Caught in the crossfire: will militants derail China’s belt and road plans in Pakistan?

Observers say China has been caught in the crossfire of an ongoing battle between local separatist groups and the Pakistan government, particularly in Balochistan.

But the strategic importance of Pakistan to the belt and road projects guaranteed there would be continuous investment from China.

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China’s most high-profile belt and road infrastructure plans in Pakistan revolve around the multibillion-dollar China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), which includes dozens of infrastructure projects.

The centrepiece is the Chinese-managed Gwadar Port, the last stop of the CPEC, which links China’s northwest Xinjiang region directly to the Arabian Sea and the oil-rich Middle East.

Along with Gwadar Port, many of the CPEC projects are in Pakistan’s largest but poorest region of Balochistan, bordering Afghanistan and Iran. It is the location for nearly half of the Chinese investment in the country.

Raffaello Pantucci, a senior associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London, said Balochistan had long-standing issues with the Pakistani state.

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“China has undertaken some really big, noisy public investments in this area. And they’re being done in support of the Pakistani state, which is the adversary of the separatists,” Pantucci said.

The Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), a separatist insurgent group based in the province, has long called for independence or autonomy.

In April last year, a BLA suicide bomb attack, which killed three Chinese teachers in Karachi, drew strong condemnation from Beijing.

“The BLA is angry at the Pakistan government because it is repressive,” Pantucci said. “But I have seen little evidence that BLA targets China because of anti-China sentiments such as anti-communism or Xinjiang issues. There is also no evidence that the BLA is trying to extend their attack outside Pakistan.”

The Balochistan region is often the location of insurgent attacks, such as this bomb blast that killed four and injured 15 in April 2023. Photo: AFP

Abdul Basit, an associate research fellow at Singapore’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, said Balochistan people were hostile because they benefited little from China’s economic presence in the area.

“They believe their pre-existing social, economic and political grievances [are] because of the Chinese investment, and they view China as a new colonial power,” he said.

There has been local backlash ever since Pakistan first agreed to the belt and road deal, and hundreds of protests have taken place in Balochistan in recent years calling for China’s projects there to stop.

Following the August 13 convoy attack, the BLA has sent a public warning to China, threatening more violence – a move it also made in 2019 after gunmen stormed the luxury Pearl Continental hotel in Gwadar in a deadly attack.

Meanwhile, in 2021, Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP), also known as the Pakistani Taliban, an alliance of militant opponents to the Pakistan government, orchestrated a bus blast that killed 13 people – nine of them Chinese – making it the deadliest attack on Chinese people in years.

On the bus, engineers, surveyors and mechanical staff were on their way to a hydroelectric dam construction site in Dasu, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

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According to Pantucci, unlike the BLA, the TPP’s main goal is to overthrow the government and create a sharia country.

“Even though the TTP is increasingly angry at China and targeting it, and there seems to have some linkage with some Uygur militants, it’s more about Pakistan’s regime.”

Despite the threats and attacks, Pakistan has remained vital to China’s investment in the region. Between 2018 and 2021, direct investment in the nation rose 76.25 per cent, according to China’s Ministry of Commerce.

The money inflow showed the strategic importance of Pakistan for China’s global economic position, especially for the belt and road strategy, observers said.

The risk China faces in Balochistan is just non-state actors who carry out attacks one or two times a year.

Abdul Basit

However, Balochistan – the base of both the BLA and TTP, which are responsible for nearly all major assaults targeting the Chinese – would continue to be the investment hub for China’s belt and road because of its strategic importance.

“For China, the important thing is an opening to the Arabian Sea,” Basit said, referring to the deep seaport in Gwadar.

And the attacks in the area would not affect China’s strong trading ties with Pakistan, he said.

“For China, the Indo-Pacific has the US, India, Australia, Japan and other countries making an alliance … but the risks China faces in Balochistan is just non-state actors who carry out attacks one or two times a year,” he said.

In 2021, trade volume between the two countries reached US$27.8 billion, a striking year-on-year increase of 59.17 per cent. Meanwhile, China’s investment in Pakistan reached US$7.49 billion.

Pakistani security officials inspect the Chaman Railway Station after a bomb was found in July 2023. Several insurgency groups operate in the Balochistan region. photo: EPA-EFE

Zhu Yongbiao, a professor at Lanzhou University’s school of politics and international relations, said attacks by the militant groups presented the main danger for China’s belt and road projects in Pakistan, but they were far from forming any real threat to China.

“It took these insurgent groups more than 12 months to carry out an attack on China now, which failed. From this standpoint, the security generally has improved,” Zhu said.

Meanwhile, the cost of security would still make private and small investors reluctant to invest in Pakistan, but he said that was unlikely to have a substantial impact.

“There will be a certain impact, that’s for sure, especially for some small and medium-sized investors; it will discourage them from investing. However, the impact of a certain event leading to a substantial cut of long-term China investment is unlikely.”

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Chinese companies have been trying to build up their own security, but this has been met with reluctance from Pakistan, according to Andrew Small, a senior transatlantic fellow with the German Marshall Fund of the United States.

“The Pakistani security services have put in place an elaborate range of protective measures for CPEC – and for non-CPEC – projects … though there are questions from the Chinese side about how some of them succeeded,” Small said.

“The result has been demands from the Chinese government to increase the presence of their own security personnel, which the Pakistani side has been reluctant to agree to.”

Last year, Pakistan reportedly opposed a Chinese security firm operating legally in the country after the suicide bomb attack in Karachi.

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A source related to the Chinese security firm industry, who declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the issue, said there were not many security options for Chinese companies.

“Most state-owned companies are required by the National Development and Reform Commission and State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission to hire security forces. This is mandatory,” the source said, adding that they could only hire Chinese security personnel.

“But the market of Chinese security firms operating overseas is not fully commercialised. If some companies want to look for a good security agency in the market, they may be disappointed.”

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The source also said that Chinese people could not be legally equipped with weapons, especially guns, overseas, and most companies still needed to get help from local police and the army.

A Chinese professor in South Asia studies, who also did not want to be named, said there were legal barriers around the use of Chinese security firms in Pakistan, and taking that path may worsen China’s reputation in the country.

“We do have some security firms operating in Pakistan, but it’s largely useless,” he said. “There is a legal barrier. Pakistan is not willing to cede security rights. We don’t want it either. It’s too sensitive. It’s like extraterritoriality.”

South China Morning Post