China, Pakistan discuss mutually strategic Tashkurgan airport

Chinese officials assured the Pakistani business community and investors that work on the Tashkurgan airport will be accelerated, to give Islamabad a ‘strategically vital’ position against its neighbor

New Delhi: Coming to the rescue of Pakistan against India – Beijing has assured Islamabad that it will accelerate construction work on the Tashkurgan airport in Xinjiang, overlooking the regions of Gilgit-Baltistan.

The move comes after India featured Gilgit-Baltistan in the national weather bulletins – taking a jibe on Pakistan’s Supreme Court’s decision to hold polls in the regions. 

According to a report, a small team of military officers and engineers from Beijing reached Pakistan on 12 May. They were part of the Chinese military delegation which landed in Islamabad with 17-tonnes of medical equipment meant for COVID-19 relief. 

The report added that after handing over the COVID-19 supplies, the team held a joint meeting with Pakistani government officials, the business community, and investors supporting the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). They assured them that the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) would change the fate of the current century, and the infrastructure projects would help Islamabad overcome energy deficiencies. 

The team also held a detailed discussion on the ongoing CPEC projects, including the Tashkurgan airport. While presenting a timeline of construction activities of the airport, the CPEC officials hailed the airport project as ‘strategically vital’. They added that it would elevate Pakistan’s position in the subcontinent against its neighbor.

Detailed reports of the meeting were published in Pashto-language newspapers of the region, which suggested that China races to complete the Tashkurgan airport so as to primarily facilitate its mining operations in the PoK regions of Gilgit-Baltistan.

Islamabad has been openly and illegally awarding more than 2000 leases in Gilgit-Baltistan to Beijing for the mining of gold, uranium, and molybdenum, widely used in space technology. China also has its claws tightly gripped on the uranium deposits in the Hunza-Nagar district. Mining companies from Beijing have carried out both tunnel building and mineral exploration operations in the Chapursan Valley. 

Chinese exploitation of Gilgit-Baltistan has been going on since 2010. The signing of the CPEC in 2013 was an attempt to give Beijing’s activities in PoK a sort of legitimate look in front of the international community. 

Tashkurgan Airport 

Tashkurgan is a small trading city nestled on the Pamir plateau along the Karakoram Highway. The city gained significance following China’s $46 billion economic corridor linking Kashgar in Xinjiang, through Tashkurgan and across into the PoK all the way to the Gwadar port. 

The corridor envisages a network of roads, rail links as well as pipelines which provide a direct source for oil import for China from West Asia and the Arabian Sea.  According to Chinese media reports, the launch ceremony of the airport began on 26 April. The total investment of this project is about $230 million.

Constructed 3,200 feet above sea-level – the airport will provide access to the remote area of the plateau to China. According to the airport layout, there will be a runway measuring 3,800 meters long and 45 meters wide, a terminal of 3,000 square meters, and an apron with four stands, among other facilities. The airport will be able to accommodate 160,000 passengers and 400 tons of cargo annually. 

The construction is expected to complete by the first half of 2022.