Axis of Evil: Human Trafficking

629 Pakistani girls sold as brides to China

By KATHY GANNON

In this May 22, 2019 file photo, Sumaira a Pakistani woman, shows a picture of her Chinese husband in Gujranwala, Pakistan. Sumaira, who didn't want her full name used, was raped repeatedly by Chinese men at a house in Islamabad where she was brought to stay after her brothers arranged her marriage to the older Chinese man. The Associated Press has obtained a list, compiled by Pakistani investigators determined to break up trafficking networks, that identifies hundreds of girls and women from across Pakistan who were sold as brides to Chinese men and taken to China. 

LAHORE, Pakistan — Page after page, the names stack up: 629 girls and women from across Pakistan who were sold as brides to Chinese men and taken to China. 

The list, obtained by The Associated Press, was compiled by Pakistani investigators determined to break up trafficking networks exploiting the country’s poor and vulnerable.
The list gives the most concrete figure yet for the number of women caught up in the trafficking schemes since 2018.
But since the time it was put together in June, investigators’ aggressive drive against the networks has largely ground to a halt. 

Officials with knowledge of the investigations say that is because of pressure from government officials fearful of hurting Pakistan’s lucrative ties to Beijing.
The biggest case against traffickers has fallen apart. 

In October, a court in Faisalabad acquitted 31 Chinese nationals charged in connection with trafficking. 

Several of the women who had initially been interviewed by police refused to testify because they were either threatened or bribed into silence, according to a court official and a police investigator familiar with the case. 

The two spoke on condition of anonymity because they feared retribution for speaking out.
At the same time, the government has sought to curtail investigations, putting “immense pressure” on officials from the Federal Investigation Agency pursuing trafficking networks, said Saleem Iqbal, a Christian activist who has helped parents rescue several young girls from China and prevented others from being sent there.
“Some (FIA officials) were even transferred,” Iqbal said in an interview. 

“When we talk to Pakistani rulers, they don’t pay any attention. “
Asked about the complaints, Pakistan’s interior and foreign ministries refused to comment.
Several senior officials familiar with the events said investigations into trafficking have slowed, the investigators are frustrated, and Pakistani media have been pushed to curb their reporting on trafficking. 

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they feared reprisals.
“No one is doing anything to help these girls,” one of the officials said. 

“The whole racket is continuing, and it is growing. Why? Because they know they can get away with it. The authorities won’t follow through, everyone is being pressured to not investigate. Trafficking is increasing now.”
He said he was speaking out “because I have to live with myself. Where is our humanity?”
China’s Foreign Ministry said it was unaware of the list.

An AP investigation earlier this year revealed how Pakistan’s Christian minority has become a new target of brokers who pay impoverished parents to marry off their daughters, some of them teenagers, to Chinese husbands who return with them to their homeland. 

Many of the brides are then isolated and abused or forced into prostitution in China, often contacting home and pleading to be brought back. 

The AP spoke to police and court officials and more than a dozen brides — some of whom made it back to Pakistan, others who remained trapped in China — as well as remorseful parents, neighbors, relatives and human rights workers.
Christians are targeted because they are one of the poorest communities in Muslim-majority Pakistan. 

The trafficking rings are made up of Chinese and Pakistani middlemen and include Christian ministers, mostly from small evangelical churches, who get bribes to urge their flock to sell their daughters. 

Investigators have also turned up at least one Muslim cleric running a marriage bureau from his madrassa, or religious school.
Investigators put together the list of 629 women from Pakistan’s integrated border management system, which digitally records travel documents at the country’s airports. 

The information includes the brides’ national identity numbers, their Chinese husbands’ names and the dates of their marriages.
All but a handful of the marriages took place in 2018 and up to April 2019. 

One of the senior officials said it was believed all 629 were sold to grooms by their families.
It is not known how many more women and girls were trafficked since the list was put together. 

But the official said, “the lucrative trade continues.” 

He spoke to the AP in an interview conducted hundreds of kilometers from his place of work to protect his identity. 

“The Chinese and Pakistani brokers make between 4 million and 10 million rupees ($25,000 and $65,000) from the groom, but only about 200,000 rupees ($1,500), is given to the family,” he said.
The official, with years of experience studying human trafficking in Pakistan, said many of the women who spoke to investigators told of forced fertility treatments, physical and sexual abuse and, in some cases, forced prostitution. 

Although no evidence has emerged, at least one investigation report contains allegations of organs being harvested from some of the women sent to China.
In September, Pakistan’s investigation agency sent a report it labeled “fake Chinese marriages cases” to Prime Minister Imran Khan. 

The report, a copy of which was attained by the AP, provided details of cases registered against 52 Chinese nationals and 20 of their Pakistani associates in two cities in eastern Punjab province — Faisalabad, Lahore — as well as in the capital Islamabad. 

The Chinese suspects included the 31 later acquitted in court.
The report said police discovered two illegal marriage bureaus in Lahore, including one operated from an Islamic center and madrassa — the first known report of poor Muslims also being targeted by brokers. 

The Muslim cleric involved fled police.
After the acquittals, there are other cases before the courts involving arrested Pakistani and at least another 21 Chinese suspects, according to the report sent to the prime minister in September. 

But the Chinese defendants in the cases were all granted bail and left the country, say activists and a court official.
Activists and human rights workers say Pakistan has sought to keep the trafficking of brides quiet so as not to jeopardize Pakistan’s increasingly close economic relationship with China.China has been a steadfast ally of Pakistan for decades, particularly in its testy relationship with India. 

China has provided Islamabad with military assistance, including pre-tested nuclear devices and nuclear-capable missiles.
Today, Pakistan is receiving massive aid under China’s Belt and Road Initiative, a global endeavor aimed at reconstituting the Silk Road and linking China to all corners of Asia. 

Under the $75 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor project, Beijing has promised Islamabad a sprawling package of infrastructure development, from road construction and power plants to agriculture.
The demand for foreign brides in China is rooted in that country’s population, where there are roughly 34 million more men than women — a result of the one-child policy that ended in 2015 after 35 years, along with an overwhelming preference for boys that led to abortions of girl children and female infanticide.
A report released this month by Human Rights Watch, documenting trafficking in brides from Myanmar to China, said the practice is spreading. 

It said Pakistan, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Myanmar, Nepal, North Korea and Vietnam have “all have become source countries for a brutal business.”
“One of the things that is very striking about this issue is how fast the list is growing of countries that are known to be source countries in the bride trafficking business,” Heather Barr, the HRW report’s author, told AP.
Omar Warriach, Amnesty International’s campaigns director for South Asia, said Pakistan “must not let its close relationship with China become a reason to turn a blind eye to human rights abuses against its own citizens” — either in abuses of women sold as brides or separation of Pakistani women from husbands from China’s Muslim Uighur population sent to “re-education camps” to turn them away from Islam.
“It is horrifying that women are being treated this way without any concern being shown by the authorities in either country. And it’s shocking that it’s happening on this scale,” he said.

Pakistan: China's Uighurs Final Solution Accomplice

'What About Concern Over Plight Of Muslims In China?': US Rebukes Pakistan
Pakistani Imran Khan, asked about the Uighurs, declined comment, saying that Pakistan had a "special relationship" with China.
Agence France-Presse

Imran Khan is known as a Muslim who assists China's Uighurs genocide.

In a snub to Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan, a top US diplomat on Friday questioned why Khan was not speaking out about China, which has detained an estimated one million Uighurs and other Turkic-speaking Muslims.
Amid increased tensions between India and Pakistan after New Delhi scrapped Article 370 of the Constitution, which grants special status to Jammu and Kashmir, Alice Wells, US Acting Assistant Secretary for South and Central Asia said Khan's comments on Kashmir were unhelpful.

"A lowering of rhetoric would be welcome, especially between two nuclear powers."
She also questioned why Khan was not also speaking out about China, which has detained an estimated one million Uighurs. 

"...I would like to see the same level of concern expressed also about Muslims who are being detained in Western China, literally in concentration-like conditions. And so being concerned about the human rights of Muslims does extend more broadly than Kashmir, and you've seen the administration very involved here during the UN General Assembly and trying to shine a light on the horrific conditions that continue to exist for Muslims throughout China," she said.
Khan, asked about the Uighurs at a think tank on Monday, declined comment, saying that Pakistan had a "special relationship" with China and would only raise issues in private.
Rights groups and witnesses say that China has been trying to forcibly stop Islamic traditions and integrate Uighurs into the majority Han population. 

China says it is providing vocational training and discouraging extremism.
US sought to use the annual United Nations summit to build up international pressure on China over its treatment of the Uighurs.
The State Department had organised an event on Tuesday to highlight the plight of Uighurs in China. The conference was held on the sidelines of the General Assembly to garner support "to demand and compel an immediate end to China's horrific campaign of repression," John Sullivan, the US's second-highest diplomat, said.
"We cannot be the only guardians of the truth nor the only members of the international community to call out China and demand that they stop," Mr Sullivan added.
On Tuesday, US President Donald Trump also fired several shots across the bow of the fellow Security Council member, moving beyond his typical attacks against China on international trade.
"The world fully expects that the Chinese government will honor its binding treaty... (and) protect Hong Kong's freedom and legal system and democratic ways of life," Mr Trump told the General Assembly.
"How China chooses to handle the situation will say a great deal about its role in the world and the future," the Republican tycoon added during his third appearance at the diplomatic forum in New York.
It marked one of his most anti-China speeches on the situation in Hong Kong since massive anti-government protests broke out there three months ago. 

The demonstrations have triggered the Asian financial hub's biggest political crisis since its handover from Britain to China in 1997.

Will Balochistan Blow Up China’s Belt and Road?

Violence in the Pakistani province is on the rise—and now Chinese are the target.
BY MUHAMMAD AKBAR NOTEZAI
Pakistani naval personnel stand guard near a ship at the Gwadar port on Nov. 13, 2016. 

Freedom fighters: The Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) released a video warning China to stop aiding Pakistan to brutally suppress Baloch people.

In 2015, when Chinese dictator Xi Jinping’s plane entered Pakistani airspace, eight Pakistan Air Force jets scrambled to escort it. 

The country’s leadership warmly welcomed the Chinese leader—and his money. 

On his two-day state visit, he announced a multibillion-dollar project called the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), which would form part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative and would revolve around the development of a huge port in the city of Gwadar.
Gwadar, a formerly isolated city in Pakistan’s southwestern Balochistan province, boomed. 

As soon as the CPEC was announced, tourists, including journalists, started visiting Gwadar. 

The Pearl Continental, the only five-star hotel in the area, had been on the brink of closure. 

Now guests thronged. 

But not everyone was happy about that. 

Baloch nationalists and underground organizations opposed the CPEC from the beginning, on the grounds that it would turn the Baloch people into a minority in their own province. 

They threatened attacks on any CPEC project anywhere in Balochistan.
There was plenty of reason to believe their threats. 

During the tenure of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, who led Pakistan from 1999 to 2008, Baloch insurgents killed Chinese engineers and workers in the province. 

One of the incidents took place in Gwadar, where in May 2004, militants killed three Chinese engineers. 

The engineers had been driving to work. 

When they slowed down to pass over a speed bump, a terrorist in a nearby car detonated the barrier with a remote control.
In recent years, violence had waned. 

There were no new projects, and the city seemed to have settled into its own rhythm. 

But following the CPEC announcement, according to the News International, a Pakistani English daily, Pakistan deployed a total of 17,177 security personnel from the Army and other security forces to ensure the security of Chinese nationals. 

In the years since, Gwadar has become something of a military cantonment. 

Army, police, and other law enforcers mill about.
And locals traveling around Gwadar face routine harassment at security checkpoints.
The policing has done little to deter attacks. 

In recent months, two reported incidents have put the province on edge. 

The first attack occurred on April 18, when 15 to 20 Baloch insurgents dressed in military uniforms forms forced 14 passengers off a public bus and shot them, one by one. 

Most of victims were from the Pakistan Navy and Coast Guards, whom Baloch insurgents view as an occupying force.
Then, on May 11, the Pearl Continental in the heart of Gwadar came under fire. 

Situated on a promontory overlooking the port and the Arabian Sea, the hotel is mammoth and a favorite of foreign dignitaries. 

Security there is intense, and since it is near Gwadar’s port area there are already plenty of military personnel in the area. 

Three armed attackers from the Balochistan Liberation Army’s Majeed Brigade nevertheless managed to breach the defenses and open fire on people inside. 

According to officials, five individuals—four hotel employees, including three security guards, and a navy officer—lost their lives.
The Pearl Continental attack in particular bodes ill for Chinese investment in Balochistan.
Before this month, it was hard to imagine that Baloch insurgents would be capable of carrying out the attack in the center of Gwadar, even with the local support. 

But now any sense of security has been undermined.
Established in 2011, the Majeed Brigade, a suicide attack squad within the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), is reportedly named after Abdul Majeed Baloch, who attempted to assassinate then-Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in 1974 in Balochistan. 

In 1973, Bhutto had ordered a military operation against the Baloch because Baloch insurgents had vowed war against the state of Pakistan after Islamabad had dismissed the democratically elected National Awami Party government in Balochistan in February 1973. 

The operation triggered a major insurgency in Balochistan that lasted until 1977. 

Majeed was killed by security forces before he could carry out his plan against Bhutto.
In the first several years after the BLA was formed in 2000, it mostly waged attacks on national security forces, state infrastructure, and Punjabi settlers. 

In more recent years, under Aslam Baloch, who died in Kandahar in December 2018, the Majeed Brigade has focused on Chinese nationals and Chinese-funded projects. 

Such attacks seemed more likely to provoke media attention. 

He tapped his oldest son, Rehan Baloch, for a suicide attack on Chinese engineers in Dalbandin, a city in Balochistan, last August. 

The attack resulted in minor injuries for the engineers. 

He also oversaw an attack on the Chinese consulate in Karachi a few months later. 

Two police officials and two visa applicants were killed.
As these incidents suggest, the Majeed Brigade is gaining momentum. 

And it is joined by new groups, such as the Baloch Raaji Aajoi Sangar, an alliance of Baloch separatist groups specifically focused on attacking CPEC projects. 

From the beginning, the Baloch have been pushed to the wall. 

They have never been treated as equal citizens of Pakistan, nor have they been given equal constitutional, economic, and political opportunities. 

This is why some Baloch protest peacefully, some do nothing, and some have taken up arms against the state.

China's human trafficking

The Pakistani women being trafficked to China
By Saher Baloch
Sophia (right) married a Chinese man after her pastor made introductions

The marriage between a local Christian woman and a Chinese Christian man six months ago in the eastern Pakistani city of Faisalabad had all the signs of a perfect match.
She was 19, he was 21.

She was a trained beautician, he a businessman selling cosmetics.
Her family didn't have much money but the groom generously offered to pay all the wedding expenses.
The proceedings took place in strict accordance with Pakistani customs. 

This pleased her parents, who felt that their daughter's new Chinese husband respected local traditions.
There was a formal proposal, followed by a henna ceremony, and finally the "baraat", where a procession arrives at the bride's house, vows are exchanged and the bride leaves to start a new life with her husband.
But within a month, the woman, who only wants to be known as Sophia to protect her identity, would be back at her parents' home. 

She escaped what she now believes was a racket to traffic Pakistani women into a life of sexual servitude in China.
Saleem Iqbal, a Christian human rights activist who has been tracking such marriages, said he believed at least 700 women, mostly Christian, had wed Chinese men in just over a year. 

What happens to many of these women is unknown but Human Rights Watch says they are "at risk of sexual slavery".
In recent weeks, more than two dozen Chinese nationals and local Pakistani middlemen, including at least one Catholic priest, were arrested in connection with sham marriages.
Pakistan's Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) told the BBC that "gangs of Chinese criminals are trafficking Pakistani women in the garb of marriage into the sex trade". 

It said one gang posed as engineers working on a power project while arranging weddings and sending women to China for fees ranging from $12,000 to $25,000 per woman.
Christian women -- who come from a mostly poor and marginalised community -- are seen to be particularly targeted by traffickers, who pay their parents hundreds or thousands of dollars.There are about 2.5 million Christians in Pakistan -- less than 2% of the population

China has denied that Pakistani women are being trafficked into prostitution.
But it admitted this week that there had been a surge in Pakistani brides applying for visas this year -- with 140 applications in the year to date, a similar amount to all of 2018. 

A official from the Chinese embassy in Islamabad told local media it had blocked at least 90 applications.

'Imbalanced society'
A rise in cases of suspected bride trafficking from Pakistan to China has come amid an unprecedented influx of tens of thousands of Chinese nationals into the country. 

China is investing billions of dollars in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a network of ports, roads, railways and energy projects.
The two countries are close allies and a visa-on-arrival policy for Chinese nationals has also encouraged entrepreneurs and professionals not directly linked to CPEC to flood into Pakistan.
Some are making the journey to find a bride. 

The legacy of China's decades-long one-child policy and accompanying social preference for boys has been to create an imbalanced society where millions of men are unable to find wives.
For years this has fuelled bride trafficking from several poor Asian countries, including Vietnam, Myanmar and Cambodia -- where activists say many women are promised jobs in China but then sold into marriage. 

Easy access to Pakistan has created a new trafficking hotspot.More than two dozen Chinese nationals accused of luring girls into fake marriages have recently been arrested

The FIA's investigations and BBC interviews with activists and victims suggest that some Pakistani clergy are playing a role in identifying local brides and certifying the religious credentials of the Chinese suitors.
After the weddings, the couples take up residence in a number of bungalows rented by suspected traffickers in Lahore and other cities. 

From there, they are sent to China.

A house in Lahore
Sophia began to feel uncomfortable about her marriage before it had even happened. 

She was made to undergo medical tests ahead of the formal proposal and the broker then pushed for the wedding to happen immediately.
"My family felt uncomfortable with this haste, but he said the Chinese would pay for all of our wedding expenses," she says. 

The family gave in.Sophia only managed to escape after her parents came to Lahore to rescue her

A week later she found herself at a house in Lahore with several other newly-wed couples who were waiting for their travel documents to be processed. 

The Pakistani women spent most of their time learning Chinese.
It was at this point she learned that her husband was not a Christian, nor was he interested in committing himself to her. 

They could barely communicate due to the language barrier but he repeatedly demanded sex.
She decided to leave after speaking to a friend who had moved to China for marriage. 

She told Sophia she was being forced to have sex with her husband's friends.
But when Sophia confided in the marriage broker, he was furious. 

He said her parents would have to pay back the cost of the wedding, including fees paid to a local pastor for arranging the match and conducting the ceremony.
Her parents refused to pay and travelled to Lahore to rescue her. 

Her handler eventually relented.Chinese companies are investing billions in Pakistan - and thousands of workers have arrived in recent years

Although recent police raids have focused attention on the trafficking of poor Christian girls, the BBC has found that Muslim communities are also affected.
A Muslim woman from a poor Lahore neighbourhood who went to China with her husband in March says she had to put up with repeated physical abuse because she refused to sleep with his "drunk visitors".
"My family is quite religious, so they had agreed to the proposal because it was brought by the cleric of a seminary which is located in our neighbourhood," the woman, who wanted to be known as Meena, said.
"But once in China, I discovered that my husband was not a Muslim. In fact he did not adhere to any religion. He made fun of me when I prayed."
When she refused to have sex with men on his orders, she was beaten up and threatened.
"He said he had bought me with money and I had no choice but to do what he asked me to do; and that if I didn't do it, then he would kill me and sell my organs to recover his money."

Meena was rescued in early May by Chinese authorities on the request of Pakistan embassy officials who had been alerted by her family.
A senior FIA official in Faisalabad, Jameel Ahmed Mayo, told the BBC that women deemed not "good enough" for the sex trade were at risk of organ harvesting.

Rogue Nation

Beware of China’s new colonialism
By Benedict Peters 

America is slowly awakening to the growing menace of China’s plans for economic supremacy.
In 2013 Chinese dictator Xi Jingping launched an international investment program that became known as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). 

Under a new mantra to connect the global economy, China began investing heavily in foreign infrastructure projects in over 60 countries that account for 60 percent of the world population and 30 percent of global gross domestic product.
From 2013 to 2018 China made an estimated nearly $614 billion worth of investments in countries participating in BRI. 

Morgan Stanley predicts China’s overall expense from BRI could reach $1.3 trillion over the next decade.
Xi considers BRI an opportunity to share China’s model for economic growth with the developing world. 

Geopolitical rivals are concerned BRI investment programs will deepen China’s political influence and military expansion.
Is BRI a lifeline for the developing world, or economic imperialism?
In Africa, it is clear that China’s campaign of foreign investment is a new form of colonialism. 

The continent, where I live and work, is ground zero.
When BRI launched in 2013, it prioritized regional development projects in Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Eastern Europe. 

Italy became the first major industrialized nation in the Group of Seven to join BRI, despite opposition from the U.S. and the European Union.
U.S. officials are right to be concerned about the expansion of an infrastructure network that leaves crippling debt, faulty construction and project mismanagement in its wake.
The Center for Global Development published a study of 23 countries participating in BRI and found 10 to 15 are in danger of debt distress. 

Other high-profile cases in Sri Lanka and Pakistan are examples where BRI projects left the local governments in severe debt and incentivized officials to appeal to China for debt forgiveness.
When countries fall deep enough into debt, China will offer to renegotiate the terms of the debt in exchange for strategic assets or preferential treatment.
Last November, Moody’s Investor Service warned that nations benefiting from BRI are at risk of losing control of strategically important infrastructure, natural resources and other important assets if they fail to pay back their Chinese creditors. 

This is a major concern in Africa, where Chinese financing paved the way for essential infrastructure projects.
When countries fall deep enough into debt, China will offer to renegotiate the terms of the debt in exchange for strategic assets or preferential treatment.
In 2015 China promised $60 billion in grants and commercial loans to finance economic development projects in Africa. 

African leaders were eager to accept the financial assistance and as a result, China holds 14 percent of sub-Saharan Africa’s total debt stock and is the largest owner of public debt in Africa.
Public financing programs can often be a useful tool for local governments to build projects that generate economic growth. 

But an over-reliance on Chinese financing is saddling Africa with greater debt, leaving the continent at a strategic disadvantage in the future.
Developing nations of the world are understandably attracted to China’s deep pockets and “no strings attached” political doctrine for infrastructure investment.
U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton has called attention to China’s strategic push in Africa and around the globe, but the U.S. must do more to re-establish itself as an alternative to China.
More specifically, America must present developing nations with a viable alternative to BRI.
Congress bolstered the development finance capabilities of the U.S. through the BUILD Act, which authorized the creation of the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (USDFC).
The USDFC will consolidate the existing U.S. development finance institutions and provide new investment capabilities and financial tools to promote U.S. investment in the developing world.
The timing of the BUILD Act could not be more appropriate. 

The financial downsides of BRI are coming to light, just as China’s expansion reached the United States’ doorstep with major investments in the Caribbean.
The USDFC will be operational in the coming months. 

The new agency has an opportunity to expand the footprint of U.S. investors by positioning America as a more attractive option for infrastructure investment support.
As a businessman working in all parts of Africa, I can assure you that business leaders in Africa are eager to partner with the U.S. to provide a better model for the developing world.
China is running a rampant campaign of new colonialism through the developing world. 

The U.S. must do something more to present a viable investment alternative for government leaders participating in BRI.
The American people and government policymakers are waking up to this growing problem. 

I just hope it is not too late.

China will build string of military bases around world

Locations include Middle East, Pakistan, and western Pacific to protect Belt and Road Initiative
The Guardian

Beijing currently has just one overseas military base, in Djibouti. 

The US Defense Department expects China to add military bases around the world to protect its investments in it ambitious One Belt One Road global infrastructure program, according to an official report released on Thursday.
Beijing currently has just one overseas military base, in Djibouti, but is believed planning others, including possibly Pakistan, as it seeks to project itself as a global superpower.
“China’s advancement of projects such as the ‘One Belt, One Road’ Initiative (OBOR) will drive military overseas basing through a perceived need to provide security for OBOR projects,” the Pentagon said in its annual report to Congress on Chinese military and security developments.
“China will seek to establish additional military bases in countries with which it has a longstanding friendly relationship and similar strategic interests, such as Pakistan, and in which there is a precedent for hosting foreign militaries,” the report said.
That effort could be constrained by other countries’ wariness of hosting a full-time presence of the People’s Liberation Army, the report noted.
But target locations for military basing could include the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and the western Pacific.
The report came as the Pentagon also warned that deepening Chinese activities in the Arctic region could also pave the way for a strengthened military presence, including the deployment of submarines to act as deterrents against nuclear attack.
The assessment is included in the US military’s annual report to Congress on China’s armed forces.
The Pentagon report noted that Denmark has expressed concern about China’s interest in Greenland, which has included proposals to establish a research station, establish a satellite ground station, renovate airports and expand mining.
“Civilian research could support a strengthened Chinese military presence in the Arctic Ocean, which could include deploying submarines to the region as a deterrent against nuclear attacks,” the report said.

US commits to aiding Philippines in South China Sea.

China has already established well-armed outposts on contested atolls it build up in the South China Sea.
Last year, there were reportedly discussions on a base in the Wakhan corridor of northwest Afghanistan.
In addition, The Washington Post recently identified an outpost hosting many Chinese troops in eastern Tajikistan, near the strategic junction of the Wakhan Corridor, China, and Pakistan.
Chinese dictator Xi Jinping has sought to project the country’s power beyond its immediate “back yard” in east and southeast Asia.
This includes strengthening the country’s presence in international institutions, acquiring top-flight technology and establishing a strong economic presence worldwide.
It also includes projecting the country’s military force on land, sea and in space, the report notes.
“China’s leaders are leveraging China’s growing economic, diplomatic, and military clout to establish regional preeminence and expand the country’s international influence,” the report said.
Beijing in particular increasingly see the United States as becoming more confrontational in an effort to contain China’s expanding power, it said.

China's State Terrorism

Masood Azhar Is China’s Favorite Terrorist
BY MICHAEL KUGELMAN

Indian Muslims hold a scratched photo of Masood Azhar as they shout slogans against Pakistan during a protest in Mumbai on Feb. 15. 

On March 13, China placed a “technical hold” on a resolution calling on the United Nations Security Council to designate Masood Azhar, the leader of the Pakistani militant group Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), as a terrorist. 

Beijing’s intervention effectively torpedoed the measure. 

This marked the fourth time that China has prevented Azhar, who enjoys long-standing ties to the Pakistani security establishment, from being officially designated a terrorist by the United Nations.
There had been good reason to believe that this time might be different, and that Beijing would step back and let the resolution get approved. 

The fact that the fourth time wasn’t the charm speaks volumes about how deep the partnership between China and Pakistan still runs, and how far Beijing is willing to go to defend its “iron brother.”
So important is the China-Pakistan partnership that Beijing was willing to stick its neck out in support of a key terrorist asset of the Pakistani state who garners little sympathy outside Pakistan. 

At home, Beijing has sent hundreds of thousands of innocent Chinese Muslims to detention centers under the guise of counterterrorism, but it has bent over backwards to protect an actual Islamist terrorist abroad.
The move came even though global pressure has intensified on Pakistan to crack down harder on India-focused terrorists on its soil. 

The trigger was a February 14 attack on Indian security forces, claimed by JeM, in the Indian-administered part of Kashmir. 

The assault, which killed more than 40 paramilitary troops, was the deadliest attack on Indian security forces, and in Kashmir on the whole, in years. 

Nearly 50 countries, including all five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council (even China), issued statements condemning the tragedy, and many called on Pakistan to crack down on JeM. 

Soon after the attack, the United States, with support from fellow Security Council members France and the United Kingdom, proposed the resolution. 

The Trump administration, according to Indian press accounts, tried to convince Beijing to support it.
And yet China defied all the pressure and refused.
That’s especially strange given that the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) gives Beijing a major incentive to take a stronger stand on terror in South Asia. 

Despite mounting financing concerns, Beijing continues to build the mammoth transport corridor that the BRI, now a much more expansive project, was originally conceived as, and South Asia figures prominently in its plans. 

Two key pathways—the China-Central Asia-West Asia Economic Corridor and the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC)—pass directly through the region.
The BRI needs stability to succeed, and terror groups like JeM are inherently destabilizing. 

While most JeM attacks have been carried out in the Indian-administered portion of Kashmir, where the BRI doesn’t have a footprint, the group has previously been implicated in at least one attack in Pakistan. 

According to the U.S. government and independent analysts, it has also maintained a presence in Afghanistan. 

Additionally, JeM has ties to al Qaeda.
But Beijing refused to sanction the leader of one of South Asia’s most destabilizing entities. 

This is striking, given that Beijing frequently uses the rhetoric of terror to demonize and delegitimize lesser threats, especially the Uighurs. 

Some years back, as Richard Bernstein recently described in The Atlantic, Beijing went so far as to convince the United States to detain 22 Uighurs—none of whom had any apparent links to terror—in Guantánamo Bay. 

And yet when it comes to Masood Azhar, who heads a potent terror group linked to al Qaeda with regional reach, China all but legitimized a terrorist by refusing to have him officially designated as such.
Perhaps the biggest reason to have believed China would let Azhar be designated a terrorist is that it would have been a low-risk move for Beijing. 

Pakistan’s close friendship with and deep dependence on China—which increased after the United States suspended its security assistance to Pakistan last year—means Islamabad would have been in no position to express displeasure, much less retaliate. 

So there would have been no deleterious consequences for bilateral relations. 

In fact, allowing the resolution to pass would have benefited Beijing: It would have brought China some international goodwill at a moment when its global image has been marred by its cruel and repressive policies toward the Uighur community.
In effect, Beijing declined to make a relatively cost-free move that could have helped advance its interests in South Asia and given a much-needed boost to its reputation. 

It’s a decision that can largely be attributed to the strength of the China-Pakistan relationship.
This partnership, motivated by shared rivalry with India, isn’t as ironclad as the heady official rhetoric (“sweeter than honey,” “higher than the Himalayas”) might suggest. 

But it’s still warmer, deeper, and more strategically vital than just about any other bilateral relationship in Asia.
And yet Beijing’s decision to block Azhar’s designation should be read not only as a show of support for Pakistan, but also as an effort to reaffirm China’s continued commitment to the country—at a moment when Islamabad may fear Beijing is wobbling.
Over the last year, as the U.S.-India defense partnership continued to gain speed, Beijing sought a rapprochement of sorts with New Delhi. 

In March 2018, amid efforts to move beyond their tense standoff on the Doklam Plateau in the summer of 2017, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi made a strong pitch to end confrontation and initiate conciliation. 

“The Chinese dragon and Indian elephant must not fight each other but dance with each other,” Wang declared in a press conference.
Then, in April 2018, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese dictator Xi Jinping held an informal summit in Wuhan, China, that led to a commitment to cooperate on joint training programs for Afghan diplomats. 

Later that year, there was talk, mainly from the Chinese side, of potential India-China cooperation on connectivity projects in Afghanistan—and even in Pakistan.
Perhaps not coincidentally, Beijing has declined to defend Pakistan in global forums on several occasions over the past year.
In February 2018, it refused to oppose a measure at the Financial Action Task Force to put Pakistan on its so-called gray list for failing to curb terrorist financing.
In July, Beijing signed on to a public statement issued by the Heart of Asia initiative (a 14-nation collective focused on promoting stability in Afghanistan) that condemned JeM and Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT)—another major Pakistan-based, India-focused terror group—by name.
This came less than a year after China did the same with a statement issued at a BRICS summit.
And then came the recent India-Pakistan crisis, when India and Pakistan launched air strikes on each other’s soil and brought the subcontinent to the brink of war.
Beijing was quiet throughout the crisis and never expressed public support for Islamabad.
Instead, it called for restraint.
In reality, Pakistan shouldn’t need reminding that China is still on its side.
The India-China rivalry remains strong and fraught, and it’s destined to deepen in the coming years as the two Asian giants ramp up competition for markets, mineral resources, and influence.
And a bitter territorial dispute—the cause of a 1962 war—remains unresolved.
Still, signaling is important in international relations, and Beijing’s obstructionism at the U.N. sent a strong message.
To be sure, other factors may have prompted China’s move as well.
With Pakistan facing mounting debt to Beijing from CPEC, and with several Belt and Road countries having backed out of projects over the past year due to financing concerns, Beijing may have wanted to make a gesture of goodwill to get Islamabad to shake off any emerging discontent over CPEC. Additionally, Beijing may have wanted to offer a sop to Pakistan to preclude any chance of Islamabad calling China out for its Uighur policy.
While Pakistan, like every other government of a Muslim-majority country (except Turkey), has maintained a deafening silence on the matter, one can’t rule out the possibility, however remote, of Prime Minister Imran Khan—a bold leader with a populist streak—speaking out at some point.
If Khan doesn’t take it up, the opposition may.
All this said, one gets the impression that Beijing didn’t block Azhar’s listing with glee, and that it did so somewhat grudgingly.
The official Chinese justification for its technical hold—it needed more time to think the matter through—suggests a level of indecision.
Also, on March 17, Luo Zhaohui, China’s ambassador to India, struck a conciliatory tone, saying, “We understand India’s concerns and are optimistic this matter will be resolved.”
At the very least, Beijing appears to be trying to soften the blow of the move for Indian audiences, indicating a desire not to antagonize New Delhi.
As for New Delhi, it has handled this whole episode quite well.
Even amid shrill calls from some hawkish quarters for retaliation—including a social media campaign to boycott Chinese goods—India has reacted quite calmly.
The government released a fairly anodyne statement that spoke of being “disappointed by this outcome” and vowed to “continue to pursue all available avenues to ensure that terrorist leaders who are involved in heinous attacks on our citizens are brought to justice.”
This was the right move.
At the end of the day, China’s move doesn’t amount to much.
It’s symbolic at best.
Had Azhar been sanctioned, he would have faced an assets freeze, an arms embargo, and a travel ban. However, according to multiple Indian media reports as well as Pakistan’s own foreign minister, Azhar is very ill and hardly likely to move about.
However, based on past precedent, even if we assume Azhar is still actively driving JeM’s operations and strategy, listing him would have had a minimal impact—especially in the context of Pakistan. Hafiz Saeed, the leader of LeT, was listed in December 2008 (a move China did not prevent) just days after his group carried out the Mumbai terror attacks.
Over the past decade, Saeed has largely lived unencumbered and led the life of a law-abiding thought leader: He has moved about freely, delivered fiery public lectures, and given media interviews.
This year, he even filed (unsuccessfully) a formal request for his U.N. terror designation to be repealed.
Ultimately, India wants to be seen as a responsible rising power.
Rather than fixating on the symbolic pass China gave to an infirm militant, New Delhi is better off tapping into the growing resolve within the international community to combat Pakistan-based terrorism, and working multilaterally in other forums to curb a threat that is of great global concern.

China’s ‘Belt and Road’ Plan in Pakistan Takes a Military Turn

Under a program China insisted was peaceful, Pakistan is cooperating on distinctly defense-related projects, including a secret plan to build new fighter jets.
By Maria Abi-Habib

A Chinese rocket boosting two Pakistani satellites into orbit from Jiuquan, China, in July.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — When President Trump started the new year by suspending billions of dollars of security aid to Pakistan, one theory was that it would scare the Pakistani military into cooperating better with its American allies.
The reality was that Pakistan already had a replacement sponsor lined up.
Just two weeks later, the Pakistani Air Force and Chinese officials were putting the final touches on a secret proposal to expand Pakistan’s building of Chinese military jets, weaponry and other hardware. The confidential plan, reviewed by The New York Times, would also deepen the cooperation between China and Pakistan in space, a frontier the Pentagon recently said Beijing was trying to militarize after decades of playing catch-up.
All those military projects were designated as part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, a $1 trillion chain of infrastructure development programs stretching across some 70 countries, built and financed by Beijing.
Chinese officials have repeatedly said the Belt and Road is purely an economic project with peaceful intent. 

But with its plan for Pakistan, China is for the first time explicitly tying a Belt and Road proposal to its military ambitions — and confirming the concerns of a host of nations who suspect the infrastructure initiative is really about helping China project armed might.
As China’s strategically located and nuclear-armed neighbor, Pakistan has been the leading example of how the Chinese projects are being used to give Beijing both favor and leverage among its clients.
Since the beginning of the Belt and Road Initiative in 2013, Pakistan has been the program’s flagship site, with some $62 billion in projects planned in the so-called China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. 

In the process, China has lent more and more money to Pakistan at a time of economic desperation there, binding the two countries ever closer.
For the most part, Pakistan has eagerly turned more toward China as the chill with the United States has deepened. 

Some Pakistani officials are growing concerned about losing sovereignty to their deep-pocketed Asian ally, but the host of ways the two countries are now bound together may leave Pakistan with little choice but to go along.
Even before the revelation of the new Chinese-Pakistani military cooperation, some of China’s biggest projects in Pakistan had clear strategic implications.
A Chinese-built seaport and special economic zone in the Pakistani town of Gwadar is rooted in trade, giving China a quicker route to get goods to the Arabian Sea. 

But it also gives Beijing a strategic card to play against India and the United States if tensions worsen to the point of naval blockades as the two powers increasingly confront each other at sea.
A less scrutinized component of Belt and Road is the central role Pakistan plays in China’s Beidou satellite navigation system. 

Pakistan is the only other country that has been granted access to the system’s military service, allowing more precise guidance for missiles, ships and aircraft.
The cooperation is meant to be a blueprint for Beidou’s expansion to other Belt and Road nations, however, ostensibly ending its clients’ reliance on the American military-run GPS network that Chinese officials fear is monitored and manipulated by the United States.
In Pakistan, China has found an amenable ally with much to recommend it: shared borders and a long history of cooperation; a hedge in South Asia against India; a large market for arms sales and trade with potential for growth; a wealth of natural resources.
Now, China is also finding a better showcase for its security and surveillance technology in a place once defined by its close military relationship with the United States.
“The focus of Belt and Road is on roads and bridges and ports, because those are the concrete construction projects that people can easily see. But it’s the technologies of the future and technologies of future security systems that could be the biggest security threat in the Belt and Road project,” said Priscilla Moriuchi, the director of strategic threat development at Recorded Future, a cyberthreat intelligence monitoring company based in Massachusetts.

The Chinese-built and operated port in Gwadar, Pakistan.

An Asset on the Sea
The tightening China-Pakistan security alliance has gained momentum on a long road to the Arabian Sea.
In 2015, under Belt and Road, China took a nascent port in the Pakistani coastal town of Gwadar and supercharged the project with an estimated $800 million development plan that included a large special economic zone for Chinese companies.
Linking the port to western China would be a new 2,000-mile network of highways and rails through the most forbidding stretch of Pakistan: Baluchistan Province, a resource-rich region plagued by militancy.
The public vision for the project was that it would allow Chinese goods to bypass much longer and more expensive shipping routes through the Indian Ocean and avoid the territorial waters of several American allies in Asia.
From the beginning, though, key details of the project were kept from the public and lawmakers, officials say, including the terms of its loan structure and the length of the lease, more than 40 years, that a Chinese state-owned company secured to operate the port.
If there was concern within Pakistan about the hidden costs of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, also known as CPEC, there was growing suspicion abroad about a hidden military aspect, as well.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif of Pakistan, center left, praying during the formal opening of Gwadar port in 2016.

In recent years, Chinese state-owned companies have built or begun constructing seaports at strategic spots around the Indian Ocean, including places in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Malaysia.
Chinese officials insisted that the ports would not be militarized. 

But analysts began wondering whether China’s endgame was to muscle its way onto coastal territories that could become prime military assets — much as it did when it started militarizing contested islands in the South China Sea.
Then, Sri Lanka, unable to repay its ballooning debt with China, handed over the Chinese-built port at Hambantota in a 99-year lease agreement last year. 

Indian and American officials expressed a growing conviction that taking control of the port had been China’s intent all along.
In October, Vice President Mike Pence said Sri Lanka was a warning for all Belt and Road countries that China was luring them into debt traps.
“China uses so-called debt diplomacy to expand its influence,” Mr. Pence said in a speech.
“Just ask Sri Lanka, which took on massive debt to let Chinese state companies build a port of questionable commercial value,” Mr. Pence added. 

“It may soon become a forward military base for China’s growing blue-water navy.”
Military analysts predict that China could use Gwadar to expand the naval footprint of its attack submarines, after agreeing in 2015 to sell eight submarines to Pakistan in a deal worth up to $6 billion. 

China could use the equipment it sells to the South Asian country to refuel its own submarines, extending its navy’s global reach.

The Sahiwal coal power plant in Pakistan’s Punjab Province was one of the first and biggest projects financed and completed under the Belt and Road Initiative. Pakistan has fallen behind on payments just to operate the plant.

Deepening Debt
When China inaugurated Belt and Road, in 2013, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s new government in Pakistan saw it as the answer for a host of problems.
Foreign investment in Pakistan was scant, driven away by terrorist attacks and the country’s enduring reputation for corruption. 

And Pakistan desperately needed a modern power grid to help ease persistent electricity shortages.
Pakistani officials say that Beijing first proposed the highway from China’s East Turkestan colony through Pakistan that connected to Gwadar port. 

But Pakistani officials insisted that new coal power plants be built. 

China agreed.
With CPEC under fresh scrutiny, Chinese and Pakistani officials in recent weeks have contended that Pakistan has a debt problem, but not a Chinese debt problem. 

In October, the country’s central bank revealed an overall debt and liability burden of about $215 billion, with $95 billion externally held. 

With nearly half of CPEC’s projects completed — in terms of worth — Pakistan currently owes China $23 billion.
But the country stands to owe $62 billion to China — before interest balloons the figure to some $90 billion — under the plan for Belt and Road’s expansion there in coming years.
Pakistan’s central bank governor, Ashraf Wathra, said publicly in 2015 that he had no clarity on Chinese investments in Pakistan and was concerned about rising debt levels. 

It still took him months after that to secure a briefing from cabinet officials.

Years after contracting to have China build new power plants, Pakistan still has a problem with severe electricity shortfalls.

“My main question was, ‘Do we have any feasibility studies of these projects and a cost-benefit analysis?’ Their answers were all evasive,” recalled Mr. Wathra, who has since retired.
Ahsan Iqbal, a cabinet minister and the main architect for CPEC in the previous government, said the project was well thought-through and dismissed Mr. Wathra’s account.
“No one wanted to invest here — the Chinese took a chance,” Mr. Iqbal said in an interview.
But the bill is coming due. 

Pakistan’s first debt repayments to China are set for next year, starting at about $300 million and gradually increasing to reach about $3.2 billion by 2026, according to officials. 

And Pakistan is already having trouble paying what it owes to Chinese companies.

Pakistan already builds Chinese-designed JF-17 fighter jets, like this one. Under a secret proposal, Pakistan would also cooperate with China to build a new generation of fighters.

Fighter Jets and Satellites
According to the undisclosed proposal drawn up by the Pakistani Air Force and Chinese officials at the start of the year, a special economic zone under CPEC would be created in Pakistan to produce a new generation of fighter jets. 

For the first time, navigation systems, radar systems and onboard weapons would be built jointly by the countries at factories in Pakistan.
The proposal, confirmed by officials at the Ministry of Planning and Development, would expand China and Pakistan’s current cooperation on the JF-17 fighter jet, which is assembled at Pakistan’s military-run Kamra Aeronautical Complex in Punjab Province. 

The Chinese-designed jets have given Pakistan an alternative to the American-built F-16 fighters that have become more difficult to obtain as Islamabad’s relationship with Washington frays.
The plans are in the final stages of approval, but the current government is expected to rubber stamp the project, officials in Islamabad say.
For China, Pakistan could become a showcase for other countries seeking to shift their militaries away from American equipment and toward Chinese arms, Western diplomats said. 

And because China is not averse to selling such advanced weaponry as ballistic missiles — which the United States will not sell to allies like Saudi Arabia — the deal with Pakistan could be a steppingstone to a bigger market for Chinese weapons in the Muslim world.
For years, some of the most important military coordination between China and Pakistan has been going on in space.
Just months before Beijing unveiled the Belt and Road project in 2013, it signed an agreement with Pakistan to build a network of satellite stations inside the South Asian country to establish the Beidou Navigation System as an alternative to the American GPS network.
Beidou quickly became a core component of Belt and Road, with the Chinese government calling the satellite network part of an “information Silk Road” in a 2015 white paper.

A model of China’s Beidou navigation satellite network, shown during the China International Aviation and Aerospace Exhibition in Zhuhai in November.

Like GPS, Beidou has a civilian function and a military one. 

If its trial with Pakistan goes well, Beijing could offer Beidou’s military service to other countries, creating a bloc of nations whose military actions would be more difficult for the United States to monitor.
By 2020, all 35 satellites for the system will be launched in collaboration with other Belt and Road countries, completing Beidou.
“Beidou, whatever any users use it for — whether it’s a civilian navigating their way to the grocery store or a government using it to coordinate their rocket launches — those are all things that China can track,” said Ms. Moriuchi, of the research group Recorded Future. 

“And that’s what is most striking: that this authoritarian government will be a major technology provider for numerous countries in Asia, Africa and Europe.”
For the Pentagon, China’s satellite launches are ominous.
China’s military “continues to strengthen its military space capabilities despite its public stance against the militarization of space,” including developing Beidou and new weaponry, according to a Pentagon report issued to Congress in May.
In October, Pakistan’s information minister, Fawad Chaudhry, said that by 2022, Pakistan would send its own astronaut into space with China’s help.
“We are close to China, and we are getting more close,” he said in a later interview. 

“It’s time for the West to wake up and recognize our importance.”

The Pakistani military has been a vital supporter, and securer, of China’s projects in Pakistan.

Wooing Pakistan’s Military
Though the relationship between China and Pakistan has clearly grown closer, it has not been without tension. 

CPEC could still be vulnerable to political shifts in Pakistan — as happened this year in Malaysia, which shelved three big projects by Chinese companies.
Campaigning during the parliamentary elections that made him prime minister in July, Imran Khan vowed to review CPEC projects and renegotiate them if he won. 

In September, after meeting in Saudi Arabia with the crown prince, Mr. Khan said that the kingdom had agreed to invest in CPEC too.
Pakistan’s new commerce minister then proposed pausing all CPEC projects while the government assessed them.
The moves by Pakistan’s new government angered Beijing, which was concerned they could set back Belt and Road globally.
But in Pakistan, China has a steady ally it can approach to smooth things over: the country’s powerful military establishment, which stands to fill its coffers with millions of dollars through CPEC as the military’s construction companies win infrastructure bids.
Shortly after the commerce minister’s comments, the Pakistani Army’s top commander, Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa, hurried to Beijing for an unannounced visit with Xi Jinping. 

The meeting came six weeks before Mr. Khan made his first official visit with the Chinese president, a trip he had listed as a priority.
Statements from the military said Bajwa and Xi spoke extensively about Belt and Road projects.
Bajwa “said that the Belt and Road initiative with CPEC as its flagship is destined to succeed despite all odds, and Pakistan’s army shall ensure security of CPEC at all costs,” read a statement from the Pakistani military.
Shortly after the Beijing meeting, Pakistan’s government rolled back its invitation to Saudi Arabia to join CPEC and all talk of pausing or canceling Chinese projects has stopped.

Prime Minister Imran Khan of Pakistan went to meet Xi Jinping in China in November with high hopes for an economic deal. But few details have been announced.

But China could face another challenge to its investments: a Pakistani financial crisis that has forced Mr. Khan’s government to seek loans from international lenders that require transparency.
Throughout September, international delegations traveled to Islamabad carrying the same message: Reveal the extent of Chinese loans if you want financial assistance.
In a late September meeting with visiting officials from the International Monetary Fund, Pakistan’s government asked for a bailout of up to $12 billion. 

The fund’s representatives pressed Pakistan to share all existing agreements with the Chinese government and demanded I.M.F. input during any future CPEC negotiations — a previously undisclosed facet of the negotiations, according to communications seen by the Fund and a Pakistani official. 

The fund also sought assurances that Pakistan would not use a bailout to repay CPEC loans.
But the Chinese Embassy in Islamabad stepped up its engagement as well, demanding that CPEC deals be kept secret and promising to shore up Pakistan’s finances with bilateral loans, Pakistani officials say.
Three months after taking office, Khan still has not made good on his campaign promises to reveal the nature of the $62 billion investment Beijing has committed to Pakistan, and his government has backtracked on an I.M.F. deal.
In early November, Khan visited Xi in Beijing, a trip during which he was expected to clinch bilateral loans and grants to ease Pakistan’s financial crisis.
Instead, his government walked away with vague promises of a deal “in principle,” but refused to disclose any details.

A Chinese national flag, center at the Sahiwal coal power plant in Pakistan, which cost about $1.9 billion to build. Pakistan now owes around $119 million in back payments to Chinese companies just for operating the plant.

Trophy Infrastructure, Troublesome Debt: China Makes Inroads in Europe

Beijing is constructing parallel financial and commercial networks across Central and Eastern Europe to challenge the global order
By James T. Areddy

BELGRADE, Serbia—Europe is distracted by internal discord over immigration and its tense relationship with Russia and the U.S. 

Seeking to fill the void, China is taking advantage of a historic opportunity to wedge itself into the heart of the West.
Deal by deal, applying experience honed in Asia and Africa, China is constructing parallel financial and commercial networks in Central and Eastern Europe to challenge the global order. 

It has taken footholds in more than a dozen nations on the periphery of the European Union. 

Some, such as Hungary, are smaller, more marginalized members. 

Others, including Serbia, are on the runway for admission.
Chinese workers set a highway through Montenegro’s impassable mountains on pillars as tall as a 50-floor skyscraper—part of an emerging corridor of highways, ports and rail lines that outlines a new Chinese trade route between Greece’s Aegean coast and Latvia on the frigid Baltic.
Chinese technology governs a new international money-transfer system in Serbia. 

Chinese banks gobbled up a newfangled issue of yuan-denominated bonds from Hungary. 

Outposts like Košice, Slovakia, are now stops for freight trains from China.
Beijing’s offers of trophy infrastructure and financial lifelines to troubled economies give those countries proposals they aren’t hearing from Washington and Moscow, which both generally view the region through prisms of national security. 

Nor are they hearing such proposals from Brussels, preoccupied with fraying EU cohesion.

Serbia’s Aleksandar Vučić and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang at a 2014 ceremony to open the China-Serbia Friendship Bridge over the Danube in Belgrade. 

For European politicians, the Chinese alternative promises quick results and less fuss over contracts and transparency than typically found in the West. 

The catch is that China’s package deals are government orchestrated and require borrowing from its banks to pay its contractors. 

A few countries, including Montenegro, are taking on large amounts of debt in the process.
Most of the Chinese financial support in Europe is loan-based, helping turn nations into clients of Beijing’s banks. 

And with each achievement, the Chinese companies building infrastructure and selling software or services gain more credibility in the West. 

Stretching its engineering capacity and technological innovation westward helps China expand and modernize its economy, as well as bolster alliances.
Beijing cheered when Greece blocked an EU effort last year to condemn a Chinese crackdown on political activists. 

Politicians in Brussels suggested that Athens had grown too dependent on China because a Chinese government-run company runs Greece’s main port. 

Greece called the proposed measure “unconstructive and selective criticism.”
The push is part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative to develop trade, financial and communication networks around the world—a strategy that came out of the global financial collapse a decade ago, to lessen China’s dependence on a U.S.-led economic order it blamed for the crisis. 

Major infrastructure is the initiative’s calling card.

China Calling
Serbia has welcomed billions of dollars' worth of deals from Chinese companies.

The $255 million China-Serbia Friendship Bridge marked the beginning of major Chinese construction engineering commissions in Europe.

Serbia in 2018 chose Zijin Mining Group Ltd. to invest in its largest copper mining and smelting complex, RTB Bor, in a $1.26 billion deal.

Serbia credits China's Hesteel Group with saving 5,000 jobs with its 2016 takeover of a steelmaker in the city of Smederevo.

Chinese engineers are at work on Serbia's $350 million portion of the Belgrade-Budapest high-speed rail line.

Serbia is emerging as China’s closest partner in middle Europe. 

China designed and built Belgrade’s first new bridge over the Danube River in seven decades, and helped modernize electrical and phone systems in the country. 

Most recently, Serbia got a financial-payments network from government-owned China UnionPay. The platform is Beijing’s answer to Visa and Mastercard, giving Serbians a way to use local credit cards overseas. 

It also gives China’s yuan a route into Europe.
UnionPay says its payment system in Serbia includes chips and other technology standards designed to guarantee “unblocked” international money transfers. 

That, in effect, could weaken a frequent U.S. tool sometimes used against Chinese companies—economic sanctions—by creating a parallel money-transfer system outside U.S. reach.
“For Serbia, it’s important that such a large international player has chosen to cooperate with it,” said Jorgovanka Tabaković, a prominent national politician and governor of the National Bank of Serbia.
As for its influence in Central and Eastern Europe, China points to its investment in the region, noting that it is a fraction of its pan-Europe exposure. 

Beijing committed nearly $8.9 billion in government-backed project loans and other development assistance to all of Europe last year, up from about $4 billion in 2016, according to a Wall Street Journal tally of deals cited in a compendium published by the Export-Import Bank of the United States.
That two-year tally is only 7% of China’s global total of $185 billion in loans and assistance for the period.
U.S. officials have cautioned developing nations that China’s outreach has strings attached. 

In an October speech in Washington, Vice President Mike Pence said of China’s infrastructure loans, “the terms of those loans are opaque at best, and the benefits invariably flow overwhelmingly to Beijing.” 

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis recently raised similar concerns, saying that “massive debt is piled on countries that fiscal analysis would say they are going to have difficulty, at best, repaying in the smaller countries.”
Outside of Europe, China’s $62 billion infrastructure plan in Pakistan is a factor in the country’s debt funk, which helped cost the ruling party a recent election and nudged the country closer to an international bailout. 

In August, Malaysia’s newly elected prime minister, Mahathir Mohamad, ordered a freeze on $22 billion worth of Chinese railway and pipeline construction his predecessor had endorsed, citing inflated contract values and excessive borrowing.
Last year, Sri Lanka surrendered a port to Chinese control to defuse a debt bomb. 

Chinese public works and their big loans are grist for political activists in Angola, Zambia and Kenya.
In Europe, Montenegro faces financial challenges associated with a deal from Export-Import Bank of China and China Road and Bridge Corp. to build its first-ever highway. 

The government calls it the nation’s “greatest engineering construction challenge in its history,” due to the country’s mountainous terrain.
The highway promises to link Central Europe to a port on the Adriatic Sea facing Italy. 

Montenegro already owes around $1.1 billion for the current work, which covers a 25-mile midsection that is due to be completed before mid-2019. 

The cost exceeds the original plans by hundreds of millions of dollars due to unhedged currency swings.
Unless the nation, known for cheap beach holidays, can come up with another $1 billion for a next phase, the four-lane roadway will terminate in a valley of 100 farmers and a general store.

Greece’s Port of Piraeus, pictured on Sept. 15, is managed by Chinese shipping company China Ocean Shipping (Group) Co. 

No data capture the breadth of the economic integration across the region, including private flows from investors who scrambled in after Beijing’s official nod in favor of Europe. 

Some styled themselves as trade middlemen in the continent’s Chinatowns and others formed “friendship” associations to link with local business and academia.
Oil company CEFC China Energy Co. amassed a $1.7 billion empire of property, brewery, soccer, bank and hotel assets in the Czech Republic, but they fell into question earlier this year when the company’s chairman came under investigation by Chinese authorities.
A senior executive at CEFC in Prague said plans were “developing” for China International Trust and Investment Corp. to take over the group’s Europe operations, which would in effect replace a private business with the Chinese state’s oldest-line international investment vehicle.
Beijing has talked about its inroads as a restoration of ancient Silk Road trade routes, but German politician Sigmar Gabriel sees bigger ambitions. 

“It is not a sentimental nod to Marco Polo, but rather stands for an attempt to establish a comprehensive system to shape the world according to China’s interests,” he said when stepping down in February as foreign affairs minister.
Along Europe’s east-west divide, Serbs, Slovaks, Croats and Czechs remain haunted by the Cold War and Yugoslavia’s bloody 1990s breakup. 

Those experiences partly cloud their views of the U.S. and Russia. 

China carries no such historical baggage.
In a near Central European future, a container of Chinese-made mobile phones or automobiles unloading at China Ocean Shipping (Group) Co.’s port in Greece could travel north through Macedonia and Serbia on Chinese toll roads and bridges and slot onto the Chinese-engineered railway to Hungary. 

China-run warehouses have been proposed in Poland, Lithuania and Belarus. 

The item might be purchased on the website of e-commerce company Alibaba Group HoldingLtd., which is expanding its cloud data services in Europe, as the internet traffic moves via the switches installed by Huawei Technologies Co. that dominate the region.
The fast-expanding ties between China and Serbia run from visa-free travel between the two countries to mining, manufacturing and weapons research.

Aleksandar Vučić, then Serbia’s prime minister and now president, meeting Xi Jinping and his wife, Peng Liyuan, last year in Beijing. 

A nation of seven million people with an economy similar in size to Vermont’s, Serbia projects political neutrality. 

Officials have called Beijing a “fourth pillar” of its foreign policy, along with Brussels, Washington and Moscow.
“We do not believe that we should choose between East and West,” Serbian Finance Minister Siniša Mali said in written responses to questions.
Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić describes Xi as a personal friend and has met him five times in two years. 

Their wives discussed bilateral relations in Beijing on Oct 29.
A poll last year by think tank Belgrade Centre for Security Policy found that Serbians see the U.S. as stronger militarily and politically than China but not far ahead of it economically. 

In the poll, the U.S. trails China in technology and in trust as an investor.
The nearly mile-long China-Serbia Friendship Bridge, opened four years ago, was the first major piece of infrastructure constructed in Europe by a Chinese team. 

That led to commissions for its builder, China Road and Bridge, in Croatia and Montenegro.
Even before the bridge’s dedication, according to the term sheet reviewed by the Journal, the clock was ticking on a 18-year requirement for Serbia’s Finance Ministry to wire millions of dollars each January and July to a New York bank account of the Beijing-based project lender, Export-Import Bank of China, until $217.4 million plus fees are repaid. 

The contract also stipulated that “goods, technologies and services… be purchased from China preferentially,” and that any disputes be settled in China.
Work is now under way by China Railway Signal & Communication Co. in Belgrade for a $3 billion rail upgrade to Hungary. 

Construction has been delayed on the Hungarian side because the EU challenged a no-bid award to a Chinese contractor. 

Serbia, unburdened by such rules, fast-tracked approval to the same Chinese contractors for its $350 million portion.
Down the block from Bank of China Ltd.’s new Belgrade office, an 11-floor, $60 million Chinese cultural and corporate center for a government-owned construction business is rising on the former site of China’s embassy. 

The mission was destroyed in 1999 when American planes dropped five laser-guided bombs on it during the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s campaign to stop the Balkan conflict.
After taking three bows at a plaque to embassy “martyrs,” Beijing tourist Yang Xiaoyu said he was just 2 years old when the bombs fell. 

“I feel like our country was quite weak then,” Yang said. 

“When we came here today and recalled what had happened then, we feel that our motherland is indeed getting stronger.”

Pakistan criticises China over treatment of ethnic Muslims

Minister urges Beijing to soften restrictions on minorities in East Turkestan

By Lily Kuo

Indian Muslims in Mumbai protest the Chinese detention of Muslim minorities in East Turkestan

Pakistan has asked China to soften restrictions on ethnic Muslims in East Turkestan, one of the first public criticisms from a majority Muslim country over China’s policies in the western colony.
East Turkestan, home to 12 million Muslims, is the site of a government “strike hard” campaign aimed at countering extremism and other behaviour Beijing has deemed a security threat. 

Human rights abuses and widespread repression in East Turkestan have prompted international protest, but few Muslim-majority countries have spoken out.

According to the Pakistani newspaper, the Nation, the country’s federal minister for religious affairs, Pir Noorul Haq Qadri, said strict regulations and laws fuel rather than counter extremism. 

To promote religious harmony, China should exercise patience, the minister told China’s ambassador to Pakistan, Yao Jing.
The minister proposed a delegation of Pakistani scholars visit East Turkestan to help. 

Emails and calls to Pakistan’s embassy in Beijing were not answered.
Criticism of Beijing has increased after a UN panel last month cited “credible reports” that as many as 1 million ethnic Uighurs, Kazakhs, and other minorities are being held in concentration camps. 

Activists, researchers, and media outlets have documented mass detentions, surveillance, and suppression of cultural and religious life in East Turkestan.
China’s neighbours and economic partners are increasingly caught up in the crackdown in East Turkestan, which has accelerated in the last two years after the arrival of communist party secretary Chen Quanguo, dispatched to East Turkestan from Tibet.
In March, lawmakers in the northern territory of Gilgit-Baltistan, part of the $62bn China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, demanded Chinese authorities release 50 Uighur women married to Pakistani men who had been detained in East Turkestan on vague terrorism charges. 

In Kazakhstan, hundreds of Kazakh families are calling on their government to pressure China to release detained relatives.

On Friday, China’s anti-graft department said it was investigating Nur Bekri, head of the country’s energy planning agency and one the most senior ethnic Uighur officials. 

Bekri has been accused of “serious violations of discipline and law”, according to the People’s Daily. 

The term is often a euphemism for corruption.
Bekri’s case may not be related to the crackdown in East Turkestan, but the detention of minority officials has been another part of the campaign, according to rights activists. 

East Turkestan’s governor from 2008 until 2014 and one of few Uighur officials to have gained a national level post, he has supported most of China’s restrictive policies in East Turkestan.
“The fate of Nur Bekri is a signal for all Uighurs that no matter how loyal you are to the Chinese communist party, you are the same enemy to them,” said Tahir Imin, an Uighur academic and activist based in the US.