Pakistani Premier Sharif and Chinese government: attacks in Balochistan aim to block the New Silk Road

Chinese interests in Balochistan are mainly logistics and mining. In Gwadar, Beijing has financed and operates, through the China Overseas Port Holding Company, a port overlooking the Arabian Sea - not far from the Strait of Hormuz, one of the most strategically important bottlenecks in world trade. Not only that, in Balochistan, China also operates gold and copper mines, mining activities that have done nothing - on the contrary - to dispel the resentment of a local population that feels bypassed by the riches generated by its own land.

The problem of attacks against 'outsiders' and infrastructure projects does not only concern Chinese expatriates, nor does it only concern Balochistan. On the night between Sunday and Monday, in one of four attacks by separatists, several Pakistani citizens stopped at a motorway checkpoint in cold blood were killed just for being from the Punjab, the country's politically and militarily dominant province. In March, in the North West of Pakistan, several thousand kilometres from Balochistan, a suicide bomber blew up a van that was taking a group of Chinese engineers to a construction site, killing five of them plus their driver.

The fact that both the Pakistani Prime Minister and the Foreign Ministry in Beijing felt compelled to defend the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor speaks volumes about how important this set of $65 billion projects are for the two countries. For Islamabad, it is an opportunity to intercept investments at a time of severe economic crisis and strengthen diplomatic relations with the main geopolitical rival of neighbouring and hostile India. For Beijing, this is a key piece in the mosaic of projects that will connect the Xinjiang province with the Middle East and Europe via the Arabian Sea, creating an alternative route to the Strait of Malacca for exporting goods and importing energy.