“When the ‘Iron Brother’ Bleeds: Terrorism, Dependency, and the Limits of the China–Pakistan Alliance”

“When the ‘Iron Brother’ Bleeds: Terrorism, Dependency, and the Limits of the China–Pakistan Alliance”

(IN BRIEF) China and Pakistan publicly reaffirmed their “ironclad” friendship and all-weather strategic partnership during a January 2026 meeting in Beijing, marking 75 years of diplomatic ties and pledging deeper cooperation under an upgraded CPEC 2.0, alongside mutual political support on sensitive sovereignty issues. Beneath this rhetoric, however, the relationship is entering a critical phase as persistent terrorist attacks against Chinese citizens and projects in Pakistan have exposed deep structural vulnerabilities, prompting Beijing to demand concrete, enforceable security guarantees rather than broad assurances. The creation of special Pakistani security units dedicated solely to protecting Chinese nationals reflects mounting Chinese pressure and signals a shift from ideological solidarity to performance-based partnership. Repeated attacks between 2024 and 2025, including deadly bombings targeting Chinese engineers and workers linked to CPEC projects, have undermined confidence in Pakistan’s ability to control violence, while the growing presence of groups such as the Baloch Liberation Army and ISIS-K highlights a fragmented security environment fundamentally at odds with China’s centralized security expectations. With ISIS-K now explicitly incorporating Chinese targets into its transnational jihadist agenda, the threat has evolved from localized instability into a persistent strategic risk. As a result, the Sino-Pakistani partnership increasingly resembles a stress-laden security dependency, raising concerns in Beijing that Pakistan may be less a reliable ally than a conduit of risk, echoing historical lessons from other great-power engagements in states lacking a monopoly on violence.

(OP-ED) ATHENS, 26-Jan-2026 — /EuropaWire/ — According to a statement issued by the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China, on January 19, 2026, Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress Zhao Leji met in Beijing with Speaker of Pakistan’s National Assembly Sardar Ayaz Sadiq, reaffirming that the two countries remain “ironclad friends” and all-weather strategic partners.

The Chinese side emphasized that 2026 marks the 75th anniversary of diplomatic relations between China and Pakistan and expressed its intention to further deepen cooperation through the upgraded China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC 2.0), with a focus on industry, agriculture, transportation, mining, and social infrastructure. At the same time, Beijing reiterated its support for Pakistan’s territorial integrity, political stability, and efforts to combat terrorism. For his part, Sadiq reaffirmed Pakistan’s full support for China’s positions on Taiwan, Xinjiang, and Tibet, underscoring the Pakistani parliament’s legislative role in sustaining the long-term deepening of the bilateral relationship.

Behind this rhetoric of strategic alignment, however, analysis by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty highlights a critical turning point in Sino-Pakistani relations, a shift from the narrative of “ironclad brotherhood” toward institutionalized security measures imposed under clear Chinese pressure. The establishment of a special Pakistani security unit dedicated to protecting Chinese citizens, with separate training and a distinct operational mandate, is not merely a technical response to terrorism. It reflects a shared recognition in Islamabad and Beijing that the attacks of 2025 generated irreversible human and political costs, directly threatening the social legitimacy and economic viability of Chinese investments. When the protection of foreign workers requires parallel security structures outside standard state mechanisms, the problem ceases to be peripheral and becomes fundamentally state-level.

China is no longer satisfied with generic assurances of “stability”; it now demands measurable enforcement capacity on the ground. The creation of special units and joint training frameworks signals a silent renegotiation of power: Pakistan remains a crucial partner, but under increasingly stringent performance conditions. When a strategic ally is forced to restructure its internal security architecture to reassure a partner, cooperation has moved from ideological affinity to a stress test of endurance. It is precisely here that the “iron brother” bleeds, not only from terrorist attacks, but from the burden of proving that it can still protect what it has promised.

The Sino-Pakistani relationship, officially described since the mid-1960s as an “iron friendship,” has evolved into a tangible strategic partnership centered on the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a flagship component of the broader Belt and Road Initiative. During 2024–2025, cooperation remained multi-layered: large-scale infrastructure investments, including ports, road networks, and energy projects; joint economic zones; technological and educational cooperation; and coordinated counterterrorism commitments, including zero-tolerance frameworks and joint security exercises. Chinese investments worth tens of billions of dollars, combined with Pakistan’s political support on sensitive international issues, have reinforced the image of strategic trust.

Yet the security of Chinese citizens and joint projects has been severely undermined by a series of terrorist attacks in Pakistan between 2024 and 2025. In March 2024, a suicide bombing in Shangla killed five Chinese engineers and their Pakistani driver while en route to the Dasu hydropower project, one of CPEC’s flagship initiatives. In October 2024, an attack near Karachi’s international airport killed two Chinese workers, while earlier operations by the Baloch Liberation Army had already targeted Chinese interests in Balochistan. Repeated attacks by jihadist and separatist groups have become a source of growing tension, prompting Beijing to publicly demand stricter and more effective security measures. As a result, while cooperation remains officially strong, realities on the ground increasingly call into question Pakistan’s capacity to guarantee the safety of Chinese projects and personnel, directly affecting the credibility of the partnership itself.

The dysfunction of the Sino-Pakistani relationship does not stem from a lack of coercive capacity, both states possess it, but from a fundamental incompatibility in their security logics. China relies on a centralized, hierarchical system that presupposes discipline, predictability, and a state monopoly on violence. Pakistan, by contrast, operates within a fragmented environment where the state does not fully control either territory or armed force. Attacks against Chinese targets originate from heterogeneous actors, most notably the Baloch Liberation Army, an ethno-separatist rather than Islamist organization, which perceives CPEC as a mechanism of exploitation and loss of local sovereignty. In this context, violence is instrumental and unpredictable, directly clashing with China’s demand for absolute security for its investments and citizens.

During 2025, the presence and operational capacity of ISIS-K in Pakistan made clear that the phenomenon had exceeded the limits of state management and surveillance. Despite Islamabad’s official assurances of “counterterrorism control,” ISIS-K expanded both geographically and operationally, with attacks, recruitment, and networking no longer confined to remote border areas but reaching urban centers, cross-border flows, and critical infrastructure. Throughout 2025, ISIS-K claimed responsibility for multiple attacks and attempted attacks in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, including bombings targeting security forces, targeted assassinations of religious figures, and assaults on sites of high symbolic and political significance. Particularly alarming were repeated arrests of ISIS-K cells in urban areas such as Peshawar and Quetta, which functioned not as isolated units but as recruitment and logistical hubs.

Reports by the UN Monitoring Team on ISIS and al-Qaeda, as well as analyses by U.S. and European intelligence services, confirmed that ISIS-K no longer operates as a limited regional offshoot but as a networked organization with stable cells in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan, and major urban centers. These networks are linked to former members of Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, arms and human trafficking routes along the Pakistan–Afghanistan border, and local support structures providing shelter, funding, and recruitment.

The targeting of Chinese citizens in South Asia is no longer an isolated phenomenon but part of a broader terrorist logic cutting across organizations and geographies, with Pakistan at the core of this dangerous convergence. The most tragic and indisputable case within Pakistani territory occurred in March 2024 in Shangla, when a bombing of a vehicle carrying Chinese engineers to the Dasu hydropower project killed five Chinese nationals and their Pakistani driver, demonstrating that even flagship CPEC projects cannot be adequately protected. Later in 2024, an armed attack on a vehicle carrying Chinese workers in Karachi, carried out by militants linked to Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan and affiliated Islamist networks, reinforced the image of generalized hostility toward Chinese targets, even when responsibility is not directly attributed to ISIS-K.

Meanwhile, the January 2026 attack on a Chinese restaurant in Kabul, explicitly claimed by ISIS-K, although outside Pakistan, is highly significant. It confirms that the organization has formally incorporated China and its citizens into its ideological and operational target list, citing the Uyghur issue and China’s economic penetration of the region. International security assessments converge on the conclusion that ISIS-K has escalated its activities across South and Central Asia, planning or inspiring attacks that include Chinese interests, even when responsibility is diffused across a web of jihadist and local armed groups. Earlier precedents, including kidnappings and killings of Chinese nationals in Balochistan as early as 2017 by groups such as the Balochistan Liberation Army, show that the threat predates ISIS-K. What distinguishes the current phase is qualitative: for the first time, the targeting of Chinese citizens is embedded in a transnational jihadist narrative, in which Pakistan appears either unable or unwilling to fully dismantle violent networks, turning the safety of Chinese investments and citizens into a persistent and open strategic risk.

The so-called “ironclad friendship” between China and Pakistan is beginning to resemble, in unsettling ways, the path once taken by the United States in Afghanistan: a long-term strategic investment in a partner either unable or unwilling to control its own territory and the armed dynamics operating within it. Just as Washington ultimately discovered that reliance on a state lacking a monopoly on violence turns power into hemorrhage, Beijing is now confronting the same structural dead end. Pakistan increasingly functions less as an ally and more as a multiplier of risk, hosting—or failing to neutralize—networks that openly target Chinese interests.

The lesson of Afghanistan is unambiguous: stability cannot be purchased where the state does not control violence. As long as Pakistan remains a convergence zone for jihadist and separatist organizations, no version of CPEC and no rhetoric of “brotherhood” can guarantee the security of Chinese investments. If Beijing ignores this historical precedent, it risks facing its own “Afghanistan”—not in the form of deployed troops, but through dead citizens, frozen projects, and a global narrative of power that is beginning to fracture.

About the author

Dimitra Staikou is a Greek lawyer, journalist, and professional writer with extensive expertise on South Asia, China, and the Middle East. Her analyses on geopolitics, international trade, and human rights have been published in leading outlets including Modern Diplomacy, HuffPost Greece, Skai.gr, Eurasia Review, and the Daily Express (UK). Fluent in English, Greek, and Spanish, Dimitra combines legal insight with on-the-ground reporting and creative storytelling, offering a nuanced perspective on global affairs.

SOURCE: Dimitra Staikou