Two Chinese nationals were killed, and at least eight more people were injured in an explosion Sunday night near the international Karachi Airport in southern Pakistan, in the latest deadly attack on Chinese in Pakistan.
The Chinese Embassy said it was a “terrorist attack,” and the U.S.-designated terrorist group Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) took credit for the attack in a statement emailed to journalists on Monday.
BLA claimed the attack was carried out using an improvised explosive device transported by a suicide bomber in a vehicle, targeting Chinese engineers at Pakistan’s largest airport.
Local police and government reported that a tanker had exploded around 11 p.m. on Sunday, and video footage showed flames engulfing cars after the explosion. There was a heavy military deployment at the airport, which was cordoned off.
The group attacked was a convoy of the Port Qasim Electric Company, which included the two Chinese nationals killed and another injured.
China–Pakistan Relations
The Chinese Embassy said it was working with Pakistan authorities to handle the aftermath, and Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said on X that an investigation was underway.
“We will leave no stone unturned to ensure their security and well-being,” Sharif wrote.
China’s relationship with Pakistan is a key component of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) Belt and Road Initiative.
A key feature of the initiative is underwriting large foreign infrastructure projects with repayment plans dependent on optimistic projections of the financial success of finished projects. As a result, countries that joined the initiative became heavily indebted to the world’s second-largest economy.
When China and Pakistan last year announced the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) international road transport route, Pakistan had a national debt of about $100 billion, a third of which was held by China.
The agreement also allowed the Chinese military to use a strategically advantageous port for 40 years.
“China has invested a lot in its relationship with Pakistan, like it has with North Korea, because in both cases China wants to use its partnership with that country against a country it views as its rival,” said Aparna Pande, author and research fellow at the Hudson Institute. “In the case of North Korea, China is targeting Japan, and in the case of Pakistan, the target is India.”
Balochistan is one of Pakistan’s four provinces, largest by land mass and rich in natural resources. Baloch terrorists have periodically revolted, and the modern-day BLA, which is allied with the Pakistani Taliban, has targeted the Chinese in Pakistan more than once.
In August, BLA claimed responsibility for a day of multiple attacks in southwestern Pakistan, where more than 50 were killed. The prime minister said the attacks targeted CPEC projects, as have some of the group’s previous attacks. Thousands of Chinese nationals are working on the multi-billion CPEC project in Pakistan, which has created tension in the region.
In 2022, BLA claimed responsibility for a van explosion on a university campus in Pakistan that killed three Chinese nationals, including the director of a Confucius Institute and their Pakistani driver.
In an August 2018 letter, BLA claimed responsibility for opening fire on Chinese nationals working in Karachi and threatened more attacks if the CCP did not halt “the exploitation of Baluchistan’s mineral wealth and occupation of Baluch territory.”