Daily Times

BEIJING: China has not asked for military access to Pakistan’s deep-water port of Gwadar, a senior navy official said on Friday.

Speaking at the Xiangshan Forum in Beijing, which China styles as its answer to the annual Shangri-La Dialogue security forum in Singapore, Rear Admiral Javaid Iqbal of the Pakistan Navy said Gwadar is a ‘significant addition to the regional maritime landscape’. “Let me emphasise that the Gwadar port is purely a commercial venture and has no military overtones,” he told the forum. “Suitably located outside the potentially risky and confined waters of the Gulf, Gwadar has the potential to act not only as a transit port for China and Central Asia but also a trans-shipment port impacting the prosperity of the entire region,” he added.

Rear Admiral Iqbal said he was very specific about the non-military nature of the port. “The Gwadar port has no military dimension. It will be just a commercial port,” he said. “The Pakistan navy will maintain a presence to ensure maritime security, to ensure the security of the port.” “The geopolitical debate that somehow goes on in the media about Gwadar being used as a foreign military base is not correct at all,” he added. Asked whether China had specifically asked for military access, he answered, “No, not at all.” Gwadar, in the southwestern province of Balochistan, is the crown jewel of China’s $60 billion investment in Belt and Road Initiative projects in Pakistan. The plan is to turn Gwadar into a trans-shipment hub and mega port to be built alongside special economic zones from which export-focused industries will ship goods worldwide. A web of energy pipelines, roads and rail links will connect Gwadar to China’s western regions.

Published in Daily Times, October 27^th 2018.