Pakistan: As terrorists target their manpower, Chinese firms start leaving ‘friendly country’
Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: With Pakistan failing to contain ongoing terrorist attacks on Chinese interests and citizens, China’s companies have started shutting shops in the troubled South Asian country that they once thought was their backyard.
Terrorists of various hues—ranging from the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTK) to the Baluchistan Liberation Army (BLA)—have relentlessly targeted Chinese nationals and the projects they are constructing under the USD 62 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) since its inception in 2015, and also other projects. Several Chinese professionals have been killed and many more wounded.
Now, two days after five Chinese nationals were killed in a suicide attack at a hydropower project in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in Pakistan, a Chinese company has suspended civil works and laid off hundreds of workers at another hydropower project in the same restive province, the media reported on Thursday.
At least five Chinese nationals, working on the Dasu hydropower project in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, were among the six persons killed on Tuesday when an explosives-laden vehicle rammed into their bus in Bisham district, in the second suicide attack on the personnel working on the China-backed hydropower project since 2021.
No terrorist group has claimed responsibility so far for the suicide bombing. So, neither Pakistan nor China has a clue as to who did it, even as Beijing continued to pressure Islamabad to book the culprits at the earliest.
The Chinese company, Power Construction Corporation of China (PCCC), has suspended civil works at the Tarbela Fifth Extension Hydropower Project in the Swabi district of KP province and laid off over 2,000 workers after the killing of Chinese nationals in a suicide attack in Shangla district, the Dawn newspaper reported quoting government sources.
The suspension of work on the 1,530 megawatts Tarbela extension project (T5) was notified by the Manager (Administration) of the PCCC. The notification also revealed that the project’s site workers and office staff members had been laid off until further orders because of security reasons, the report said.
The manager said only the staff members called by the heads of their respective sections would come to work.
Aslam Adil, General Secretary of the Awami Labour Union at the Tarbela project, confirmed the development but insisted that, under labor laws, the workers laid off hadn’t lost jobs and were entitled to receive half of their salaries until they resumed duties.
“Authorities are going to enhance the security of project employees on their demand,” he said.
The trade unionist said the suspension of work won’t cause a “long delay” in T-5’s completion, which is slated for May 2026 with the assistance of the World Bank (USD 390 million) and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (USD 300 million).
The Chinese were working on the Dasu hydropower project, which is about 300 km north of Islamabad. The 4,320 MW project is being constructed by China Gezhouba with funding from the World Bank.
The first such attack involving Chinese nationals was carried out on July 14, 2021, a few kilometers from Dasu dam’s site in Kohistan, leaving nine Chinese engineers and four Pakistani workers dead while over 23 sustained injuries.
On Wednesday, Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif ordered a thorough joint investigation into the deadly terrorist attack on Chinese nationals after Beijing pressed Islamabad to speed up the hunt for the perpetrators and take effective steps to protect Chinese personnel working in the country.
Thousands of Chinese personnel are working in Pakistan on several projects under the aegis of the USD 60 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).
