Subtitles section Play video Print subtitles On this episode of China Uncensored, the Chinese Communist Party loves Pakistan'sprime beachfront property. Welcome back to China Uncensored. I'm Chris Chappell. This is Gwadar. It used to be a sleepy fishing town on the coast of Pakistan. But over the past several years, with Chinese investment of hundreds of millions of dollars… …this once a sleepy fishing town has morphed into a deep-sea port … …and a giant gateway for trade. Now controlled by the Chinese regime. Ah, progress. The state-owned China Overseas Ports Holding Company Limited, or COPHC, “has proudly taken over” and will be calling the shots for the next 40 years. The port, Gwadar, is near the mouth of the Persian Gulf. That area—the Strait of Hormuz— is a key shipping route. About 20% of the world's oil flows through there, plus a huge quantity of regular cargo. Gwadar is especially important to China because it connects the western part of China to the Arabian Sea through Pakistan. And that gives China easier access to the Middle East, Africa and Europe. The port is a lynchpin linking land and sea in Xi Jinping's One Belt One Road Initiative. One Belt One Road is a network of trade corridors that connect China with the rest of the world and make it easier for China to acquire raw materials, export Chinese goods, and project its influence across the globe. The trillion dollar One Belt One Road is marketed as the “new silk road,” a purely economic initiative meant to evoke a romantic age where silk flowed west along ancient trade routes. Only now, instead of silk, it's cheap plastic toys. The Chinese Communist Party insists that One Belt One Road is about peace and prosperity. But not everybody is so sure. The Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank, points to the “string of pearls” theory. The “string of pearls” is the idea that China plans to develop a string of military bases along the Indian Ocean to support extended naval missions and expand its military reach. The report says that even if China doesn't establish naval outposts directly, by investing in trade-related infrastructure around the world, China is creating places “with Chinese characteristics.” These are locations that can serve as support for the Chinese Navy, but technically let China say they're not expanding military bases. “What, us expand our military? No! We want 'prosperity for all— not global hegemony.'” But, places with Chinese characteristics would still “affect the security calculus of India and the US in the region, as well as set a precedent, potentially for application in Europe.” In other words, these places could give the Chinese Communist Party similar advantages to having military bases, but the Party gets to deny that they're military bases. So they can call the military “string of pearls” part of their trade corridor. But in Pakistan, China is bold enough to call a spade a spade. At least that's what two separate reports claim— from the South China Morning Post and the Washington Times. China is building a joint naval and air base for Chinese forces, just a short distance up the coast from— you guessed it— the port of Gwadar that they now control. Sources “familiar with the deal” say a group of Chinese People's Liberation Army officers met with Pakistani military officials in December and hammered out a deal that would see the port of Jiwani, about 15 miles away from Gwadar, become a Chinese military base. It would have a small airfield be upgraded to “handle large Chinese military aircraft.” And it might also require the forced relocation of “scores of residents living in the area.” Don't worry, the Chinese regime is very skilled at forced relocations. They're scheduled to break ground for the base in Jiwani this July. Jiwani will be China's second offshore military base. Its first offshore military base was launched last year— in the small, hilarious African nation of Djibouti. The former Foreign Secretary of India, Kanwal Sibal, is not surprised. He predicted it back in 2014, when China was getting extra chummy with Pakistan over the mega-port in Gwadar. He wrote that “China will, inevitably, follow up with its commercial footholds in the Indian Ocean with naval ones.” It's not always great to be right. Ok, it usually is. Retired US Army Reserve Colonel Lawrence Sellin writes that China's Jiwani base a sign of “Chinese militarisation of Pakistan, in particular, and in the Indian Ocean.” He said the combination of Chinese military bases in Djibouti and Pakistan would “not only [be] capable of dominating vital sea lanes in the Arabian Sea, but boxing-in U.S bases in the Persian Gulf” and outflanking the US navy. And the retired Colonel warns that more Chinese military expansion could be on the way, using what he calls “debt-trap” tactics. That's when the Chinese regime lends you tons of money. And then when you can't pay it off, they offer to forgive the debt in exchange for strategic infrastructure or natural resources. It's like borrowing money you can't pay back from your friendly neighborhood loan shark. Except instead of breaking your legs, he makes you lease him your legs for 99 years. Like what the Chinese Communist Party did in Sri Lanka. “There is concern that the Chinese will transform its 99-year lease of the Sri Lankan port of Hambantota into another naval base, the exact 'debt-trap' method the Chinese used in Djibouti.” So then the Party would have a naval base right off the southeast coast of India. To match its new Pakistani military base, which is just to the west of India. India is not happy. Especially because they've seen what happens when China builds bases, sorry, islands, in the South China Sea. So what do you think about China's plans to build a military base in Pakistan? Leave your comments below. Once again, I'm your host, Chris Chappell.