Central Asia is the future of world resources, when the middle east shall dry up its Central Asia who will meet the world demand and unfortunately its a land locked region.
China has “China–Pakistan Economic Corridor” ( commonally known as CPEC ), plan to reach the natural resources of middle east , central asia and Europe while India wanted a pipeline which comes from central Asia via Iran or Afghanistan and Pakistan,due to acrimonious relation between India and Pakistan its not giving the desired result. Now India has other plan, India has gone for the $4-billion deepwater pipeline which was proposed by South Asia Gas Enterprise (SAGE) from the Middle East — bypassing Pakistan — after the onland Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline got stuck. This pipe line will connect India with Oman and Iran so that India can access resources from central asia as well as middle east. Through this pipeline India can transport natural gas from Iran’s Chabahar port and Oman’s Ra’s al Jifan port to Porbandar port in Gujarat, bypassing Pakistan.
India already building a container terminal and a multi-purpose cargo terminal on two berths at the Chabahar Port in south-eastern coast of Iran, now Iran offers india for strategic control of Chabahar port which is India finds very lucrative , as Pakistan last year handed over the control of its Gwadar Port to China. The Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy has since long been using the Gwadar Port, which New Delhi perceives as yet another addition to the “String of Pearls”.
Chabahar port offers India a gateway to enter Iran and to realize its economic and strategic ambitions in Afghanistan and the Central Asian republics. Pakistan has denied Indian goods overland access to Afghanistan, severely restricting trade with Afghanistan and Central Asia.
India is also eyeing trade with Europe via Chabahar port and the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC) as this route is estimated to be 40 percent shorter and 30 percent less expensive than its current trade via the Red Sea-Suez Canal-Mediterranean Sea route.
Pakistan’s Gwadar port of Balochistan, which is part of the 3,000 kilometre-long strategic China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) which could radically alter the regional dynamics of trade, development and politics. The CPEC project will include building new roads, and 1,800-kilometre railway line and a network of oil pipelines to connect Kashgar in China’s western Xinjiang region to the port of Gwadar. It will physically connect China to its markets in Asia, Europe and beyond.
India’s investment in chahbahar port, by modernizing it to bring a competition to Gwadar as both are deep sea ports and are in closer proximity to each other. Secondly, the already built karakoram highway which connect China and Pakistan’s Gwadar port is operational only a few months in a year due to the inhospitable terrain, Conflict in Balochistan is big trouble in this project, Baluchistan freedom struggle groups opposed to foreign-funded investments are active in the region, with some of them also having attacked Chinese engineers working on the port
Will Chabahar attract more trade than Gwadar?. Distances between Gwadar and Central Asian cities are shorter and a transit corridor being developed between Gwadar and Kashgar could spur Gwadar’s attractiveness to the CARs. But extreme unrest in Pakistan’s Balochistan province severely undermines Gwadar’s appeal.. An economic corridor provided to Central Asia through Afghanistan and then Iran will outpass Gwadar only if Pakistan operationalizes Gwadar as soon as possible.. Pakistan needs eradicate all sorts of insurgencies at home which is distant dream. Lifting of sanction on Iran became game changer. Big question is what the dragon will do to save to save its $75 million investment if Baluchistan will keep boiling.