trackwhack
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While our government and policy makers lag, China is intelligently plugging one of its biggest strategic vulnerability - Malacca Strait.
As of today, we can safely estimate that more than 40% of China trade passes through the Malacca Strait. But this situation will no longer be relevant by the turn of the decade.
Trends in shipping through the Baltic shows that in another three to five years more than 50% of Current Chinese shipping volume could pass through Malacca, i.e virtually all of its trade with Europe. The only trade that will still flow through Malacca will be trade with India and Africa and Oil from the Gulf.
However, with Gwadar fully functional and China trying to buy Chabbar now, all African trade will be moved by rail or truck through Pakistan. If they manage a base in Maldives then they effectively ensure that we cant create a naval blockade, with an already existing base in Gwadar and another in Hambantota. If Chabbar falls, then thats 3 naval bases, so forget about a naval blockade.
Oil pipelines are being laid at a ferocious pace. Massive contracts with Russia which will supply all of its oil through pipelines over their own territory have already been signed. All of the former Soviet states have also signed over a major chunk of their reserves. Gulf oil will be easily mated to these pipelines and new ones through Pakistan rendering oil tankers obsolete. Oil from Africa will again be siphoned off at Gwadar and Chabbar.
In fact the situation may be so bad that India can potentially face a naval blockade from oil supplies from the Gulf and Africa, effectively rendering us impotent.
It was so important to grab the offer that Mauritius made about those two islands. They would have given us massive territorial waters and an effective outpost. Why oh god are our policy makers so stupid and short sighted.
I could make this a painfully long article with numbers and projections, but this is the inference.
I dont see Malacca as strategically that significant in the coming decades.
p.s. China may have also smartly avoided a major chunk of Americas AsiaPac strategy by making Diego Garcia irrelevant
As of today, we can safely estimate that more than 40% of China trade passes through the Malacca Strait. But this situation will no longer be relevant by the turn of the decade.
Trends in shipping through the Baltic shows that in another three to five years more than 50% of Current Chinese shipping volume could pass through Malacca, i.e virtually all of its trade with Europe. The only trade that will still flow through Malacca will be trade with India and Africa and Oil from the Gulf.
However, with Gwadar fully functional and China trying to buy Chabbar now, all African trade will be moved by rail or truck through Pakistan. If they manage a base in Maldives then they effectively ensure that we cant create a naval blockade, with an already existing base in Gwadar and another in Hambantota. If Chabbar falls, then thats 3 naval bases, so forget about a naval blockade.
Oil pipelines are being laid at a ferocious pace. Massive contracts with Russia which will supply all of its oil through pipelines over their own territory have already been signed. All of the former Soviet states have also signed over a major chunk of their reserves. Gulf oil will be easily mated to these pipelines and new ones through Pakistan rendering oil tankers obsolete. Oil from Africa will again be siphoned off at Gwadar and Chabbar.
In fact the situation may be so bad that India can potentially face a naval blockade from oil supplies from the Gulf and Africa, effectively rendering us impotent.
It was so important to grab the offer that Mauritius made about those two islands. They would have given us massive territorial waters and an effective outpost. Why oh god are our policy makers so stupid and short sighted.
I could make this a painfully long article with numbers and projections, but this is the inference.
I dont see Malacca as strategically that significant in the coming decades.
p.s. China may have also smartly avoided a major chunk of Americas AsiaPac strategy by making Diego Garcia irrelevant
