China is extending its sway across swaths of Pakistan’s underdeveloped economy through massive development aid, weaving its influence into the fabric of the South Asian country’s society — including its military.
YUJI KURONUMA, Nikkei staff writer
November 16, 2016 7:00 pm JST
ISLAMABAD — China is extending its sway across swaths of Pakistan's underdeveloped economy through massive development aid, weaving its influence into the fabric of the South Asian country's society — including its military.
In a sign of Beijing's spreading power in Pakistan, Islamabad has decided to double the number of guards to protect workers constructing the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, an integrated network of infrastructure running north and south through the country.
This is not good news for Uighurs in Pakistan, who see China's growing clout as a threat.
Of belts and roads
In early 2016, the Pakistani government set up the Special Security Division, a new army unit to provide security to the CPEC. The SSD consists of army troops and paramilitary forces personnel, according to Senator Mushahid Hussain Sayed, who chairs the parliamentary committee on the CPEC.
The government plans to expand the 15,000-strong SSD to a 30,000-member unit by the end of March 2017, Hussain said in an interview in Islamabad.
"The Chinese government is satisfied" with Pakistan's efforts to ensure the safety of workers involved in the construction of the CPEC, Hussain said. The planned expansion of the SSD is aimed at easing China's security concerns related to the project, according to the senator.
In fact, areas along the economic corridor remain unsafe. A total of 44 workers engaged in CPEC-related work have been killed in attacks by armed groups in the past two years, according to Reuters.
In May, a Chinese engineer was injured while traveling in a car in the southern Pakistani city of Karachi in an apparent terrorist attack involving a roadside bomb.
The Global Times, a newspaper affiliated with the People's Daily, the official mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party, warned that increasing security costs were hampering the project's progress. A diplomatic source in Islamabad said "China has asked Pakistan to establish the maximum level of security.
In addition to planning to beef up the security guard unit, Pakistani police have started providing personal protection for Chinese nationals on business trips to Pakistan.
Indeed, at the counter for Chinese guests at a hotel in Lahore, Pakistan's second-largest city, a police officer who thought I was Chinese said to me politely, "If you need our security persons to be accompanied, please do let us know."
Pakistani police have started providing personal protection for Chinese nationals.
Pakistan is bending over backward to please China because the CPEC is of vital importance for the country's development.
Money talks
The CPEC is a 3,000km-long trade route connecting Kashgar, a major city in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, located in northwestern China, with Gwadar, a southern Pakistani port city on the shore of the Arabian Sea. The mammoth development project includes roads, railways, power plants, ports and industrial parks.
At the end of last year, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi touted the CPEC in a speech in Islamabad, calling it "the biggest comprehensive bilateral project between any two countries after World War II."
A total of $46 billion will be poured into the construction of the CPEC, which started in 2015 and is slated to be complete by 2030. That figure is larger than the total net inflows of foreign direct investment in Pakistan since 1970. It is also seven times larger than the International Monetary Fund's total financial aid to the country during the 2013-2016 period. Most of the money will be provided by China through loans.
On the back of such a massive investment, Pakistan has rolled out the welcome mat for China. Even a Pakistani employee at the Islamabad office of the U.S. Agency for International Development said "It is only China "that actually supports Pakistan's economic development.
The Pakistani public in general also welcomes Chinese investment because of expectations that it will solve the chronic power shortages plaguing the country.
The CPEC is crucial for Chinese President Xi Jinping's Belt and Road Initiative, touted as the contemporary version of the Silk Road. The initiative envisions land and maritime trade routes running from China through the Asian continent to Europe and Africa.
The CPEC is designed to connect the land routes to the maritime ones, creating an efficient integrated transport network across the region. The initiative is also aimed at offering new opportunities for struggling Chinese companies to profit by exporting construction materials and equipment or winning construction contracts.
Creeping fears
There is, however, a group of people deeply concerned about China's expanding influence in Pakistan.
Hassan Abdul Hamid.
One symbol of China's strong presence in Pakistan is the China Market in Rawalpindi, a town in the suburbs of Islamabad. It is a shopping street near the park where in 2007 then-opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was assassinated.
For centuries, the China Market was a key marketplace for Chinese silk products imported via a trade route running through northwestern parts of China. Now, a dazzling array of products imported from China, ranging from clothing to electric appliances and furniture, are sold in the market.
Hassan Abdul Hamid, a 34-year-old cook working at a Chinese restaurant on the top floor of Urumqi Plaza, a commercial building located within the market, said that it was difficult for him to make friends with Chinese no matter where he worked.
Hassan is a Uighur born in Hotan, a town in Xinjiang. His father settled in Rawalpindi in 1989 and started a business in the city. Hassan, too, fled to Pakistan in 1995.
Though he would not discuss the reason clearly, Hassan indicated that his father immigrated mainly because the Chinese government started tightening security in the region after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Hassan expressed misgivings about the growing ranks of Han Chinese in Pakistan, regarded by Uighurs as a potential threat to their well-being. Uighurs in Xinjiang have long been in conflict with the dominant ethnic group in China.
In recent years, a growing number of Uighurs has been arrested by the Pakistani army, calling them members of armed extremist groups.
The Chinese government is wary of Uighur extremists expanding their sphere of influence in Central Asia. It would not be surprising if Beijing urges the Pakistani government to impose stricter restrictions on the activities of the people.
There are many countries with a large population of Uighurs in Central and South Asia, including Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Afghanistan.
Many of these countries are located along Belt and Road Initiative routes.
Hassan and other Uighurs are scared about the prospect of pro-China forces gaining ground in countries receiving large amounts of aid from China, potentially creating a hostile environment for them.
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