The China-Pakistan alliance may lead to more violence, terror
The investments that China has already sunk into CPEC and its strategy of ensuring India is kept under check in South Asia mean that Beijing will keep ploughing ahead to take over Pakistan inch-by-inch
The suicide bombing in Karachi on April 26, which killed three Chinese tutors, is a glaring sign that China’s bet on gaining influence in Pakistan is a risky gamble that is backfiring. The targeted attack, claimed by the separatist Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), was not the first strike against the Chinese in Pakistan. In July 2021, 10 Chinese engineers and workers were killed and 26 more injured in a suicide blast in Dasu, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, which was attributed to the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). Numerous other attacks and abductions aimed at Chinese citizens and diplomats have taken place since 2017. China has committed over $65 billion in loans and investments in Pakistan and has trumpeted the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) as the crown jewel of its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
The serial insecurity faced by Chinese citizens in Pakistan conveys that many Pakistanis do not buy the official narrative of their government and of Chinese propaganda outlets that China is lifting Pakistan out of poverty. The grievances and ideologies of the BLA and the TTP are varied, but if both are gunning for Chinese soft targets in Pakistan, it means the disillusionment about what China is doing to its “all-weather-ally” goes deep.
The neo-colonial conditionalities imposed on Pakistan under the CPEC deals and the lack of consultation with affected Pakistanis along the corridor’s construction sites have often triggered non-violent protests against Chinese exploitation and the resultant loss of sovereignty for Pakistan. The terrorist attacks on the Chinese in Pakistan ought to be seen in this wider context of perceived enslavement of Pakistan. Yet, Pakistan’s establishment has not heeded popular concerns about the ill-effects of the Chinese debt trap because the army and its associated corporations are reaping a windfall from CPEC. The CPEC Authority, an apex institution “striving for the success of CPEC and socio-economic development of people of Pakistan”, is dominated by Pakistan’s military. Appeasing “creditor number one” China has not been easy for Pakistan’s politically fractured civilian politicians and their ineffective bureaucratic machinery. Therefore, the task of keeping China happy has been appropriated by the army.
As Pakistani citizens reel under record inflation, terrible power shortages and unmanageable debt-servicing obligations, can they be blamed for feeling frustrated for not receiving any of the touted benefits of Chinese assistance? The fact that Pakistan keeps applying endlessly for financial bailouts from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to stay macro-economically afloat, even as Pakistani elites praise relations with China as “higher than mountains, deeper than oceans, and sweeter than honey”, carries a bitter taste.
Owing to the hegemonic intent and devastating effects of China’s presence in Pakistan, the backlash against the former within Pakistan will continue in a variety of forms. Yet, China’s obsession with counterbalancing India by propping up Pakistan, and China’s geo-political objective of accessing the Indian Ocean via Pakistan’s Makran coast, are higher order priorities in Beijing.
The investments that China has already sunk into CPEC and its strategy of ensuring India is kept under check in South Asia so that it cannot compete with China across Asia and the Indo-Pacific mean that Beijing will keep ploughing ahead with its fraught endeavour of trying to take over Pakistan inch-by-inch.
China’s Communist Party is so outraged at the ineptitude and inability of the Pakistani State to protect Chinese citizens that one of its loudest bullhorns, journalist Hu Xijin, said that the Chinese military should launch “direct air strikes” against terrorists inside Pakistan “after getting approval of the Pakistani government”. Such an eventuality is not inconceivable, given the utter web of dependence China has spun to keep Pakistan under its sway. But if Pakistan is China’s biggest problem child, one must not forget the converse reality — China is Pakistan’s worst exploiter. This mutual vicious cycle is unfortunately bound to produce more rounds of violence and terrorism in the future.
Sreeram Chaulia is dean at the Jindal School of International Affairs The views expressed are personal
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