The Pakistani port of Gwadar is located in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, which serves as a vital branch of China's massive Belt and Road Initiative.
Editor's Note: This assessment is part of a series of analyses supporting Stratfor's upcoming 2019 Third-Quarter Forecast. These assessments are designed to provide more context and in-depth analysis of key developments over the next quarter. On the eastern edge of the Arabian Sea, a pair of ports located just 160 kilometers apart (roughly 100 miles) lies at the heart of a multifaceted struggle for power among regional heavyweights in South Asia. For India, the Chinese-funded Gwadar port in Pakistan has heightened its concerns of encirclement under China’s Belt and Road Initiative . This has fueled New Delhi to secure its own infrastructure projects across the Indian Ocean, including Iran’s Chabahar port. Meanwhile, for Pakistan, India's growing presence in nearby Iran feeds into its own concerns of encirclement. Iran — which counts India, Pakistan and China as partners — recently floated the idea of linking the two ports.
