CEHNGDU, China, May 16 (UPI) -- The joint Pakistani-Chinese JF-17 Thunder fighter jet successfully completed its maiden test flight in Chengdu, China.
In a sign of the increasing cooperation between the two countries, Pakistani Air Force chief Air Marshal Tanvir Mehmood Ahmed was invited for the maiden flight.
As India and the United States grow closer, China and Pakistan have begun to collaborate on a number of joint military and civilian projects. The most important is the $2 billion joint development of Pakistan's Gwadar port on the Arabian Sea, near the Strait of Hormuz. Gwadar will contain both a civilian and a military port.
Western analysts are closely watching China's interest in Gwadar, seeing it as part of Beijing's "string of pearls" strategy to provide a chain of naval bases from the Persian Gulf to Chinese waters to protect China's increasing imports of Middle Eastern oil.
Islamabad has great hopes for the Gwadar commercial port as the terminus for exports of Pakistani natural gas from Balochistan province.
