News Report: Attack on Security Forces' Convoy in Pakistan Kills 3 Soldiers

Ayaz Gul

ISLAMABAD — Unknown gunmen in southwestern Pakistan ambushed a security forces' convoy, killing at least three soldiers and injuring three others Monday.

Local authorities said the convoy of the paramilitary Frontier Corps was returning from a counterinsurgency operation when it was attacked in the remote Panjgur district of Baluchistan province.

There were no immediate claims of responsibility for the deadly assault.

Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi has "strongly" condemned the attack and "expressed grief over loss of precious lives of [Frontier Corps] officials," his office said in a statement.

News Story: For Pakistanis, China 'friendship' road runs one way

By Ben Dooley

The China-Pakistan Friendship Highway runs over 1,300 kilometres (800 miles) from the far western Chinese city of Kashgar through the world's highest mountain pass and across the border.

For China, the two-lane thoroughfare symbolises a blossoming partnership, nourished with tens of billions of dollars of infrastructure investment.

But for many Pakistani businessmen living and working on the Chinese side of the border, the road is a one way street.

"China says our friendship is as high as the Himalayas and as deep as the sea, but it has no heart," said Pakistani businessman Murad Shah, as he tended his shop in Tashkurgan, 120 kilometres from the mountain pass where trucks line up to cross between China's vast Xinjiang region and Pakistan.

"There is no benefit for Pakistan. It's all about expanding China's growth," Shah said, as he straightened a display of precious stones.

The remote town of around 9,000 is at the geographic heart of Beijing's plans to build a major trade artery -- the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) -- connecting Kashgar to the Arabian Sea port of Gwadar.

The project is a crown jewel of China's One Belt, One Road (OBOR) initiative, a massive global infrastructure programme to revive the ancient Silk Road and connect Chinese companies to new markets around the world.

Read the full story at SpaceDaily

News Report: Pakistan Defiant as US Ponders South Asia Strategy

Natalie Liu

Days after the Pentagon announced it is withholding $50 million intended for Pakistan as part of its Coalition Support Fund, the South Asian country's ambassador hinted at potential retaliation, possibly coaxing Washington to negotiate access to the country's air corridors, which Islamabad suggests have been taken for granted.

Pakistan is ready to cooperate with the United States, Ambassador Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry said, though Washington may now end up having to negotiate with Islamabad on the corridors and other tangible assets, he added.

"All that Pakistan has done in the fight against terrorism has not been sufficiently factored" into the U.S. decision to reduce its support funds, Chaudhry lamented during a discussion this week at the Washington office of the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies.

News Report: Once a US Ally, Pakistan Now Looks to China, Russia

Paul Alexander and Noor Zahid

WASHINGTON — Once a key ally in the U.S. war on terrorism, Pakistan finds itself increasingly isolated from Washington amid allegations that it harbors more than a dozen terrorist groups. Instead, it has been steadily cozying up to China and Russia.

Both of America’s primary rivals have been taking advantage of Pakistan’s paranoia about India, and gaps in Washington’s global influence as President Donald Trump continues to form his foreign policy in the strategic region.

Pakistan’s relations with three of its four neighbors — Afghanistan, India and Iran — are at a low point. And instead of trying to rein in extremism, the government appears to be feeding the growing conservative movement with no sign of backing off a controversial blasphemy law that has led to repeated mob violence.

Experts say 13 of the approximately 60 U.S.-designated global terrorist organizations are based in Pakistan, mostly in the tribal region that borders Afghanistan.

Major militant groups include the Pakistani Taliban and the Haqqani Network, along with Laskar-e-Jhangvi, Jaish-e-Muhammad and Jundullah. And despite denials that Islamic State has a presence in the country, the terror group has claimed responsibility for recent attacks there.

Two U.S. lawmakers introduced legislation last September to designate Pakistan a terror state over its inability to curb homegrown militancy and the threat it poses to its neighbors. Republicans Ted Poe and Dana Rohrabacher accused Pakistan of harboring global terrorist leaders and supporting terror groups, including the Haqqani Network, which targets Afghan and U.S.-led NATO forces in Afghanistan.

News Report: China Deploys Submarine, Spy Ship in Indian Ocean Ahead of Major Naval Exercise

A week before the trilateral naval exercise between India, the US and Japan begins in the Indian Ocean, China sent its Yuan class conventional diesel-electric submarine in the Indian Ocean with submarine support vessel Chongmingdao and intelligence-gathering ship Haiwingxing.

New Delhi (Sputnik) — Naval officials in Delhi downplay this deployment but 13 Chinese naval ships, tracked over the last two months by Indian naval satellite GSAT-7 and long-range maritime patrol aircraft like P-8I, must raise alarm bells for Indian authorities when both the nations have been engaged in a war of words and tensions on the eastern border. The India-US-Japan Malabar exercise in the Bay of Bengal is scheduled to begin next week.

"Usually, Chinese submarines have a three-month long deployment in the Indian Ocean. This is routine. The submarine's presence has nothing to do with the present situation and it has been present in the Indian Ocean for a while now," an Indian Navy official told IANS.

News Report: Beijing Downplays Possibility of Pakistani Naval Base

Chinese officials have dismissed predictions that the People’s Liberation Army Navy will build a new base in Pakistan as Saudi Arabian and American influence in the region deteriorates.

Discussions about a Chinese base in Pakistan are "pure guesswork," Defense Ministry Spokesman Wu Qian said on Thursday.

Sputnik has reported that Pakistan is actively seeking an increased Chinese presence in Pakistan to balance the strength of India. "We need an equalizer against India. Previously it was the US and Saudi Arabia. Now it’s China," a Pakistani diplomat told NBC, according to a June 19 report.

In May, the US Defense Department issued a report stating, "China most likely will seek to establish additional military bases in countries with which it has a longstanding friendly relationship and similar strategic interests, such as Pakistan."

News Story: Pakistan deploys 15,000-strong force for Chinese security

Pakistan has deployed a 15,000-strong military force to protect Chinese nationals working on energy and infrastructure projects in the country, the president said Sunday, after the abduction of a Chinese couple raised safety concerns.

President Mamnoon Hussain told visiting Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Islamabad that the protection of Chinese citizens working in Pakistan was the "top priority" of the government, according to a statement issued by the presidency.

Beijing is investing around $50 billion in its South Asian neighbour as part of a plan unveiled in 2015 to link its far-western Xinjiang region to Gwadar port in Balochistan with a series of infrastructure, power and transport upgrades.

But fears over safety arose last month when two Chinese workers were abducted in Quetta, the capital of the southwestern Balochistan province, which is at the heart of the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project but racked by separatist and Islamist insurgencies.

Read the full story at SpaceWar

News Report: China Begins Mediation Bid to Ease Afghanistan-Pakistan Tensions

Ayaz Gul

ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN — China has formally initiated a mediation bid to ease Afghanistan's tensions with Pakistan and to encourage the two uneasy neighbors to jointly work for countering terrorism and promoting regional peace.

Beijing's diplomatic offensive comes as relations between Islamabad and Kabul have deteriorated in the past two years over mutual allegations of sponsoring terrorist attacks on each other's soil.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi traveled to Kabul on Saturday, where he met with President Ashraf Ghani and other senior Afghan officials to discuss ways to improve ties with Pakistan.

An official statement later quoted Yi as telling his Afghan interlocutors that "if required, China will be ready to observe and explain steps" both Pakistan and Afghanistan are taking against terrorism and extremism.

News Report: Islamabad Eyes New Chinese Naval Base in Pakistan as US, Saudi Influence Wanes

Chinese Navy Warships on Patrol (File Photo)

Pakistan is renewing a 2011 call to the People’s Liberation Army Navy to construct and operate a naval base on its coast, according to a Pakistani diplomat.

Islamabad needs an “equalizer” against India, the emissary noted in comments published at the Asia Times. “Previously, it was the US and Saudi Arabia… Now, it’s China,” he said.

A recent report prepared by the Pentagon signals Washington is growing concerned with the activities of the world’s largest army and burgeoning naval fleet. The US Defense Department anticipates that diplomatic chatter may materialize in the form of an actual base, perhaps in Gwadar Port in Balochistan, a trading hub Beijing seeks to develop with investment as part of the One Belt initiative.

Jiwani and Ormara are also said to be potential sites for a new navy base. 

News Report: China's Bases in Pakistan Will Have Strategic Ramifications for India - Expert

India has downplayed a US report which warned that China could set up military bases in Pakistan. Indian Navy chief Admiral Sunil Lanba said India has its own assessment and will not make any strategy on the basis of the US report.

New Delhi (Sputnik) — The US report claimed that expanding international economic interests are forcing China to operate in more distant maritime environments to protect its interests.

“It is an assessment which is there in the US report. We have our own assessments. Let us see what happens in the future,” Admiral Lanba said on the report released by US Department of Defense on China’s military prowess this week.

“China most likely will seek to establish additional military bases in countries with which it has a longstanding friendly relationship and similar strategic interests, such as Pakistan,” report added.

News Report: Pakistani Official Confirms Captive Chinese Nationals Are Dead

Ayaz Gul

ISLAMABAD — Islamic State has released a video showing the bloodied body of a captive Chinese national the terrorist group claimed to have killed along with his female partner in southwestern Pakistan.

A provincial government official confirmed to VOA that the man who seems to be taking his last breaths in the video is one of the two Chinese kidnapped last month from Quetta, capital of Baluchistan province.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he said that authorities have not yet found the bodies of the Chinese nationals, and he would like to abstain from making any official assertions on the fate of the two foreigners.

China briefed by Pakistan

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said at a regular news briefing Friday that Beijing has been told by Islamabad the two abductees are probably dead.

"Pakistan's relevant side has provided China with some information and said these two kidnapped Chinese citizens have likely already been murdered. We are gravely concerned about this," she said.

Chunying added that Beijing is in contact with the Pakistani side and trying to learn more about and verify the situation by all means.

Islamic State’s global media outlet, the Amaq News Agency, announced Thursday the group had executed the two captives in Mastung, a district about 50 kilometers south of Quetta.

News Story: IS claims killing two Chinese in southwest Pakistan

Click Image to Enlarge

The Islamic State group on Thursday claimed the killing of two Chinese citizens who were kidnapped last month by armed gunmen in southwestern Pakistan's restive Balochistan province.

The jihadist group made the claim in a brief Arabic message carried by the group's Amaq news agency. There was no immediate confirmation from Chinese or Pakistan officials.

Hours earlier, Pakistan's army issued a statement saying its forces conducted an operation against the IS group earlier this month, killing up to 15 militants from the Pakistan-based militant group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi Al-Almi who were in communication with IS about establishing a base in Balochistan.

The two Chinese workers were abducted in Quetta, where the pair had been studying Urdu at a language centre, according to a Chinese envoy in the country.

China's foreign ministry said it was working to "verify relevant information through various channels, including working with Pakistani authorities".

Read the full story at SpaceWar

News Story: The Growing Significance of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands

Andaman and Nicobar Islands shown in RED BOX

(Click Image to Enlarge)

By Karan Tripathi and Gaurav Rana

The rise of two global powers hailing from the same region has made the Indian Ocean, more specifically the Andaman and Nicobar Islands (ANI), a hotly pursued region. 

With China already making great advances on its path to military superiority and control over the trade route via waters in the South China Sea and via land through the One Belt One Road initiative, it is imperative that Indian government understands the strategic role the ANI, a chain of 572 islands under its sovereignty, in helping her maintain a dominant role in the Indian Ocean.

Maritime Trade

The northernmost part of the archipelago is only 22 nautical miles away from Myanmar, the southernmost point of the Nicobar Islands, is only 90 nautical miles away from Indonesia. The Ten Degree Channel which falls under the Exclusive Economic Zone of India is a conduit for more than 60,000 commercial vessels each year, thereby making the ANI an indispensable region for India’s national security.

More than 80 percent of the world's maritime oil trade passes through the Indian Ocean, and it is an important conduit for trade for comprehensive world economies such as Japan, Australia, China and India. More than 70 percent of India's trade value and 80 percent of India’s crude oil requirements pass through the region. 

Read the full story at MarEx

News Report: Pakistan Faces Challenges to Curb Militancy to Protect Chinese Investment

Madeeha Anwar

WASHINGTON — Pakistan views a project to expand its port in Gwadar and link it to China as a way to provide jobs and an economic boost to Balochistan, the country’s poorest province.

To get it built and functioning, though, the government needs to undercut a separatist insurgency and a variety of militant groups that have used poverty to fuel the flames of insurgency.

“If Pakistan is not able to control extremism in Balochistan, how could the government achieve the desired results it is currently portraying?” asked Hasan Askari, a prominent security and military analyst.

The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is a joint venture between the two countries that already is well underway. It will connect northwestern China’s Xinjiang region to Gwadar’s deep-water port in southwest Pakistan via a network of roads, railway, communications and energy projects.

China gets a shorter trade route to the Persian Gulf; Pakistan gets a second major port.

Pakistan’s Federal Minister of Planning and Development Ahsan Iqbal says CPEC is expected to be completed by 2030 with an initial investment of nearly $50 billion.

News Story: Pakistan Gives China a 40-Year Lease for Gwadar Port

On April 20, Pakistan’s minister for ports and shipping announced that his ministry has given a Chinese firm a forty-year lease for the strategic Port of Gwadar. 

The lessee, state-owned China Overseas Port Holding Company, has been building out the port’s infrastructure since 2013. Under its new long-term contract, it will retain over 90 percent of revenue from Gwadar’s marine operations, plus 85 percent of the revenue from the management of an adjacent free zone. It will also benefit from the deep tax exemptions that Pakistan has granted to Chinese companies for projects related to the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a network of transportation infrastructure stretching from the Arabian Sea to the Chinese border. 

“We hope to create a new economic development model for the port by transplanting China’s experience in building special zones or economic development areas to Pakistan, in a bid to drive the country’s industrial transformation,” said COPHC CEO Zhang Baozhong, in comments to China Daily. 

Read the full story at MarEx

News Story: Port co-built with China fuels Pakistan's economic engine

by Liu Tian

ISLAMABAD, April 3 (Xinhua) -- Gwadar, an poorly-known port town previously in Pakistan has been becoming a new economic engine for the country with the construction of a free zone co-built with China.

"We have finished 60 percent of the first-phase construction for the port's free zone, which is expected to be completed by the end of this year, one year earlier than we planned," Hu Yaozong, deputy general manager of the Gwadar Free Zone Company, told Xinhua in a recent interview.

Chinese engineers and their Pakistani counterparts are working around clock in the construction site with the hope of seeing the free zone is open to operation as early as possible.

The free zone is a key step towards developing the Gwadar port into an important regional hub that will benefit not only south Asia, but also the countries in central Asia and the Middle East.

Read the full story at Xinhua

News Report: Ports For Pawns - How India-China Rivalry is Panning Out in the Persian Gulf

India-backed Chabahar port and China-developed Gwadar port could become the launch pads for a strategic rivalry between New Delhi and Beijing. But, it may also open another route for trade and commerce cooperation under the One Belt, One Road initiative.

New Delhi (Sputnik) — The Chinese Navy's latest plans to expand its marine corps and station new marine brigades in Gwadar, Pakistan and in Djibouti near the Gulf of Aden, will raise eyebrows in New Delhi and give fresh impetus to Indian efforts to expedite the completion of the Chabahar port in Iran. India's shipping minister Nitin Gadkari had expressed optimism last week that the first phase of the strategically located port in Iran will be complete by 2018.

What the two seemingly unrelated developments bring to the fore is that India-China rivalry is expanding in the Persian Gulf with both countries hedging their bets on strategically located ports and increasing their naval presence.

News Report: Marine Corps to Protect China’s Growing Interest in Asia-Pacific Region

China plans to increase the number of its Marine Corps units from 20,000 to 100,000 in order to protect its vital marine communications and growing interests abroad, according to Hong Kong newspaper South China Morning Post citing military sources and experts.

The publication refers to the Chinese logistics base in Djibouti and port of Gwadar in the southwest of Pakistan. The areas of protection of interests also include the Korean Peninsula, the East China and South China Sea, and land and sea territories along the Silk Road, including Afghanistan.

The newspaper further noted that the Chinese marine contingent has been nearly doubled to the existing 20,000 by transferring two regular army brigades to their squad.

Simultaneously, with an increase to 100,000 servicemen the number of naval forces would also increase by 15 percent, as currently the number of personnel of the Chinese Navy is estimated at 235,000 men.

Sputnik spoke to Russian experts in an interview about this increase in the Marine Corps and they expressed no doubt about the validity of the assumptions made by these sources.

News Report: China Gives Two Vessels to Pakistan's Navy to Protect New Trade Route

PMSS Hingol

China has given two patrol vessels to Pakistan's Navy and is expected to hand over two more to help Pakistan ensure the security of the sea route of the $54 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).

The vessels, the PMSS Hingol and the PMSS Basol, were received January 14 by Commander of the Pakistan Navy Vice-Admiral Arifullah Hussaini, the Dawn news agency reports.

"The ships have become part of the Pakistan Navy from today and the navy will become stronger with the induction of these maritime vessels," Hussaini said.

The handover took place at Pakistan's Gwadar port in its poor and restive Balochistan province. Dawn reports that Pakistan has already raised a new army division to secure the area around the port and the CPEC route. Gwadar City's security is already in the hands of Pakistan's army.

News Report: Pakistan Builds New Missile Ship to Shield Chinese Trade Routes

Pakistan's 1st Azmat class Fast Attack Craft

Pakistan has officially begun construction of a missile warship that the country hopes will guarantee the integrity of its vital trade corridor with China.

The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor is key to the financial and national security interests of both countries. For Islamabad, Beijing’s capital investment in infrastructure projects offers promise to give the country’s economy a much-needed boost. But Beijing also relies on Pakistan’s navy to ensure the safety of oil shipments from the Arabian Sea and surrounding maritime regions.

In that regard, China is sharing Azmat-class ship technology with Islamabad, including the “latest weapons and sensors,” according to the Pakistani military’s Inter-Services Public Relation media branch.