Quote Originally Posted by Ray View Post
China is concerned about making certain her strategic rise in the world and thus to safeguard the uninterrupted flow of strategic resources from the world to China. She is pragmatic to realise that the Straits of Malacca is a chokepoint that can be interdicted to the detriment of her strategic goals.

Being far reaching in insight, China has been assiduous in building up her allies who could ensure a lifeline into China even if the Straits of Malacca is interdicted. To that end, China has Myanmar and Pakistan on her side for access to the Indian Ocean via Bay of Bengal and Arabian Sea respectively and while she has built the transportation and oil link from Myanmar, she is on the way to do so through Pakistan from Geadar.
Speaking of trying to replace the Straits of Malacca with the proposed links through Myanmar and Gwadar is like speaking of replacing the aorta with a couple of capillaries. Look at the volume of material coming through the straits, not only resources flowing to China but the equally important flow of manufactured products coming from China, and compare that to the actual capacity of the Pakistan and Myanmar links and you get a sense of the disproportion. These efforts are potentially useful to China, but they are not game changers, especially as any power that could interdict the Straits of Malacca (realistically that means the US, or possibly India) could also interdict traffic in and out of Myanmar or Gwadar. China could potentially develop routes for energy inflow that would be much more difficult to target, but that involves pipeline routes direct from Russia, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan, efforts that are much larger and much more important than the Myanmar pipeline and the proposed Gwadar pipeline. They would not, of course, resolve the problem of moving Chinese exports in a potential conflict situation.

I don't think it's accurate to say that Pakistan is central to Chinese strategic interests, not least because the Chinese understand that Pakistan is an unreliable partner and would not be stupid enough to build Pakistan into a central role in any strategic plan. Pakistan is a potentially useful asset in any possible conflict with the US or India, and also a potential liability as a fefuge and point of moral and physical resupply for destabilizing elements in China. That puts the Chinese in a situation where they have to seek a balance that will inevitably be imperfect, and it will be interesting to see how they proceed.