Pakistan barricades itself to welcome the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and try to reassure China

A closed street in the neighborhood hosting the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit, in Islamabad (Pakistan), October 15, 2024. AAMIR QURESHI / AFP Pakistan has chosen to barricade the capital, Islamabad, to host the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, October 15 and 16. Islamabad and the neighboring garrison city of Rawalpindi were sealed off and their residents were given three days off from Monday, while thousands of police, paramilitaries and soldiers patrolled the then deserted streets of the capital. Pakistan had no room for error, in the presence of the Russian Prime Minister, the Indian Minister of Foreign Affairs – a first since 2015 -, but above all the Chinese Prime Minister, Li Qiang, who was making a state visit of four days in the country. The country of 241 million inhabitants, facing a serious economic crisis, depends largely on financial support from China, but Beijing has expressed its impatience with the regular attacks to which Chinese nationals have been victims in recent years. On October 6, two Chinese employees of a coal power plant were killed in a suicide attack against their convoy, leaving Karachi airport. Created in 2001 by China and Russia to discuss security issues in Central Asia, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization today includes Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Belarus, Iran and India. The organization also addresses broader strategic issues, but security was at the forefront in Islamabad: for several months, the actions of separatist groups from Balochistan, but also the Pakistani Taliban (the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan), have experienced a resurgence. In the weeks leading up to the summit, the government also harshly repressed opposition demonstrations, led by the former prime minister who had been imprisoned for more than a year, Imran Khan. His party, the very popular Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI, Pakistan Movement for Justice), had threatened to organize rallies during the summit. Read also | Article reserved for our subscribers In Pakistan, the party of the imprisoned former prime minister is threatened with ban Add to your selections Beijing has made Pakistan one of the centerpieces of its “new silk roads” project with the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, a $65 billion (€60 billion) project, supposed to connect Chinese Xinjiang to the Arabian Sea, to offer an alternative route for Chinese exports. China has already invested more than a third of the amount, but is stalling in the face of the instability reigning in Pakistan. “We are seeing a slowdown in Chinese investments, but Pakistan is trying to reassure Beijing for whom growing insecurity is a source of discontent,” underlines Uzair Younus, consultant at The Asia Group, a public and business policy consultancy. You have 47.41% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.



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