India already feels surrounded by China and has greatly enlarged its own naval base at Karwar, in the country's south, partly in response to Chinese construction work in Gwadar.

Furthermore, a presence of some sort at Gwadar makes estimable sense for Beijing in the abstract.

New roads, a railroad, and a gas pipeline are building northeast from Gwadar to the KKH, then into China.

They know that a pipeline network from Gwadar into Central Asia and China must await the political stabilization of Afghanistan -- and Pakistan, too.

Until such a day, Gwadar, while a potentially useful coaling station for a budding Chinese navy, constitutes, in essence, a road to nowhere.