It appears that Pakistan has finally allowed China to build a military base in Gwadar, Balochistan. The rumor, which has been circulating for a long time, is reportedly confirmed by a classified document related to a Strategic Cooperation Forum held last January between China and Pakistan. According to the document, in the possession of a couple of Pakistani journalists, the Islamabad government gave “positive assurances of the highest level” to its Chinese counterparts for the strategic use of Gwadar “in due course.” The document also adds that Pakistan “formally pledges” to uphold this commitment. And that Pakistani officials would already have received orders to “recognize the importance of Gwadar in China's overall military strategy and to inform their Chinese counterparts that their requirements for joint strategic use of the port would be met.” According to the same document, there would also be plans to establish Sino-Pakistani 'security companies' authorized to operate inside Pakistan to ensure the safety of Chinese workers. Let's face it: the Chinese military and intelligence have already been operating in the Gwadar area for years, as evidenced by various videos posted by local residents and accounts of the Baloch escaping the hospitality of Pakistani intelligence. Just as 'informal' teams of criminals in the pay of intelligence operating throughout the province are nothing new. The official concession to build a Chinese military base in Gwadar, however, holds political and geopolitical significance capable of further disrupting the already messy regional balance. Gwadar, located on the shores of the Arabian Sea in southern Balochistan, is of immense strategic importance. Located near the mouth of the Persian Gulf, the port is a gateway to vital shipping lanes. For China, it offers a direct route to the Arabian Sea, bypassing the chokepoint of the Malacca Strait, heavily monitored by U.S. forces. Not for nothing, Gwadar is the cornerstone of China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). Until now, at least officially, Gwadar has been talked about as a commercial port and as 'the next Dubai' to be developed and launched to attract international investors, tourists and companies. Joint flags of China and Pakistan have already been flying over the port for years, and the area has been virtually fortified, cutting off local people from access to the sea, again officially to provide for the safety of workers and tourists. Curiously, however, despite the fact that the port has been in operation for years now, not only has it failed to attract any regular deep-sea shipping lines, but in its heyday it recorded a traffic of just 22 commercial vessels per year. Not only that: Balochistan is effectively off limits to tourists, travelers, journalists, aid workers, and, apart from the golf courses built in Gwadar for the use of the military and their minions, apparently no shopping malls have sprung up to attract legions of vacationers. Local people have long argued that the 'economic development project' actually hides precise military and strategic aspects, and it turns out they were right. Gwadar was built, like all Chinese ports, so that it could be used for both military and commercial purposes. And Beijing's ambitions for Balochistan have long worried Washington. A military base in Gwadar would be a game changer across the geopolitical region: it would empower China to project forces outside its own region and free it from dependence on maritime energy transport routes in Southeast Asia, while undermining Washington's containment strategy against Beijing. As early as 2020, a U.S. Naval War College report highlighted the risk of China turning Gwadar into a “strategic strongpoint” that would grant it access to the Persian Gulf region in a hypothetical war. The report noted that Chinese investments in Gwadar so far “do not depend primarily on commercial returns” and are instead strategic in nature. The findings quoted U.S. intelligence assessments that China aspires to establish a network of military and naval bases around the world. The Naval War College report also contained a strategic warning: “If relations between China and India and between China and the United States continue to deteriorate rapidly, China may decide that a confrontational posture is inevitable...In this case, overt militarization of the Chinese presence in Gwadar may appear attractive, even if it provokes harsh countermeasures.” Apparently, they say, the Pakistani military, which traditionally prefers to deal with Americans rather than the Chinese for whom on a personal and cultural level they have no sympathy and whom they do not trust, has found itself backed into a corner by the economic crisis in which the country has been struggling for some time now and Washington's unwillingness in recent years to come to Islamabad's aid both economically and militarily. According to a 2023 report by the U.S. Institute of Peace, Beijing has now become Islamabad's main supplier of conventional weapons, strategic platforms and sophisticated weapons with attack capabilities, as well as a partner in the joint development of next-generation military aircraft. According to the report, military cooperation between the two states rivals China's higher-profile relations with Russia. The fact is that for years now Pakistan has been trying to juggle alliances and blackmail between China and the United States by theorizing 'zero-sum' relations. “What the Pakistani military prefers is to maintain a balance between military relations with China and the U.S.,” said Adam Weinstein, deputy director of the Quincy Institute's Middle East program. ‘They believe that if things are balanced, both sides will have an incentive to keep relations strong’ and thus open the purse strings and arms. And yet, until last year, Washington and the International Monetary Fund had tightened the aforementioned strings, and China, in the same January forum, had refused not only to renegotiate the terms of Pakistan's debt but had apparently demanded an immediate settlement of several maturities. Hence, it seems, the promise of the military base at Gwadar and the demand for an upgrade in Beijing's economic and military assistance in response to possible U.S. retaliation. And hence, perhaps, also the renewed calls in recent months by U.S. diplomats for financial aid to Pakistan in the ever-present 'fight against terrorism' generated there, the silence on the most rigged elections in the country's history, and Washington's renewed complacency with the world's most dangerous country. The strategy of blackmail, in Islamabad, still and always works.