Pakistani police stop attack targeting Chinese Consulate
In the most significant strike against Chinese interests in Pakistan in years, three militants assaulted the Chinese Consulate in the southern port city of Karachi on Friday morning, killing two policemen and two civilians at a checkpoint before being gunned down by the security forces.
On a day of violence that included a bombing that killed at least 30 people in northwestern Pakistan, the near-miss attack on the consulate in Karachi was a rare moment of upheaval for a tightening economic and strategic partnership between Pakistan and China.
A Twitter account associated with the Baluchistan Liberation Army, a separatist group in the sprawling and violent province of Baluchistan, said that three of its members had “embraced martyrdom” in an attack on the Chinese Consulate. And a spokesman for the group was quoted by Reuters as accusing China of “exploiting our resources.”
Pakistan has been a showcase for China’s huge international development program, the Belt and Road Initiative, in recent years. China is estimated to have spent some $62 billion on those projects in Pakistan, mostly to build a transportation corridor through Baluchistan to a new, Chineseoperated deepwater port in the Pakistani town of Gwadar.
The road corridor being built through Baluchistan, which is also rich in natural resources, is one of the most strategic projects associated with the Belt and Road Initiative. Its stated purpose is to greatly reduce shipping costs and time for Chinese goods, but it would also give China an important alternative if faced with naval blockades by the United States or its Asian allies.
Baluchistan has also been the center of two resilient insurgencies, making it one of the most sensitive areas for Pakistan’s powerful military establishment: Ethnic Baluch separatists there have been pursued by a stifling Pakistani security presence, and part of the leadership of the Afghan Taliban also continues to take shelter there, in the city of Quetta.
Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi told Pakistan’s National Assembly that the first attacker at the consulate Friday detonated an explosive vest, while the other two opened fire and tried to rush toward the area where visas are issued.