CHINA IS TIRED of being the target of attacks inside Pakistan and wants to protect itself. Its presence in the country has grown significantly, especially since 2015 when the two countries launched the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor to build more infrastructure in Pakistan and improve trade relations. In recent years, Chinese projects and personnel in Pakistan have been attacked by Islamist militant groups and Baloch insurgents. For example, five Chinese workers were killed by a suicide bomber at the ongoing deep-water port project in Gwadar, in the province of Balochistan, in March 2024. In November, Reuters reported that Beijing was pushing Islamabad to allow Chinese security personnel into Pakistan to conduct joint counter-terrorism missions and to protect Chinese nationals. Later that month, the Financial Express reported that China’s government had signed an agreement with three Chinese private security firms to provide enhanced protection within Pakistan.
Islamabad has been reluctant to allow China to expand its security footprint inside Pakistan. “Such a step would only send the wrong signal to the US,” a Pakistani diplomat based in the Foreign Office in Islamabad said, indicating that it would paint Pakistan as being predominantly under Beijing’s influence. “This could jeopardise Pakistan’s ties with the US, as well as undermining access to the IMF.”
Pakistan’s foreign policy, especially when it comes to its earlier equation with the United States and China, has crumbled in recent years. Pakistan’s flawed domestic and regional policies, as well as geopolitical shifts such as the United States’s withdrawal from Afghanistan, have led to a deterioration in its bilateral relations with both countries. Islamabad’s attempts to balance its interests with each of the two big global powers have not been very successful.
Pakistan’s failure to protect Chinese interests and its reluctance to allow Chinese security personnel inside the country is alienating Beijing. In October 2024, the Chinese ambassador to Pakistan publicly lashed out at Pakistan and warned that it was jeopardising continued Chinese investment – an indication of Beijing’s frustration with Pakistan. However, instead of reassuring China, Pakistan’s foreign office undermined the Chinese ambassador’s comments, saying that these were personal views and not truly reflective of the close and cooperative spirit marking Pakistan-China relations.