China’s Growing Security Footprint in Pakistan

Bottom Line Up Front

• China and Pakistan have been strategic partners since the early 2000s, but the relationship between Islamabad and Beijing has further deepened under President Xi Jinping’s tenure, to an “all-weather friendship” with deepened cooperation in several areas, including trade and economics, defense, and security.
• The relationship is not without its problems, especially related to the volatile security situation in Pakistan that impacts the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor — China’s pet project in South Asia under the Belt and Road Initiative.
• Following a string of deadly attacks perpetrated by violent extremists in Pakistan, reports suggest Beijing has increased its pressure on Islamabad to ramp up counterterrorism efforts and beef up security initiatives to protect PRC interests in the country.
• The PRC’s growing security footprint in the country has implications not only for the geopolitics of the region, but also the ongoing strategic competition between the United States and China

In March, unconfirmed reports emerged that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) had permanently deployed personnel from Chinese private security contractors (PSCs) in Pakistan to protect PRC nationals working on China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) projects in the country. While Chinese PSCs have historically been active in Pakistan, they have primarily employed Pakistani nationals and operated under strict rules. If confirmed, this recent and unprecedented move is likely the result of Beijing’s mounting pressure on Islamabad to protect its nationals and interests in the country, as the security situation in Pakistan has been deteriorating, especially since 2021. The PRC’s growing security footprint in Pakistan has implications for the geopolitics of the region and the ongoing strategic competition between the United States and China.

China and Pakistan have been strategic partners since the early 2000s, but the relationship between Islamabad and Beijing has further deepened under President Xi Jinping’s tenure. During Xi’s visit to the country in 2015, the relationship was upgraded to an “all-weather friendship” with deepened cooperation in several areas, including trade and economics, defense, and security. The backbone of the relationship between Beijing and Islamabad today is CPEC — China’s $65 billion pet project in South Asia, which aims to construct a sea-and-land-based infrastructure corridor in the country under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) umbrella. There are major security components to the relationship, too. In the past five years, 81 percent of Pakistan’s total weapons imports came from China. Between 2014 and 2024, the two countries held eight bilateral naval exercises, and in December 2024, the two countries concluded a three-week joint anti-terrorism exercise, the “Pak-China Joint Exercise Warrior-VIII.” For Islamabad, CPEC signifies an important step to upgrade infrastructure and transform Pakistan’s economy. For the PRC, penetrating Pakistan’s economic, infrastructure, and energy sectors provides a strategic advantage, especially related to alternative energy import routes that circumvent the narrow Straits of Malacca. Geopolitically, Beijing and Islamabad’s strategic partnership aims to curb India’s ambitions in the region.

The relationship, however, is not without its problems, especially related to the volatile security situation in Pakistan. Since 2021, the threat of terrorism in Pakistan has dramatically increased, with 2024 being the deadliest year in over a decade and attacks more than doubling year-over-year to over 1,000 recorded attacks in 2024. PRC nationals and economic interests have become increasingly attractive targets for terrorism and political violence in the country, where thousands of PRC nationals are deployed to work on CPEC projects. The majority of terrorist attacks in the country are focused along the Afghan-Pakistan border as well as the Balochistan region, where many key CPEC projects are located. Most recently, in October of last year, a convoy carrying PRC staff of the Port Qasim Electric Power Company was targeted by a suicide attack near the Karachi airport, killing two PRC nationals and injuring ten people. The attack was claimed by the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), which has targeted Chinese workers and infrastructure projects at an increasing pace since 2018.

Since the October attack, reports suggest Beijing has increased its pressure on Islamabad to ramp up counterterrorism efforts and beef up security initiatives to protect PRC interests in the country. China’s top spy agency, the Ministry of State Security (MSS), vowed to increase cooperation with its Pakistani counterpart on early warning and anti-terrorism intelligence. That same month, Islamabad approved an additional $162 million budget for its armed forces, primarily aimed at protecting PRC nationals and economic interests. Beijing has reportedly pushed for an agreement to have Chinese nationals as part of private security companies permanently stationed in Pakistan. Rumors have also circulated that the PRC wants a People’s Liberation Army base in the port city of Gwadar. The Pakistani government is said to have rejected such proposals that would station PRC security and military on a permanent basis in the country. During a state visit to China by Pakistan’s President Zardari in February, however, the joint statement included a commitment to “further strengthen bilateral and multilateral cooperation on counter terrorism.” One of the memorandums of understanding (MoUs) signed in connection with the state visit was an agreement to strengthen intelligence sharing mechanisms, the transfer of Chinese modern technology and equipment for security purposes, and increase cooperation between the Beijing Police and Islamabad Police. A month later, reports of PRC nationals stationed with three private security companies at two CPEC sites emerged.

The PRC’s growing security footprint in the country has implications not only for the geopolitics of the region, but also the ongoing strategic competition between the United States and China. Both the PRC and Pakistan see India as a strategic rival, and increased security cooperation between Islamabad and Beijing — especially if PRC security personnel or even military personnel were stationed in Pakistan on a more permanent basis — would likely increase tensions with New Delhi and impact regional security in the Indian Ocean. For the United States, the situation in Pakistan may provide a blueprint of how the PRC will seek to deal with the increasing security threat to its BRI projects, not only in Pakistan but also in other regions of the world, such as Africa and the Middle East. The BRI is increasingly touted in connection with Xi’s Global Security Initiative (GSI) — announced in 2022 — that is part of Xi’s ambition to promote the PRC as an international security leader, especially for the Global South and countries that have strained relations with the United States.