province historically had differences with the Government of Pakistan but after the arrival of the allies in Afghanistan the insurgents got a new boost.
They started attacking the Pakistani security forces with the latest ammunition having ‘made in USA’ or ‘made in Israel’ seals. The military expertise they exhibited was world class and the Pakistani establishment was surprised at how the illiterate tribesman living on mountains became so experienced.
Chinese engineers and constructors working on the port became a favorite target of the insurgents. Kidnap of Chinese engineers became a normal routine and in many incidents they were even shot and killed or killed in bomb blasts.
In 2004 three Chinese engineers were killed in a remote control bomb blast while they were travelling to Gawadar port. The then President and Prime Minster of Pakistan expressed their deepest condolences for the deceased and reiterated that such incidents wouldn’t affect the all-weathered Sino-Pak friendship.
But despite these hardships the Chinese government was undeterred in its stance to build a multi-billion dollar port. It provided 80 percent of the funding for the construction of the port. In 2002 China provided $198 million for Phase I of the project. China also sent 450 workers for the ports construction.
Besides the Chinese government also intends to build a network of roads which connects Pakistan with Central Asia and China. But the situation became worse later and the Chinese government decided to call back its engineers.
When the port was completed it was believed that the control will be given to China but surprisingly then President of Pakistan General Pervez Musharraf who was sarcastically dubbed as ‘Mush’ to taunt at his extreme inclination towards America, decided to give the contract to the Singapore Port Authority. It is said that he did so to please his American bosses.
Now in 2010, finally it has been decided the control over the power quarters in Islamabad are to be given to China. China is a time-tested friend of Pakistan and she has always supported Pakistan in their hour of need whether wars or natural catastrophes. Opinion polls in Pakistan reveal that China is one of the most popular nations in the country. While China’s competitor in the world, USA, is considered by th people as enemy number one.
It is believed that through this port not only Pakistan and China will benefit but the neighboring countries will also be at an advantage. The IPI (Iran, Pakistan, India) Gas Pipeline may become IPC (Iran, Pakistan, China) Pipeline. It is noteworthy that India has been already excluded from the pact. It means that the region now may be witnessing the formation of new alliances that will be uneasy for the west.
China may also be forming oil refineries in Gawadar and will set-up tax free industrial zones. It also intends to establish a railway line that will pass through ‘Khunjarab Pass’ in Pakistan. In this regard both countries have already signed an accord.
Through the Chinese expertise a deep sea port, tax free industrial zones, oil and gas pipelines that expand to Afghanistan and Central Asia, Gawadar will be able to compete with any modern city of the twenty first century.
Gawadar will emerge as the new center of the Silk Route providing both land and marine routes to the hydrocarbon hub, the land-locked Central Asia. Pakistan will earn one billion dollars as transit fees annually.
Not only Asians but analysts say that Russians are also very happy on this project because if Iranian gas comes to Asia via Gawadar, the Russian Gazprom will no longer have tough competitor in Europe. The Pak-Chine plan of gas pipeline is also believed to be severely affecting the niBoko project. It is also believed that the Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India (TAPI) pipeline may change into Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, China (TAPC) once Afghanistan becomes stable.
All these projects that seem like a beautiful dream for the billions of Asians are feared to become a nightmare for Washington. It is predicated that Gawadar will be turned into a battlefield by the Americans.
The symbols of it can be witnessed today as Balochistan seems to be plunging into a civil war.
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