Beijing(February 23, 2018): China on Thursday refuted a report that it is secretly holding talks with Baloch militants in Pakistan for more than five years to protect its $60 billion CPEC, and hoped that Pakistan will step up security for the ambitious project.
“I have never heard the report mentioned by you,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said at a media briefing when asked about the report by British newspaper Financial Times.
Quoting three officials, the daily said China had been in direct contact with militants in the south-western province, where many of the scheme’s most important projects are located.
The 3,000-km-long CPEC is aimed at connecting China and Pakistan with rail, road, pipelines and optical cable fiber network.
It connects China’s Xinjiang province with Pakistan’s Gwadar Port in the volatile Balochistan where Baloch nationalists have staged a number of attacks.
Pakistan military has raised a special force to protect thousands of Chinese nationals working on different projects.
Refuting the Financial Times story, Geng said, “I want to emphasize that the China and Pakistan governments have maintained consultation on the security of CPEC. Pakistan has taken a series of measures on this effectively safeguard the security CPEC and Chinese citizens. China highly appreciates this”.
Falls Claims by Financial Times
Earlier on February 20, Financial Times claimed that China has been quietly holding talks with Baloch militants for more than five years in an effort to protect the $60 billion worth of infrastructure projects it is financing as part of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).
Three people with knowledge of the talks told the paper that Beijing had been in direct contact with militants in Balochistan, where many of the CPEC-related schemes are located.
“The Chinese have quietly made a lot of progress,” one Pakistani official told Financial Times. “Even though separatists occasionally try to carry out the odd attack, they are not making a forceful push.”
For more than half a century, Beijing has maintained a policy of non-interference in the domestic politics of other countries. But that has been tested by its desire to protect the billions of dollars it is investing around the world under its Belt and Road Initiative to create a “new Silk Road” of trade routes in Europe, Asia, and Africa.
