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View: China's ‘good terrorist, bad terrorist’ ploy to blame for attacks on Chinese nationals in Pakistan

China says it is going to support Pakistan in its fight against terror. But it does not do the same with India.

Updated on: Mar 31, 2024, 10:37:19 IST
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At least five Chinese engineers were killed in a suicide attack in Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on March 26 at the Dasu hydroelectric project. Beijing said it was committed to fighting against global terrorism and will support Islamabad in its fight against terror.

These are very high sounding words coming from China, considering that it has multiple standards when it comes to terrorism like Pakistan.

China is worried that its engineers, technical personnel and nationals are coming under attack from unidentified groups in Pakistan, whether it be Dasu hydroelectric project in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Gwadar project or in Karachi.

Security personnel inspect the site of the suicide attack near Besham city in the Shangla district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on March 26. Five Chinese nationals working on a major dam construction site were killed in the attack. (AFP)
Security personnel inspect the site of the suicide attack near Besham city in the Shangla district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on March 26. Five Chinese nationals working on a major dam construction site were killed in the attack. (AFP)

In all these places, there are insurgencies working against the Pakistan government which has given space to China to exploit the natural resources of that country. The Chinese nationals have been facing terror attacks in Pakistan since 2021 when its nine engineers were targeted at the Dasu hydroelectric project.

There was a terror attack in 2022 when three Chinese tutors were killed at the Confucius Institute in Karachi. There have been multiple terror attacks against the Chinese at the Gwadar Port. The Chinese per se are facing a lot of resentment in all areas of Pakistan except Punjab.

China blocked designation of Masood Azhar as global terrorist

China says it is going to support Pakistan in its fight against terror. But it does not the same with India. China blocked the designation of Jaish-e-Mohammad's Masood Azhar as a global terrorist four times before Indian allies United States, France and United Kingdom told Beijing that they will take the matter up in the UN General Assembly and embarrass it.

Azhar, who is responsible for thousands of deaths in India in terror attacks, was labelled as a global terrorist. Same is the case with Abdul Rahman Makki, the brother-in-law of Lashkar-e-Toiba's Hafiz Saeed, who was designated after multiple blocks by China.

China continues to block the designation of Saeed's son Talha Saeed, Masood Azhar's brother Mufti Rauf Asghar and Sajid Mir, the man singularly responsible for Mumbai 26/11 attacks. It was Mir who told the terrorists at Nariman Point, Chabad House to take a head shot at the Israeli hostages.

If you have forgotten, after Masood Azhar was designated as global terrorist by UN's 1267 Committee, China at the instigation of Pakistan decided to be a part of a conspiracy to designate innocent Indians working in Afghanistan as global terrorists. To say that China is in support of global terrorism is a misnomer because it has its own double standards.

China thinks that the Dalai Lama is a terrorist, militants operating in Xinjiang under East Turkistan Islamic Movement are terrorists. But it does not think that people who are targeting India from Pakistan are terrorists.

When Pulwama attack took place, China did not utter a word against Pakistan despite 40 CRPF troopers being killed. All China sanctimoniously said that while it is condoling the death of 40 paratroopers, it wanted India to resume dialogue with Pakistan. The Chinese double standards are quite evident.

China does not blame Hamas for the October 7 attack against Israel. It supported Hamas and found Israel on the wrong side.

For India, terrorism is terrorism without any conditions. For China, terrorism is with conditions and politics of terror.

  • Shishir Gupta
    ABOUT THE AUTHOR
    Shishir Gupta

    Shishir Gupta is Executive Editor at Hindustan Times and one of India's top journalists covering national security, strategic affairs, foreign policy and geopolitics. Over the past three decades, he has extensively reported on India's military, diplomatic and security landscape, covering every major conflict and national security challenge, from the 1999 Kargil War and the 2020 East Ladakh standoff to Operation Sindoor in 2025. He has also covered major terror attacks, including the IC-814 hijacking, the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and the 2025 Pahalgam terror strike, along with numerous Pakistan-backed terrorist incidents in the Kashmir Valley and across India. He has reported on national and state elections for more than three decades. A recognised authority on strategic affairs, Gupta has covered India's nuclear programme since the Pokhran-II (Shakti series) tests in May 1998 and has written extensively on global nuclear issues, Indian diplomacy and the country's expanding global outreach. He has also reported widely on international conflicts and terrorism, with a special focus on the Indian subcontinent. Gupta has interviewed Prime Minister Narendra Modi more than four times, including Modi's first interview with the print media after becoming Prime Minister in May 2014. His other interviews include three with the Dalai Lama, as well as conversations with Benjamin Netanyahu, Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath, S. Jaishankar, Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal. He is the author of Indian Mujahideen: The Enemy Within (Hachette, 2011) and Himalayan Face-off: Chinese Assertion and Indian Riposte (Hachette, 2014). He was awarded the Chevening-Wolfson Joint Scholarship at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, UK, in 1998 and participated in the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) of the US State Department in 2006. He received the Ben Gurion Prize from Israel in 2011 and the K. Subrahmanyam Prize for Strategic Studies in 2015 from the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA). Since 2024, he has hosted Point Blank, Hindustan Times' weekly YouTube show on global geopolitics.Read More