Srikanth Kondapalli.
Days after an attack in Karachi in which two Chinese engineers were killed, Pakistan is hosting the 23rd Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) meeting of Heads of Government on October 15-16. The Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), which claimed responsibility for a spate of killings of Chinese nationals in Pakistan, has vowed to escalate its struggle and bring back into focus their plight in Balochistan.
Pakistani authorities have imposed a blanket ban on the movement of people and businesses in the run-up to the meeting, to ensure an incident-free summit. Ironically, the SCO meeting is to discuss ways to counter terrorism, although Pakistan has been the hub of terrorism for decades.
The Chinese nationals who were killed in the October 6 attack outside Karachi airport were working for a Sino-Pak joint venture, Port Qasim Electric Power Company. In August this year, the BLA killed 53 people near Quetta. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif termed it an attack on Chinese-funded projects. In another attack that month on a military convoy in Gwadar, no Chinese casualties were reported. Usually, the Chinese working in Pakistan are protected by military convoys.
On March 26, five Chinese engineers were killed at Shangla in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa by suicide bombers believed to be part of the Pakistani Taliban, also known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), with links to the Afghan Taliban. Pakistan fears that a formidable challenge may emerge out of a BLA-TTP link-up.
The BLA has stated that it will target Chinese nationals in Balochistan and has termed China’s forays into the province as a part of its “colonisation” drive. China has invested $52 billion in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), with Balochistan figuring in the Gwadar deep-sea port, mineral exploitation, telecom and infrastructure projects. Beijing has also planned a residential enclave for half-a-million Chinese nationals at Gwadar.
For Pakistan, CPEC appeared to be a bonanza, coming as it did in the midst of gloom. However, CPEC is yet to yield economic benefits. Pakistan’s economy grew at an average of 4% over the last decade, but growth is expected to fall to 2% this year and the next. Pakistan’s public debt stands at 74% of its GDP. With China’s loans, at about 5% interest rate, coming due for repayment, Pakistan’s economic woes are increasing, amidst growing internal insurgency movements.
One of the first attacks on Chinese nationals came in June 2017, when two of them were killed in Quetta. In 2018, the Chinese consulate in Karachi was attacked killing four, while in another attack at Dalbandin, three Chinese were injured. In May 2019, the BLA attacked the Pearl Continental Hotel in Gwadar. More daring was its attack on a Quetta hotel in April 2021, in which the then Chinese Ambassador and nuclear physicist Nong Rong narrowly escaped. In July that year, nine Chinese engineers and workers were killed at Dasu dam in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. A similar attack took place there in March this year. In April 2022, the BLA bombed a van carrying three Chinese staff of the Confucius Institute in Karachi.
Pakistan, which had vowed to bleed India by a “thousand cuts” by employing State-sponsored terrorism, is now itself bleeding. China, which groomed the Mujahideen against the Soviets in the 1980s, is facing its own blowback. Some 20,000 Chinese nationals working in Pakistan live under constant fear.
But China isn’t about to up and leave Pakistan. Beijing dispatched its Ministry of State Security teams to Karachi and elsewhere to probe last week’s blast. China has conducted “counter-terror” campaigns with Pakistan every year. It has proposed deploying its own “police stations” and armed groups in Pakistan.
Further, over 36,000 Chinese “security guards” are reportedly protecting the hydro-electric power and other projects in Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir, with Beijing intending to station them there permanently, thus positioning itself between Pakistan and India. At the UNSC #1267 al-Qaeda committee, China has deliberately stalled Indian initiatives to counter Pakistan-based terrorists. Strategic and geopolitical gains, rather than the safety of its nationals, appears to be China’s priority in Pakistan.
While the SCO meeting, which External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar is set to attend, is likely to condemn once again terror incidents in Pakistan, it is unlikely to mean anything. China and Pakistan’s double standards and myopic view of relations with India will ensure that the SCO cannot, or rather will not, address the issue of terrorism effectively. This, despite the SCO’s annual “Peace Mission” counter-terrorism exercises and the efforts of its Tashkent-based Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure to coordinate members’ responses to terrorism. The SCO needs to introspect on this matter.