China has demanded military outposts for the security of its citizens working in Pakistan, following recent terror attacks on Chinese nationals and the Belt and Road Initiative’s (BRI) China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) projects in Karachi, Balochistan, and Gilgit-Baltistan.
China has long demanded security for its citizens and CPEC projects from Pakistani law enforcement agencies, according to diplomatic sources in Islamabad.
They are currently looking for military outposts in places influenced or used by the US during the Cold War and the war on terror.
A burqa-clad Baloch woman suicide bomber targeted a van outside Pakistan’s Confucius Institute on April 26, killing three Chinese professors, including the department’s head, and their local driver.
The remaining 12 professors, together with the ashes of the slain teachers, have left for China, according to Dr. Nadir Uddin, the institute’s Pakistani director.
Their departure came just weeks after a burqa-clad Baloch woman suicide bomber struck a van inside the Pakistan’s renowned University of Karachi, killing three Chinese teachers, including the department’s head, and their local driver, in the country’s financial capital’s latest targeted attack against Chinese citizens.
The banned Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA)-linked Majeed Brigade claimed responsibility for the attack on the professors on April 26 near the university’s China-built Confucius Institute, which teaches the Chinese language to local students.
The Confucius Institute, according to Dr. Nasir Uddin, is a non-profit educational organization dedicated to teaching Mandarin, deepening international awareness of the language and Chinese culture, and promoting people-to-people connections between China and Pakistan. Huang Guiping, the institute’s director, and two other Chinese teachers, Chen Sai and Ding Mupeng, were killed in the BLA suicide bombing on April 26, as was their local driver, Khalid Nawaz.
The attack on the teachers was claimed by the proscribed Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) connected Majeed Brigade.
Last year, an explosion on a bus convoy taking Chinese engineers to a hydro-power project building site in northern Pakistan killed 13 persons, including 9 Chinese nationals.
The Pakistani Taliban, which operates out of Afghanistan, was blamed by Islamabad for the attack. However, the BLA, which opposes Islamabad’s monopoly over Balochistan’s mineral wealth, has launched a series of attacks on Chinese nationals and their interests.
Balochistan is Pakistan’s largest but least populous province, bordering Afghanistan and Iran. The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, a multibillion-dollar infrastructure partnership between the two countries, depends on it (CPEC).
At least five persons were killed in an attack on the Pakistan Stock Exchange in Karachi in 2020, which was claimed by the BLA as “retaliation” over “Chinese predatory ambitions in Balochistan.”
In 2018, the BLA claimed responsibility for another attack in Karachi, in which gunmen attempted to raid the Chinese consulate, murdering four people. It stated that it will not allow Chinese military expansionism.
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