Terrorists Target China-Pakistan Projects & the US Role Backing Separatists

– China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is being countered by the United States not through competing infrastructure projects but through a global-spanning campaign of subversion, sabotage, and terrorism;

– The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) has been hit particularly hard by US-backed terrorism for years including open US government efforts to carve off Baluchistan province from Pakistan to deny CPEC a terminal port at Gwadar;

– Between 2011-2012 US government officials openly called for an “independent” Baluchistan while pumping money through the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) into opposition groups including media and so-called “human rights” organizations;

– US-backed separatists have since regularly targeted Chinese engineers and their Pakistani counterparts and Pakistani security with armed violence;

– US-backed separatists have also targeted the Chinese ambassador to Pakistan on at least one occasion;

– Because the US cannot directly attack China’s BRI worldwide, it does through through proxies and is yet another illustration of the role terrorism plays in advancing US foreign policy objectives and the threat the US poses to international peace, prosperity, and stability;

References:

Al Jazeera – Five Chinese nationals among six killed in suicide bomb attack in Pakistan (March 26, 2024):
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/3…

The National Interest – Free Baluchistan (February 2011):
https://nationalinterest.org/commenta…

National Endowment for Democracy (NED) – Threats to Defenders of Democracy in Balochistan
https://www.ned.org/docs/Malik-Siraj-…

Global Times – Exclusive: No Chinese diplomats hurt in Southwest Pakistan bomb attack: embassy (April 2021):
https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/20210…

GovTrackUS – Expressing the sense of Congress that the people of Baluchistan, currently divided between Pakistan, Iran, and Afghanistan, have the right to self-determination and to their own sovereign country (2012):
https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill…

Washington Post – Why I support Baluchistan (2012):
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinio…

BBC – Waking up to the war in Balochistan (February 2012):
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-1…

AP – Suicide blast in southern Pakistan kills 3 Chinese, driver (April 2022):
https://apnews.com/article/explosions…

Guardian – Protests in Pakistan erupt against China’s belt and road plan (August 2021):
https://www.theguardian.com/environme…

Global Times – Coal-fired power plant under CPEC in Pakistan starts operation (February 2023):
https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/20230…

National Endowment for Democracy – Mr. Malik Siraj Akbar (archived November 2016):
https://web.archive.org/web/201611100…

New China TV – CPEC coal power plant helps boost green development in Pakistan (March 2023):
https://www.youtube.com/live/TsGndxUs…

GovInfo – US Congressional Hearing on “Baluchistan,” full transcript (February 2012):
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/C…