Pakistan considers measures to protect Chinese workers as visiting official expresses concerns
ISLAMABAD: Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi on Saturday held a meeting to review security measures for foreigners in Pakistan, especially Chinese labourers who have been the target of several militant attacks in recent times.
The March 26 suicide bomb attack on a Chinese convoy in northwestern Pakistan, killing five Chinese nationals, has drawn attention to the safety of Chinese workers, many of whom are employed on road, infrastructure and development projects in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, a flagship project of the Belt and Road Initiative.
China’s top cabinet minister, Liu Jianchao, said during a visit to Islamabad on Friday that Pakistan’s security challenges were undermining investor confidence. A day later, on Saturday, Pakistan’s interior minister presided over a meeting to review the “overall security situation in the country.”
“The meeting reviewed measures taken to protect foreign nationals, especially Chinese nationals,” the home ministry said in a statement. “Mr. Naqvi directed for strict adherence to standard operating procedures in the security plan…he stressed that the plan formulated should be regularly monitored at all levels.”
The minister called on the relevant security and intelligence agencies to “maintain close coordination to thwart the evil plans of anti-national elements.”
“There is no room for negligence in implementing security plans,” Naqvi was quoted as saying in the statement.
Speaking at the third meeting of the Pakistan-China Joint Consultative Mechanism (JCM) in Islamabad on Friday, Liu said security threats were the “major danger” to CPEC cooperation.
“As the saying goes, trust is more precious than gold. In Pakistan’s case, the security situation is the main thing shaking the confidence of Chinese investors,” the official said in a rare public comment from Beijing about Pakistan’s security challenges. “Without security, the business environment cannot really improve.”
The March 26 attack on a Chinese convoy en route to the Dasu hydroelectric project was the third major attack in just over a week on Chinese interests in Pakistan, where Beijing has pledged more than $65 billion in energy, infrastructure and other projects as part of its Belt and Road Initiative.
The March 26 bombing followed a March 20 attack on a strategic port used by China in the southwestern province of Balochistan, where the Chinese government is pouring billions of dollars into infrastructure projects, including the deep-sea port of Gwadar, and a March 25 attack on a naval air base in the same southwestern province. Both attacks were claimed by the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), the most powerful of Balochistan’s several separatist groups.
The city of Dazhen, home to a large dam, has been attacked before, including a bus explosion in 2021 that killed 13 people, nine of them Chinese, though no group has claimed responsibility for the attack as in the March 26 bombing.
Pakistan is facing two insurgencies: a religiously motivated extremist insurgency and an insurgency by ethnic separatists seeking independence in the southwestern province of Balochistan, which they blame for what they say is an unfair distribution of natural resources by the government.
Chinese interests are under attack, primarily by ethnic militants who want to drive Beijing out of mineral-rich Balochistan.
