China vows to enhance counter-terrorism cooperation with Pakistan

Ghulam Ahmad Bilour entered politics in the 1970s with the ANP. Between 1988 and 2024, he ran in 12 general elections from his ancestral seat in Peshawar.

He lost his maiden try for the NA seat in 1988 to Aftab Ahmad Khan Sherpao, but won in subsequent by-elections.

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He also beat former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in the 1990 election and was appointed minister of railways in Nawaz Sharif’s federal cabinet.

He was defeated by former Prime Minister Imran Khan in the 2013 election and was unable to return to the National Assembly in 2018 or 2024 due to recurrent defeats at the hands of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) candidates.

The several strikes in the resource-rich but impoverished Baluchistan region coincided with Li Qiaoming, the Chinese commander of the People’s Liberation Army ground troops, visiting Pakistan and meeting with Pakistan’s army chief, General Syed Asim Munir.

“The meeting provided an opportunity for in-depth discussions on matters of mutual interest, regional security, military training, and measures to further enhance bilateral defense cooperation,” according to a news statement published by the Pakistan Army.

Baloch separatists have vigorously opposed the China-Pakistan partnership in Baluchistan, mounting their third major independence movement since 2006. They have attacked Chinese interests both inside and beyond the province. No Chinese were targeted in the most recent strikes.

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif informed his Cabinet that the assaults attempted to disrupt a multibillion-dollar series of projects in the province known as the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).

According to Pakistan’s Interior Minister, Mohsin Naqvi, “these attacks are a well-thought-out plan to create anarchy in Pakistan.”

Growing violence in cash-strapped Pakistan, particularly attacks on Chinese people and interests, has concerned Beijing.

Pakistan has been dealing with a long-running debt issue and has put all of its eggs in one basket: China. During a congressional hearing last month, Donald Lu, the US State Department’s assistant secretary for South and Central Asian affairs, stated that Beijing has spent around $26 billion in Pakistan under the CPEC initiative.

“The recent attacks have apparently worried China, but what we see is that China kept pressuring Pakistan in the wake of [a past] attack, instead of helping it out in its fight against militancy,” Murad Ali, a Pakistani researcher, told VOA.

He was alluding to an incident by an Afghan civilian in March that murdered five Chinese engineers.

“These attacks are especially worrying for China, which has invested extensively in the CPEC. Abdullah Khan, an Islamabad-based security specialist, told VOA that the government isn’t doing enough to halt the bloodshed.

Last month, weeks of violent protests in Pakistan’s Gwadar port city heightened concerns about the country’s security situation and the impact on Chinese developments in the region.

In March, China urged Pakistan to minimize security threats to its citizens following a suicide assault that killed five Chinese engineers in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan’s dangerous northwestern region.

Following the attack, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian asked Pakistan at a news conference “to conduct speedy and thorough investigations into the attack, step up security with concrete measures, completely eliminate security risks, and do everything possible to ensure the utmost safety of Chinese personnel, institutions, and projects in Pakistan.”