Amid rising attacks, China to deploy security personnel to protect Chinese workers in Pakistan: Report

Amid rising attacks on Chinese infrastructure projects and workers, China and Pakistan are close to signing a deal for their protection, according to a report.

China is the biggest foreign investor in Pakistan and investment pledges around the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), which is central to Xi Jinping’s brainchild Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), have swollen to the tune of $65 billion. In recent years, amid a string of attacks on Chinese projects and workers, China has linked business deals with security.

It is in this context that China and Pakistan are about to sign a deal that would involve setting up of joint security companies and deploying Chinese security personnel for the protection of Chinese projects and workers, as per the Nikkei Asia.

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Several thousands of Chinese workers and executives work in Pakistan on projects part of the CPEC. They face threats both from the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and Baloch rebel groups like Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) seeking to carve out a separation nation for ethnic Baloch minority in the nation’s southwest. There have been several attacks in recent years.

China-Pakistan deal to set up 2-tier protection grid: Report

Under the terms of the deal about to be signed, Chinese workers will be projected in a two-tier system, according to Nikkei Asia.

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The newspaper reported that the inner grid will comprise Chinese security personnel and the outer grid will comprise Pakistani personnel. It further that Chinese workers will travel around the country in armoured vehicles.

The paper further reported that China has linked future investments in the country with better security for its interests in the country and counter-terrorism cooperation. As part of this linking, China has sought to deploy security personnel since 2022, but Pakistan has so far resisted the demands. But as the economy continues to worsen, Pakistan finally appears to be bowing to the demands.

To make Pakistan agree for the deployment of Chinese security personnel inside Pakistan, China has sweetened the deal by saying if Pakistan agrees, China would invest more in infrastructure, energy, and transport projects under CPEC, according to the newspaper.

The Chinese negotiators have also hinted at quickly restarting the $7 billion Main Line 1 railway, the largest single CPEC project that would connect Pakistan’s Peshawar in the northwest to Karachi in the south through a more than 2,600-kilometer railway line, as per reports in the Pakistani media.