China Adds Pakistan's Gwadar To 'String Of Pearls'

Pakistan's Defence Minister Ahmad Mukhtar has said China is to take over operation of the strategically positioned port of Gwadar. The announcement has yet to be confirmed by Beijing, but if true it will see yet another addition to China's 'String of Pearls', a group of Indian Ocean ports that China has been developing, ostensibly for commercial use, but which could also have military purposes. BMI believes that a Chinese naval presence in Gwadar would greatly enhance Beijing's ability to project power into the Persian Gulf for the first time in the modern era, and would allow it to guard the western part of its crucial energy supply chain.

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