The Terrorist Risk and China's Policy toward Pakistan: strategic reassurance and the ‘United Front’

Abstract

This paper examines how growing insecurity in Pakistan—affecting the security of Chinese expatriates and neighboring Xinjiang—impacts China's policy towards its ‘all-weather’ friend. It argues that managing the terrorist risk in a changing regional environment has led to a double adjustment in China's policy towards Pakistan. First, counterterrorist cooperation has moved up the policy agenda, albeit with a peculiar modus operandi, focused on sustaining a pro-Chinese ‘United Front’ in Pakistan. Second, Beijing has positively reassessed Pakistan's strategic value and moved towards strategic reassurance, although the construction of a trade-and-energy corridor between Gwadar and Xinjiang has been negatively affected by the risk of violence.