China's Flagship Port in Pakistan Shackled by Heavy Security
- Beijing increasingly vocal to security risks in Pakistan
- Southwestern province has been long racked by insurgency
Photographer: Aamir Qureshi/AFP via Getty Images
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For the thousands of attendees it was meant to be a conference to showcase China’s flagship Belt and Road project in Pakistan -- the port in southwestern Gwadar that gives Beijing access to the Arabian sea.
In the evenings the almost 8,000 delegates were wowed with cultural shows and a firework display at the newly opened five-story Gwadar Exhibition Center which was host to about 100 companies last month. Yet what really caught the attention of some investors were the hundreds of Pakistani troops patrolling the roads and guarding high-end hotel lobbies.