Post-Soviet disintegration, the global competition for untapped oil and gas reserves in Central Asia, the five breakaway countries from former Soviet Union, was also about controlling the vital energy supply lines. Dubbed as the ‘New Great Game’, the competitors were not only major powers such as the US, Russia and China but also some regional powers such as Israel, India, Iran, Pakistan and Turkey.

My argument is that Gwadar and Chabahar ports are a continuation of the New Great Game of the early 1990s. When China considered establishing a port in Gwadar back in 2002, Indian responded with a plan to develop a port in Chabahar, Iran, back in 2003 when Atal Bihari Vajpayee signed a deal with Tehran.

While the establishment of Chabahar port suffered due to myriad international sanctions on Iran, China kept on developing Gwadar. Recently, in response to Chinese investment of $46 billion in Pakistan in a number of energy and infrastructure projects and developing Gwadar port, India announced investing $500 million to develop Chabahar port as a trading hub.

India has two-fold purposes in developing Chabahar port. As China’s regional competitor, it wants to develop its economic stakes in Central Asia, Afghanistan and Eurasia and Europe at large. Seen this way, Chabahar port is meant to rival Chinese constructed port at Gwadar. At a mere 72-km east of Chabahar, Gwadar port, besides facilitating China trade with Central Asia, Eurasia and Europe, is Chinese launching pad to accessing the strategically important straits of Hormuz, which connects Persian Gulf with Gulf of Oman, and the Arabian Sea.

Similarly, Chabahar port is meant to provide India access to Afghan and Central Asian markets on the one hand and to offset alleged Chinese ascendancy in the Gulf of Oman and Strait of Hormuz on the other. After all, Gwadar provides China proximity to Strait of Hormuz and serves as an outlet to monitor Indian sea movement. Additionally, Gwadar is well poised to function as a Chinese outpost to observe American movement in the Persian Gulf too.

Strait of Hormuz is located between Iran in the north and Oman in the south. The strait also connects Persian Gulf alternately dubbed as Arabian Gulf in the west with Gulf of Oman in the east. Persian Gulf is bounded by Iran in the north, Iraq and Kuwait in the west and Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar and UAE in the south.

According to US Energy Information Administration, in 2011, 35 per cent of global seaborne oil trade took place through Strait of Hormuz, which accounted for 20 per cent of oil trade worldwide. In the year, a total of 17 million barrels of oil per day transited the strait, making it the world’s most important oil choke point. Similarly, some 85 per cent of crude oil, 14 crude oil tankers per day, was exported through the strait to Asian countries with Japan, India, South Korea and China being the largest importers. The strait, 21 miles wide at its narrowest point, is deep enough to manage world’s heaviest crude oil tankers in access of 150,000 tons.

Both Gwadar and Chabahar are important ports for trade and energy purposes. For China, Gwadar port will significantly reduce energy cost and time. Currently, it takes 45 days for Chinese exports to reach Middle East and Africa through South China Sea to Indian Ocean to Strait of Malacca. This will be reduced to just 10 days when Chinese exports go through Gwadar port to Central Asia to West Asia and Persian Gulf onwards to Middle East and Africa. This way, China will find new markets in Central Asia and Eurasia too.

Likewise, the India estimate is that it costs 30 per cent less and half a journey for Indian exports to reach Russia through Chabahar than to transit the freight, via sea, through St Petersburg on the Gulf of Finland. During Modi’s visit to Iran, Delhi also sealed agreements with Tehran, which allow India to establish an aluminum plant in Iran. Of greater significance is Indian access to energy rich Central Asia through Iran via Chabahar given the fact that India is the world’s fourth largest energy consumer.

No less significant is India’s success in bringing Kabul closer to Delhi. India’s separate signing of trade and transport agreements with Afghanistan and Iran with Chabahar as a trade hub is an attempt to minimise Afghanistan’s reliance on Pakistan’s Karachi port. With India’s completion of 218-km road from Delaram Nimruz in western Afghanistan up to Zarang in the northern border of Iran in 2009 as a case in point, India intends to build rail and road links in Afghanistan to connect the landlocked country with Iran’s Chabahar port.

India’s sealing of $500 million Chabahar project with Iran is a deal of 12 agreements between the two related to development of Chabahar port and related infrastructure including rail and road links.

For Pakistan, India, by developing Chabahar port, demonstrated the projection of its power beyond South Asia. Delhi has successfully bypassed Islamabad in its transit with Afghanistan and Central Asia.

For sure, we are on the threshold of a new episode of an old drama whereby two regional powers, China and India, are using local proxies as pawns in their crusades to dominate regional trade and energy routes and markets in South Asia, west Asia, Central Asia and Eurasia.