Is Pakistan prioritizing Beijing? New security unit sparks debate | World News

Pakistan’s creation of a security unit aimed at protecting Chinese civilians is the clearest sign of bowing to Beijing’s demands and placing Chinese workers in a superior position to the rest of the local population, a report said.

In a bid to protect investment amid militancy-related challenges, Pakistan continues to make significant concessions to China, it said.

“In early January 2026, Pakistani Interior Minister Muhsin Naqvi announced the establishment of a new special security unit tasked solely with protecting Chinese citizens in the country. This development comes after years of relentless attacks by militant groups in Pakistan targeting Chinese citizens, workers and infrastructure projects,” a report in leading international news magazine ‘The Diplomat’ said.

“By placing even greater emphasis on Chinese interests, Pakistan is signaling its desperation to keep its biggest sponsor by its side. Meanwhile, Beijing is taking advantage of Islamabad’s increasingly weakened position to strengthen its presence in the country, rather than retreating further, as it began to do in the second half of 2025,” the statement said.

Since the Taliban regained control of Afghanistan in 2021, China has moved to assert its authority in the region and take advantage of the declining US presence and influence, according to the report.

Instead of reaping the expected benefits from this strategy, China’s interests became the target of various terrorist and militant groups, and Chinese workers began to bear the brunt of the violence.

“Pakistan has been the primary scene of this sharp increase in attacks, with Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) targeting Chinese infrastructure projects in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan respectively. However, in recent months, attacks on Chinese workers, citizens and businesses have also begun to increase in neighboring Afghanistan and Tajikistan,” the report detailed.

“During this period, hostility towards China has become a common theme among a number of regional and transnational terrorist groups, despite their different strategic objectives. In Afghanistan, the Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP) has stated that its attacks on Chinese citizens are intended to serve as bloody retaliation for the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) ‘escalating crimes’ against the Uyghur Muslim population in Xinjiang.”

The report highlighted that Pakistan’s security weaknesses were exposed following an unprecedented attack by the BLA on January 31, which included coordinated suicide attacks and shootings in Balochistan that killed dozens of Pakistani police and military personnel.

“In this backdrop, the CCP has repeatedly called on Pakistan to allow China’s own armed security forces to be deployed in the country to protect Chinese citizens, signaling a clear lack of confidence in Pakistan’s capacity to manage internal security challenges. Beijing went further by proposing the permanent deployment of Chinese military personnel in the port city of Gwadar, but Islamabad hesitated to grant further sovereignty.”