(Bloomberg) -- Pakistan is investigating an attack in the port city of Karachi that killed two Chinese citizens on Sunday, as the South Asian nation struggles to curb rising militancy targeting interests of its key economic partner.
The militants targeted a security convoy of Chinese workers working at the Port Qasim Electric Power Co. near Karachi’s airport, Chinese embassy in Pakistan said in a statement. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif condemned the attack and vowed to protect Chinese nationals, according to a statement by the Prime Minister’s Office on Monday.
Pakistani authorities are trying to protect about 2,500 Chinese nationals working on different projects from roads to power under the multi-billion dollar China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. The efforts are failing though. Militant attacks increased by 47% to 717 this year to September and killed 834 people in Pakistan, according to the data compiled by Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies.
Five Chinese nationals working at a power project in Pakistan’s northwest region were killed in an attack in March that Islamabad blamed on Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan, an offshoot of Afghanistan’s Taliban group. Baloch Liberation Army, a group of militants fighting security forces, claimed responsibility for the latest attack, Dawn newspaper reported,
China asked Pakistani authorities to probe the attack and protect its citizens and projects, its embassy said in a statement.
The attack comes a week before Pakistan hosts the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation Summit in Islamabad. The China-led SCO is a Eurasian grouping of countries that includes Russia, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. India’s External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar will attend summit, the first visit to Pakistan by an Indian foreign minister since 2015.
These attacks are also hurting efforts by the Sharif government to revive an economy with the help of the International Monetary Fund’s three-year $7 billion loan secured last month.
Sharif has said China along with Saudi Arabia and the UAE were key in rolling over loans and help Pakistan secure the IMF loan. It also comes at a time Pakistan is looking to inject some fresh momentum to projects under China’s Belt and Road Initiative.
--With assistance from Kamran Haider.
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