Manoj Ambat's Blog dealing with Defence, Foreign Affairs, Strategic Affairs and Politics

Gwadar Port ( Image credits- WIkimedia Commons / J. Patrick Fesher) Source- The Diplomat Author- Muhammad Daim Fazil When Chinese President Xi Jinping unveiled the blueprint for the enormous $46 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project last year, Pakistan was understandably pleased. The Pakistani government considers the project a game changer for its fragile economic structure. This exhilaration partly stems from the country’s wobbly economic performance in recent years, which has seen it fall short of GDP and other financial targets. The project has also elevated Islamabad’s strategic partnership with the regional superpower. CPEC is viewed as a lifeline for Pakistan, yet three potential obstacles could yet derail this multifaceted project. Provincial Resentment in Pakistan A lack of domestic consensus can hinder development in any part of the world, and CPEC is no exception. When CPEC was initially introduced, every mainstream political party sup

Image credits- VOA Source- The National Interest Author-  Koh Swee Lean Collin While attention has been on the simmering tensions in the East and South China Seas letely, a small event took place in the East China Sea off the coast of Shanghai. Pakistan Navy (PN) guided missile frigate Shamsheer and fleet replenishment vessel Nasr drilled with a pair of PLA Navy Type-054A Jiangkai II frigates, Xuzhou and Yangzhou from December 31 to January 1. According to Chinese reports, the fast-paced, high-intensity exercise involved day and night maneuvers including joint escort, counter-piracy and live-firing. This constitutes a logical progression from the limited scope when this bilateral exercise first began in 2003 as a simple search-and-rescue drill. The objectives of these exercises are to hone interoperability between the two navies, while affording PN personnel the opportunity to get acquainted with Chinese technologies. What was new in this latest iteration, howeve

Gwadar port ( Image credits-Wikimedia Commons / Paranda) Source- The Diplomat Author- Ahmad Rashid Malik The Indus River is known as the lifeblood of Pakistan’s economy. Great ancient civilizations were formed along the Indus River, including the Gandhara and Mohenjodaro. Pakistan’s economy will continue to rely on the River Indus but a new dimension has been added. Now the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is bringing a sharp transformation. It is offering the tantalizing prospect of an Indus River miracle to match those on the Yellow River (China) and Han River (South Korea). Pakistan can also learn much from Japan, Singapore, and Malaysia. The government has its sights on becoming the 25th largest economy in the world. The CPEC project has become a full spectrum project. Learning from the Asian miracle economies by sharing experiences is essential if a prosperous new Indus River civilization is to emerge. First, the flagship project, the CPEC itself, will

Gwadar Port ( Image source- Wikimedia Commons / Author- Paranda) Source- The Diplomat Author- Kiyya Baloch The indigenous people of the coastal town of Gwadar – gateway to the much-discussed China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) – very much have their own opinions when it comes to reaping the benefits from this $46 billion project. As such, concern is rising over speculation that the project will benefit only Chinese interests, with little to offer locals. “It is a conspiracy to convert the local population into a minority, rather than empowering them,” said Syed Essa Noori, a Baloch Nationalist Party legislator in Pakistan’s National Assembly. Noori cited Karachi as an obvious example the local populace being marginalized in the name of economic development. “At the time of the creation of the country, Karachi was Baloch-majority. Within a decade, it had turned into a city of migrants, from parts of India as well as from other parts of Pakistan.” The Baloch nat

PLAN Submarine ( Image source- Wikimedia Commons / Author- Darkranch23) Source- The Diplomat Author- Benjamin David Baker As previously covered by The Diplomat, Pakistan announced earlier this year that it has agreed to purchase eight modified Type 41 Yuan-class diesel-electric submarines from China. These boats will provide Islamabad with much-needed Anti-Access/Area Denial (A2/AD) capabilities against the Indian Navy in case of war. This would be especially useful in case of an Indian blockade of Pakistan’s coast and could give New Delhi grounds to pause before deploying its planned new aircraft carrier, the INS Vikrant. A Yuan-class submarine is undoubtedly a great piece of kit. It is China’s first class of submarines to incorporate an indigenously designed- and constructed Air-Independent Propulsion system (AIP), giving it a cruise speed of 18 knots and an operational range of 8,000 nautical miles. Although the export version of the Yuan, named the S-20, does not

Source- Wikimedia Commons / Author- Whispertome Source- Eurasia Review Author- Dr Subhash kapila / SAAG China’s strategic lust to enmesh Pakistan in a gridlock embrace has impelled it shockingly to support Pakistan’s state-sponsored terrorism against India by blocking in the United Nations, India’s proposals demanding action against Pakistan over the release of Mumbai 26/11 mastermind Zaki-ur-Rahman Lakhvi China offered a feeble explanation that technically it could not support India due to lack of adequate evidence presented. Is this not reminiscent of and repetition of Pakistan’s arguments since 2008 whenever India presented dozens of dossiers on Lakhvi and Pakistan’s ISI complicity in Mumbai 26/11 terror attacks. Is China not mindful that UN Resolution 1267 demands such actions or is it that China maintains that there are technical snags in the UN Resolution itself? Media reports indicate that PM Modi has taken up the matter with China at the highest levels a

Image credits- USNI Source- The National Interest Author- Claude Rakisits In the last few months Pakistan’s Government has made a number of decisions that have drawn the country even further into China’s geostrategic orbit. And although China and Pakistan have had a long and fruitful relationship for well over 50 years, it was the launch of the 2,900 km China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) during a visit to Pakistan by Chinese President Xi Jinping in April that qualitatively changed the relationship. This $46 billion CPEC project, which involves the construction of roads, railroads and power plants over a 15-year period, comes on top of other previous important Pakistan–China agreements in the military, energy and infrastructure fields. The geostrategic importance of CPEC is bolstered by some earlier bilateral agreements. First, in April China was granted 40-year operation rights to the port of Gwadar on the Indian Ocean, at the mouth of the Persian Gulf. Beijing i

Image source- Wikimedia Commons Source- The Diplomat Author- Muhammad Daim Fazil A month ago, Chinese President Xi Jinping was in Islamabad, where he unveiled a $46 billion infrastructure spending blueprint for Pakistan, to serve as a linchpin of Beijing’s drive to open new trade and transport routes across Asia and challenge the U.S. as the dominant regional power. Pakistani officials hailed the visit as a landmark and game changer. Despite decades of mismanagement and a feeble socioeconomic infrastructure, Pakistan does enjoy a strategic location. Among its neighbors, the only one with which Pakistan has maintained cordial ties since independence is China. Enjoying genial relations with a neighbor that is also a major power is clearly a boon for an otherwise diplomatically isolated Pakistan. For China, which has begun to build a presence in multiple regions, Pakistan is a gateway to the Gulf States and Middle East, where China seeks to showcase its soft power, a

Image credits- www.people.cn Source- The Diplomat Author- Ankit Panda Last week, Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Pakistan to a warm welcome. He left having signed scores of agreements that commit, over several years, billions in Chinese financing and support for various Pakistani infrastructure projects. Beset with a range of problems, Pakistan lacks the indigenous capacity to invest adequately in its own power and infrastructure needs, despite facing major shortfalls in these areas. China and Pakistan enjoy a special relationship by their own admission: they refer to their partnership as an “all weather” one and Xi, prior to arriving in Islamabad, remarked that he felt as if he was “going to visit the home of [his] own brother.” Still, despite the warm rhetoric toward China and years of positive ties between the two countries, when it came to backing Pakistan, both financially and politically, Islamabad had always found support flowing in from the Arabian penins

Image credits- Xinhua Source- Eurasia review Author- Brigadier Arun Sahgal (Retd) The strategic landscape in Southern Asia is witnessing three major strategic shifts; most important from Indian point of view is the unveiling of China – Pakistan economic corridor linking landlocked Xinjiang region of China to the warm waters of Arabian Sea and further to Middle East, Europe and East Coast of Africa. In many sense it is game changer with long term strategic consequences for the region in general and India in particular. Second is the prospect of Iran’s integration with international community as a normal nation a process that has already begun. This has made number of regional actors most predominant being China and Russia and to limited extent even Pakistan initiate serious commercial and security dialogue, given the possibility of opening number of geopolitical and economic opportunities. A third element is the growing Eastern orientation of Russia and the emergin