Why terror groups are targeting Chinese nationals in Pakistan

A female suicide bomber killed three Chinese teachers and a local driver at Karachi University in Pakistan this week. The separatist militant group, the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), claimed responsibility for the attack which targeted a Chinese language centre at the university. The Confucius Institute, the BLA said in a statement, was a ‘symbol of Chinese economic, cultural and political expansionism.’ The suicide bomber was a 31-year-old schoolteacher with a master’s degree who read Arundhati Roy and Richard Dawkins.

This isn’t Pakistan’s first anti-China attack. The BLA has recently targeted the Chinese consulate, a five-star hotel, and the stock exchange. The group has also targeted and killed Chinese workers employed in the mining and shipping industries in Balochistan.

The BLA has also been fighting the Pakistan army, launching its deadliest spate of attacks in Balochistan’s Panjgur and Noshki districts this February, intending to coincide with the then prime minister Imran Khan’s trip to China.