Gwadar was nothing more than another real estate scam. Too many people in the country are lazy and like to earn money without working. Sometimes that is done through asking bribes or commissions, stealing, and at other times, speculative real estate market.
Agree, it was overhyped by Faujeets.
How do you hold land and drive up it's value? By repeating the same mantra of the establishment for the last 70 years, "strategic location". So the establishment tries to sell this scam by calling it strategic, potential naval base for China. Yet, a decade has gone by and still don't see a Chinese naval base? I'm sure they would build if you offer?
Exactly and you can't ask questions for some reason. Chalk it up to "foreign interference" or whatever. Faujeets kept spamming geo economics and yet neither Geo has improved there's only one Geo and that's the news channel...forget about the "economics".
Also, no one really lives in Western China. Xinjiang is just a desert. Not much industry there. Most of the population, along with industry, is in Eastern China. It's far cheaper to ship through sea than rail. Even if China were to ship through Pakistan, where is the rail connection? You can't feasibly build rail over the Khunjerab Pass. It's too high, cold, difficult to build rail or pipelines.
I kinda disagree with this it is in China's interest to develop more connectivity to the Eastern parts of the country. The reason why the media freaks out about the South China Sea is because they know in a war situtation they will try to blockade. If more connectivity is made to the eastern parts and to Pakistan, theoretically speaking, then supply routes won't be stopped.
But even if it was strategic, why the hell would anyone invest in Gwadar? There is no railroad infrastructure to load ports. There is not much highway if any in Balochistan.
To get from Gwadar to Quetta, the provincial capital, is a 12 hour drive.
The highway from Quetta to Karachi is very dangerous for drivers, many fatal car accidents happen there.
Karachi doesn't even have mass transit and is rated one of the most unlivable cities.
A mess all around.
Even if you have all the necessary infrastructure, what is the point if it can be blown up or truck drivers can be shot dead at the side of the road? Better yet, why would any foreigner invest in Pakistan where thanks to the establishment's policies, anyone or anything can be blown up at anytime?
Vote of No Confidence killed all enthusiasm for FDI in the foreseeable future.
Many Pakistani-Americans stuck their neck out for Pakistan for FDI and IT investment, despite Pakistan having a very negative image in the Western media. All of their hard work and sacrifices went down the drain. Despicable.
What industry exists in Balochistan? Is there any skilled labor in Balochistan? Does the manufacturing output of the entire country even produce enough goods to fill up even Karachi port? Last time I checked, the port seemed pretty empty. This country loves to build infrastructure it probably won't use.
There is, but miners and laborers are targeted by BLA. Any attempts to transfer skilled labor ends up being seen as "settler-colonialism" by BLA. The army has done a subpar job at ensuring the safety of these workers and investments.
Karachi is allowed to be held hostage which is straight up atrocious. No other country would tolerate that.
But you will definitely find housing developments and plots of land for sale in Gwadar. You will also find that the buyers are Pakistani and that there are no foreigner buyers. We can see that after a decade, aside from seeing a few structures built by China for PR and the few Urea shipments to Afghan, Gwadar remains nothing more than a failed housing development.
Very stark contrast to what we used to hear in 2016 LMAOO
