Both China And Pakistan Clean Bowled By swift Operationalization Of Chabahar
By Colonel Awadhesh Kumar, veteran Special Forces
India had outright condemned the China Pakistan Economic Corridor ,being an infringement on national sovereignty because the corridor passes through areas of Kashmir still under illegal occupation of Pakistan . India also rightly refused to join the OBOR initiative of China as it has many grey areas and its economic benefits are totally suspect and for the some of the participants may even turn out to be an economic nightmare if not total disaster.
Many so called Economic Experts including a few Indians questioned this Indian decision and China after initially ignoring India , openly castigated it . However soon China realised that OBOR was no go , as many of the Western Countries , USA and even Asian participants began to have doubts . A major catalyst of this doubting was non participation by India. Meanwhile India had been quietly working on its own answers to the Chinese OBOR. The land route from India to Afghanistan and onwards to Central Asia and beyond passes through INDIA of pre 1947 days now for the time being called Pakistan. All this time Pakis were thinking that on the issue of bringing everlasting solution to Afghanistan problem they held the trump card . They also thought that they had the upper hand in any trade negotiations between India- Iran, India – Afghanistan and India -Central Asia. So the news of first shipment of wheat from India reaching Afghanistan, completely by passing Pakistan , has been a complete shock not only to the people of Pakistan but also to the Paki establishment. Pakistani political analysts and commentators seem to be flustered by this Indian swift action to not only open this sea route from Kandla Port in Gujarat , to the landlocked Afghanistan via the Iranian port of Chabahar .Thus beating the CPEC hands down by at least a few years if not few decades. This action of India has also made Afghanistan free for all times, from being blackmailed by Islamabad for trade and commerce transit routes .
The first consignment of Indian wheat was shipped from Kandla and landed at Chabahar Port in Iran. It then moved to Afghanistan via trucks on road developed by India right into Afghanistan. Even the Iranian port of Chabahar has been developed by India for the benefit of not only Iran , Afghanistan and India but also for rest of the Central Asian countries. All this time Pakistanis had been believing that Gwadar, a port quite near Chabahar in Balochistan being developed by China as part of China-Pakistan economic corridor (CPEC), would become operational much earlier and attract all the sea traffic. They thought that Indo Iran cooperation would never fructify. Whereas India has not only beaten China hands down , it is already planning more wheat consignments for Kabul this year. Pakistan had all this time been refusing permission for Indian trucks to carry food aid for the malnourished Afghan children via Wagah-Attari border. This total by passing of Pakistan has really been a Master Stroke by India and is likely to marginalise Pakistan in not only economic matters but also in the GREAT GAME being played in this part of the world . Pakistanis have realized this and seem to be aghast.
Thus the opening up of the Chabahar port much before Gwadar, is certainly going to hit Pakistan’s interests in Afghanistan and in central Asia. Pakistan can no more leverage its unique geographical position of being the virtual gateway to the energy-rich Central Asia and blackmailing the stakeholders into bowing to its plans on Afghanistan. Now it can no more keep India from doing business with Afghanistan. . Islamabad always opposed the presence of Indians on Afghan soil as it thought it was against its security interests . However, in spite of Islamabad’s objections, India continued its non-military economic reconstruction activities in Afghanistan like building roads, parliament house and railways and roads . India became one of the biggest aid provider for reconstruction of Afghanistan and is even involved in training its civil servants, police and military. India even provided few military hardware to Afghanistan like a few old MI24 helicopter gun ships.
With reaching of first consignment of wheat in Afghanistan via Chabahar Afghan president Ashraf Ghani has ordered that from now onwards no Pakistani truck would ever land on the Afghan soil. This has thus ended the flourishing flour mill trade between Pakistan’s Khyber-Pakhtunwa region bordering and Afghanistan. The trade had started declining since last month when Ghani had refused to revive The Afghanistan and Pakistan Trade Agreement (APTA) that enabled Afghanistan to use Pakistan as the transit route for trade with neighbours. Pakistan had violated the agreement by not allowing Indians goods to be trans-shipped to Afghanistan via Wagah.
Now Pakistan is really worried that what will happen if even Uncle Sam starts using Kandla Port for sending all its ration supplies and other non military items to the American troops stationed in Afghanistan. China has of course started reviewing its CPEC procedures.
