Protest at Chinese-funded projects in Pakistan

Locals are protesting at a Chinese-run port in Gwadar, a town of about 150,000 in Pakistan’s Balochistan Province, according to a source for The China Project.

• Today was the 53rd day that crowds — ranging from the hundreds to the thousands and including some who traveled from other parts of Balochistan — have stood and sat, sometimes chanting the Balochi-language slogan Gwadar ko haq do (Give Gwadar its rights).
• Protesters are blocking the key expressway that connects to Pakistan’s main highway network and links the port to China, offering the fastest route to the Indian Ocean from Xinjiang.

The demonstrations appear to be organized by Haq Do Tehreek (HDT), a movement led by Maulana Hidayat-ur-Rehman, a group that speaks for locals in Gwadar, and earlier this year “surprised observers by sweeping the local government elections.”

• The protesters are demanding a reduction in security checkpoints in the area, an end to illegal fishing, which has depleted their own resources, and an ease on curbs on informal border trade with Iran.
• People have also protested outside New Gwadar International Airport, another Chinese-funded project, which is slated to be completed by March 2023

Once a small fishing village, Gwadar now sits at the heart of a vast infrastructure expansion of road, rail, and port networks in Pakistan under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a $65 billion component in China’s Belt and Road Initiative.

• Strategically located in the resource-rich province of Balochistan along the Arabian Sea, Gwadar is being rapidly developed in the hopes of leading regional economic growth.
• Both Pakistani and Chinese governments have hailed CPEC’s huge potential as a “hub of trade and investment” akin to Shenzhen, which will likely “generate 575,000 direct and over 1 million indirect jobs in Pakistan.”

But the latest protest marks the growing anti-China sentiment among locals. Many of them claim that they have not seen any benefits from the major Chinese-funded development projects, while increased security measures in the area have stymied their way of life.

• The nascent Haq Do Tehreek led a similar protest for 32 days last year, but although locals came to an agreement with the government, they have alleged that their demands have still not been met.
• “Almost two months have gone by, but the residents of Gwadar have not called off their protest sit-in,” a source in Balochistan told The China Project today. “The local protesters are not tired, but every passing day infuses in them a new vigor, a new zeal, and a new spirit to fight for their survival.”

Beijing, however, is showing no sign of backing away from its investments: Chinese leader Xí Jìnpíng 习近平 met with Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif early last month in Beijing, where the two leaders pledged to deepen ties between their nations, maintain stability, and “accelerate the construction” of the Gwadar port.

• Xi also expressed “great concern” for the safety of Chinese nationals in Pakistan, while urging the country’s government to provide “a reliable and safe environment” for Chinese nationals and interests in the region.
• Pakistan sentenced two Islamic militants to death last month for killing 13 people in a suicide bus attack last year, of which nine of the victims were Chinese engineers working on the Dasu dam project in the region.
• In April, a Pakistani mother of two blew herself up outside the Confucius Institute of Karachi University, destroying a minibus and killing three Chinese teachers and a Pakistani driver.
• “The Chinese have to come to terms with the fact that these are unstable countries with fragile internal politics,” Yun Sun, the director of the China program at the Washington-based Stimson Center, told the Wall Street Journal. “If you are going to operate here, you are going to encounter these problems.”

Meanwhile, in neighboring Afghanistan, a country that China has also invested heavily in, Beijing urged its citizens to leave the country last week following a suicide attack on a Chinese-owned hotel in the heart of Kabul.

• Xi and Sharif had also agreed to continue their support to neighboring Afghanistan in a bid to stabilize their shared interests in the region.