Terror Along China’s Belt and Road

CommentaryChinese leader Xi Jinping must feel like he is playing a game of whack-a-mole. After years of easy political, economic, and diplomatic gains, he has more recently had to deal with a series of problems, one popping up after another. His draconian COVID-19 policies have set back the economy and now have given rise to public discontent. For over a year, China has had to cope with cascading financial strains set loose by the failure of the real estate giant Evergrande, a serious matter to which Beijing has only recently and belatedly responded. It has become increasingly clear in recent months that the once-vaunted Belt and Road Initiative (BRI, also known as “One Belt, One Road”) faces financial problems that raise questions about its viability. And if that were not enough, rates of terrorism along the BRI have also begun to increase costs and add to worries about viability. Earlier columns in this space have investigated many of these matters. Several pieces have criticized Beijing for its tepid and sluggish response to the financial dangers imposed by the failure of Evergrande and other property developers. Other columns have chronicled the ill effects on the economy arising from the COVID lockdowns and quarantines. A recent discussion dwelt on the financial difficulties within the BRI and how Beijing has had to swallow its pride and seek help from Western powers to manage the defaults among BRI client nations. Now, it is time to look at the weight of terrorism on this initiative, once proudly touted by Beijing as world-altering. The BRI’s greatest terror problems have arisen in Pakistan. That country is, of course, particularly plagued by terrorism, but it is also one of the BRI’s biggest participants. The most recent incident concerns a bomb detonated at the gates of Karachi University’s Chinese Language and Culture Institute, which houses the region’s Confucius Institute. The bomb killed the terrorist as well as a Pakistani driver. It also killed three Chinese teachers and severely injured a fourth teacher. Reports indicate that Beijing has evacuated the entire Chinese faculty. A terrorist group, the Baloch Liberation Army, from Pakistan’s troubled northwest region, claimed responsibility. This is only the most prominent event. Chinese nationals have been widely targeted for some time. In 2021, the Taliban tried to assassinate China’s ambassador to Pakistan with a bomb that devastated a hotel. The ambassador only barely escaped death. In the northern part of the country, terrorists attacked a bus carrying Chinese nationals to the site where the BRI was constructing a dam. Nine Chinese and four Pakistanis died. In Karachi, a crowd attacked a dental clinic run by Chinese nationals, killing one employee and wounding the elderly dentist on site. The Baloch Liberation Army has attacked the Chinese Consulate in Karachi as well as the stock exchange because, the terrorists claimed, it is controlled by Chinese interests. According to reporters on the ground, much public unrest seethes around the BRI-built port in Gwadar because it does not help the impoverished locals and is underused, serving on average only three ships a week. Threats all but closed the port earlier this month. Laborers walk through Gwadar port in Pakistan on Oct. 4, 2017. (Amelie Herenstein/AFP/Getty Images) However significant Pakistan is, terrorism has occurred elsewhere as well. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where Chinese interests completely dominate mining, the Chinese community has frequently complained of armed attacks and kidnappings. Nigerian terrorists kidnapped four Chinese mine workers in June. In October, according to the Chinese Consulate in Lagos, locals attacked several Chinese businesses, killing one Chinese national. According to the Washington-based Oxus Society for Central Asian Affairs, China was the focus of 160 incidents of terrorism or civil unrest between 2018 and mid-2021. In one sense, none of this is surprising. China has, after all, become the largest lender to the developing world and has some 440,000 nationals working abroad, 93,500 in Africa alone. So far, Beijing, though acknowledging the terrorist threat, has refused to back away from its BRI. At least it makes that claim on the terrorism front. It has already paused growth in the program for financial reasons. Qian Feng, a senior fellow at Tsinghua University’s National Strategy Institute, commented on the terrorism, insisting that China “can’t wait for an end to terrorist activities before starting new projects,” The Wall Street Journal reported. This kind of commitment received support in a recent visit to Beijing by Pakistan’s new prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif. Still, there can be no mistake that the terror has raised the cost of the BRI for both China and participating countries. Several Chinese business interest interests have already cited terrorism as a reason not to participate. So far, Beijing has resisted using it

Terror Along China’s Belt and Road

Commentary

Chinese leader Xi Jinping must feel like he is playing a game of whack-a-mole. After years of easy political, economic, and diplomatic gains, he has more recently had to deal with a series of problems, one popping up after another.

His draconian COVID-19 policies have set back the economy and now have given rise to public discontent.

For over a year, China has had to cope with cascading financial strains set loose by the failure of the real estate giant Evergrande, a serious matter to which Beijing has only recently and belatedly responded.

It has become increasingly clear in recent months that the once-vaunted Belt and Road Initiative (BRI, also known as “One Belt, One Road”) faces financial problems that raise questions about its viability. And if that were not enough, rates of terrorism along the BRI have also begun to increase costs and add to worries about viability.

Earlier columns in this space have investigated many of these matters. Several pieces have criticized Beijing for its tepid and sluggish response to the financial dangers imposed by the failure of Evergrande and other property developers. Other columns have chronicled the ill effects on the economy arising from the COVID lockdowns and quarantines. A recent discussion dwelt on the financial difficulties within the BRI and how Beijing has had to swallow its pride and seek help from Western powers to manage the defaults among BRI client nations. Now, it is time to look at the weight of terrorism on this initiative, once proudly touted by Beijing as world-altering.

The BRI’s greatest terror problems have arisen in Pakistan. That country is, of course, particularly plagued by terrorism, but it is also one of the BRI’s biggest participants. The most recent incident concerns a bomb detonated at the gates of Karachi University’s Chinese Language and Culture Institute, which houses the region’s Confucius Institute. The bomb killed the terrorist as well as a Pakistani driver. It also killed three Chinese teachers and severely injured a fourth teacher. Reports indicate that Beijing has evacuated the entire Chinese faculty. A terrorist group, the Baloch Liberation Army, from Pakistan’s troubled northwest region, claimed responsibility.

This is only the most prominent event. Chinese nationals have been widely targeted for some time. In 2021, the Taliban tried to assassinate China’s ambassador to Pakistan with a bomb that devastated a hotel. The ambassador only barely escaped death. In the northern part of the country, terrorists attacked a bus carrying Chinese nationals to the site where the BRI was constructing a dam. Nine Chinese and four Pakistanis died.

In Karachi, a crowd attacked a dental clinic run by Chinese nationals, killing one employee and wounding the elderly dentist on site. The Baloch Liberation Army has attacked the Chinese Consulate in Karachi as well as the stock exchange because, the terrorists claimed, it is controlled by Chinese interests.

According to reporters on the ground, much public unrest seethes around the BRI-built port in Gwadar because it does not help the impoverished locals and is underused, serving on average only three ships a week. Threats all but closed the port earlier this month.

Epoch Times Photo
Laborers walk through Gwadar port in Pakistan on Oct. 4, 2017. (Amelie Herenstein/AFP/Getty Images)

However significant Pakistan is, terrorism has occurred elsewhere as well. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where Chinese interests completely dominate mining, the Chinese community has frequently complained of armed attacks and kidnappings. Nigerian terrorists kidnapped four Chinese mine workers in June. In October, according to the Chinese Consulate in Lagos, locals attacked several Chinese businesses, killing one Chinese national.

According to the Washington-based Oxus Society for Central Asian Affairs, China was the focus of 160 incidents of terrorism or civil unrest between 2018 and mid-2021. In one sense, none of this is surprising. China has, after all, become the largest lender to the developing world and has some 440,000 nationals working abroad, 93,500 in Africa alone.

So far, Beijing, though acknowledging the terrorist threat, has refused to back away from its BRI. At least it makes that claim on the terrorism front. It has already paused growth in the program for financial reasons. Qian Feng, a senior fellow at Tsinghua University’s National Strategy Institute, commented on the terrorism, insisting that China “can’t wait for an end to terrorist activities before starting new projects,” The Wall Street Journal reported. This kind of commitment received support in a recent visit to Beijing by Pakistan’s new prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif.

Still, there can be no mistake that the terror has raised the cost of the BRI for both China and participating countries. Several Chinese business interest interests have already cited terrorism as a reason not to participate. So far, Beijing has resisted using its own military for security. However, there is ample evidence that it has employed independent security contractors to protect its “silk road,” what one author described as a “private army.”

China has already put pressure on host countries to step up security, something these impoverished nations can ill afford. Pakistan, for example, reports detailing 30,000 troops for this purpose—no small expense.

China, in challenging Western influence, seems to have brought the same animus as the United States and the ex-colonial European powers face. Despite this unlooked-for development, none of this will stop the BRI. Beijing has already invested too much diplomatic capital and the project to allow that. But with terrorism on top of serious defaults and renegotiations, the pace of advance will slow appreciably. The BRI will not be the world changer that Beijing claimed for it and that the West feared.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.


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Milton Ezrati is a contributing editor at The National Interest, an affiliate of the Center for the Study of Human Capital at the University at Buffalo (SUNY), and chief economist for Vested, a New York-based communications firm. Before joining Vested, he served as chief market strategist and economist for Lord, Abbett & Co. He also writes frequently for City Journal and blogs regularly for Forbes. His latest book is "Thirty Tomorrows: The Next Three Decades of Globalization, Demographics, and How We Will Live."