What is China’s military aspiration for Gwadar?
For a long time, Pakistan’s Gwadar port has long been touted as the site for a Chinese base suitable for People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) operations, however, it is not inevitable that Gwadar will become a PLAN base.The Chinese Communist Party pursues a “strategic strongpoint” concept whereby strategically sited foreign ports containing terminals and commercial zones operated by Chinese firms can be used by its military.These “strongpoints” offer the potential for China to form a network of supply, logistics and intelligence hubs, and there is a nascent network along the perimeter of the Indian Ocean.Gwadar is important to Beijing for two reasons. First is establishing direct transport links to the Indian Ocean via the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). For this reason, China doe