Brian M Downing
China has been expanding its presence across the world, especially in Africa and South Asia. The Chinese see the process as a welcome and even inevitable historical process whereby they reattain their rightful place as center of the world. Of course, not everyone sees this in the same light.
Last week, China’s consulate in Karachi was attacked by armed fighters. It’s not the first attack on Chinese nationals in Pakistan by any means. Several engineers and language teachers have been killed over the years, two as recently as last August. Beijing’s presence in Pakistan is growing. Construction of an economic corridor running from the port of Karachi to China’s Xianjing province is underway, which of course is bringing in more Chinese. Resentments will grow, attacks will too.
China and Pakistan
Sino-Pakistani ties are based on geopolitical and economic matters. China’s chief regional rival is India. The two powers have fought numerous skirmishes over disputed borders. A full-scale war erupted in the early 60s. Pakistan and India have fought several major wars since independence in 1947. Fighting over Kashmir is routine. China, naturally enough, sought out an ally to India’s west, and at times it thought it had one.
China also sees Pakistan in economic terms. The South Asian country gives access to resources and markets in Afghanistan, where Beijing has bought up much of the mineral wealth, and Central Asia, where even more untapped riches are wide open to exploitation. China sees Central Asia as destined to become part of its western periphery.
Pakistan’s western province, Balochistan, also has considerable resources – hydrocarbons and gold among them. Influxes of Chinese and non-Baloch people have brought resentments. And to the surprise of few, the guerrillas who attacked the Chinese consulate were Baloch separatists.
Responses in Beijing
China has long been reluctant to trust Pakistan. Though large, handsomely equipped, and seemingly well run, Pakistan’s army has been defeated by India on every occasion, usually quite badly. Perhaps more troubling, the army supports a miscellany of terrorist groups, including al Qaeda, ensconced along the Af-Pak border south of Kabul. To China’s dismay, the groups train Uighur militants who are building an insurgency in Xianjing province and striking across the country.
Pakistan’s future as a unified country is in doubt. A Punjabi elite comprising landholders and generals lords over a multiethnic population. Islamabad lost East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) in 1971. The Baloch, Sindh, and Pashtun regions are home to restive groups seeking autonomy or outright independence. If successful, Pakistan would be reduced to a narrow strip of land along the Indus River. Beijing surely noted that on the same day as the attack on their consulate, a bomb killed over thirty people in the Pashtun region.
China has already demonstrated unease with Pakistan. Beijing declined an offer to build a naval base at Gwadar, a massive but underused port built up by Chinese engineers in Balochistan. The Pakistani offer was made publicly, as was the Chinese rejection. Pakistan is also embarrassed by Chinese construction of an alternate export route from Afghanistan and Central Asia, one running to an Iranian port just west of Gwadar.
Politicians and generals must demonstrate that they control their country and will continue to be useful to China well into the future. The most likely tactic is to come down hard on anyone thought tied to those who attacked the Karachi consulate and demonstrate resolve across the land.
The measures are unlikely to be done competently. They will almost certainly cause further anger, fuel insurgencies, and increase concern abroad that Pakistan is too chaotic to rely upon – perhaps too close to terrorism as well.
© 2018 Brian M Downing
Brian M Downing is a national security analyst who’s written for outlets across the political spectrum. He studied at Georgetown University and the University of Chicago, and did post-graduate work at Harvard’s Center for International Affairs. Thanks as ever to Susan Ganosellis.