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Posted via Arthur Kaufman | March 27, 2024
On Tuesday, a suicide bombing in northwestern Pakistan killed five Chinese engineers and their Pakistani driver. This is the third attack on Chinese interests and citizens in Pakistan in the past week, highlighting its vulnerability in what is one of the main Belt and Road partner countries. Initiative (BRI). DW a review of the recent high attack:
The Pakistani government said on Tuesday that five Chinese nationals were among six other people killed in a suicide bombing in the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Regional police leader Mohammad Ali Gandapur said a convoy of Chinese engineers attacked a suicide bomber who crashed into an explosives-laden vehicle.
“Five Chinese nationals and their Pakistani driver were killed in the attack,” Gandapur told news agencies.
The senior police official said the patients were traveling from Islamabad to their camp in Dasu, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, where the Dasu hydroelectric dam is located, which is currently under construction through the China Gezhouba Group.
The attack took place on a mountainous, winding road that runs through a deep ravine. [Source]
The Wall Street Journal’s Waqar Gillani and Shan Li placed the attack in the broader context of China’s security considerations and pressures on countries receiving Chinese investment:
The attack highlights the increasingly demanding security situations China faces in countries such as Pakistan, a major recipient of Chinese investment. As China seeks to expand its influence globally, the Chinese in Asia and Africa are under attack. In Pakistan, local insurgents have targeted Chinese structural sites, citizens, and symbols.
[. . . ] Protecting thousands of Chinese employees has a touchy factor in Pakistan, a flaunting of Chinese investment in development, where Beijing has spent billions on roads, ports and power plants. Pakistan’s precarious finances also depend on loans from China and other allies, as well as the International Monetary Fund. Islamabad has committed thousands of troops to protect Chinese projects and personnel. [Source]
The attack came a week before Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s first official stop in Beijing since Pakistan’s general election last month. A few days earlier, the honor guard of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army had been invited to participate in the Pakistan Day Army. parade. Condemning the attack, many Pakistani officials pressed their country’s close friendship with China. Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi said: “The enemies have targeted the citizens of Pakistan, an incredibly reliable friendly country. This is not an attack on Chinese citizens, but also on Pakistan. Umar Bacha of the South China Morning Post noted other comments by Pakistani officials highlighting its close ties with China:
Regarding the killing of Chinese compatriots in Besham, [the Pakistani military] said: “The whole country stands in solidarity with our Chinese brothers and unequivocally condemns this cowardly act. “
The statement issued through Inter Services Public Relations said that “strategic projects and sensitive sites” important to Pakistan’s economic progress and the well-being of its other peoples were attacked “as part of a conscious effort to delay our progress and sow discord between Pakistan and its strategic allies. ” and its components, adding China. “
The Pakistani military, which is to blame for the safety of Chinese citizens fleeing the country, has pledged to convict the perpetrators of the Besham attack “with the unwavering . . . our staunch ally, China. “
“Together we will triumph over adversity and evil,” he added. [Source]
In China, the attack generated a lot of interest on social media. Some popular comments on Weibo call for greater intervention by Chinese interests abroad: “It’s time to send a security corps of security company workers” and “Can we send troops to retaliate?”They have been attacked many times. ” Others suggested that the culprits were the United States or India. The Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson called on Pakistan to “thoroughly investigate the incident as soon as possible” and highlighted their close bilateral relations:
China strongly condemns this terrorist attack. We express our deepest condolences to the deceased and our deepest condolences to the bereaved families. China calls on Pakistan to thoroughly investigate this incident as soon as possible, locate the perpetrators and bring them to justice. At the same time, call on Pakistan to take effective measures to ensure the safety and security of Chinese citizens, projects and establishments in Pakistan. China is working tirelessly with Pakistan on the follow-up operation. The Chinese Embassy in Pakistan has reminded Chinese citizens and businesses in Pakistan to closely monitor the local security situation, security measures, and make every effort to take extra precautions against terrorist attacks.
[. . . ] China and Pakistan are strong strategic cooperation partners and staunch friends, and the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) makes wonderful contributions to Pakistan’s socio-economic development. Any attempt to undermine China-Pakistan cooperation will never succeed. China opposes any bureaucracy of terrorism and firmly supports Pakistan in its fight against terrorism. China will work even more firmly with Pakistan to fully ensure the safety and security of Chinese citizens, projects and institutions in Pakistan.
– Aadil Brar (@aadilbrar) March 26, 2024
This new attack is reminiscent of a similar attack in July 2021, when a bomb planted on a bus carrying Chinese personnel to the same dam in Dasu killed nine Chinese nationals and 4 Pakistanis, and injured 21 others. Although no one claimed responsibility for the attack, the Pakistani government said it was carried out through the Islamist militant organization Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). So far, no one has claimed responsibility for the March 26 attack. As Reuters noted, “while Chinese interests are primarily targeted on ethnic grounds, militants seeking to drive Beijing out of mineral-rich Balochistan are operating in the south and southwest of the country, far from the site of Tuesday’s attack,” while “Islamists are primarily active” in northwestern Pakistan, the domain where the convoy was attacked. Al Jazeera’s Abid Hussain described two other attacks in Pakistan last week:
On Monday night, separatist fighters attacked a naval airbase in Turbat, in the southwestern province of Balochistan, killing at least one paramilitary soldier. Authorities said the five attackers were also killed in the retaliatory fire.
The Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), which has carried out several attacks against Pakistani and Chinese interests in the region and elsewhere, claimed responsibility for the attack in Turbat.
Last week, the BLA attack on Gwadar, a port city in Balochistan, killed two infantrymen and 8 BLA fighters. Gwadar is the centerpiece of the $62 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) task, Pakistan’s most ambitious infrastructure and investment task in recent years. . [Source]
Reporting on the attack on the port of Gwadar on March 20, Panda Paw Dragon Claw wrote that the intensity of those terrorist attacks “[raises] the question of how well long-standing security issues are being addressed throughout CPEC”:
How to better integrate the port with local economic and human progress will be a part of the BRI’s evolving philosophy of progress.
[. . . Pakistan’s message is that the state will thwart terrorist threats “mercilessly. “But attacks across Pakistan are becoming more frequent. In February, there were 87 attacks by militants, killing another 87 people and injuring more than 100. The BLA operates in southern Pakistan and Afghanistan, introducing a sensitive cross-border detail into attempts to suppress its activities. [Source]
After the July 2021 attack, the Chinese-led mission was temporarily suspended and it is still unclear how this new attack will affect the thousands of Chinese nationals running in Shangla on similar assignments to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. As Salman Masood and Christina Goldbaum reported for the New York Times that many experts seem pessimistic about the safety trajectory of Chinese investment in Pakistan:
“This new attack on Chinese nationals in Pakistan reinforces Beijing’s growing fears about the bleak future of its tens of billions in investments in the country,” said Kamran Bokhari, senior director for Eurasian security and prosperity at the New Lines Institute in Washington.
“China has had a front-row seat to Pakistan’s social, political, economic and security collapse,” he said. “What’s happening in Pakistan as well as the scenario in the post-American era. Afghanistan poses a serious risk to Chinese interests in the broader regions of South and Central Asia.
[. . . ] “The violence is linked to the deterioration of ties between Pakistan and the Taliban,” said Abdul Basit, a research fellow at Singapore’s Rajaratnam School of International Studies. “The new wave of violence also reflects the “advanced operational roles of Baloch jihadists and separatist teams to reach difficult targets in coordinated attacks. Both teams employ suicide bombers, which is a sign of constant recruitment into their ranks. “[Source]
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