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In early March, 2025, the Baloch Raji Ajohi Sangar (BRAS), an alliance of Baloch separatist groups established in November 2018, announced the formation of the Baloch National Army (BNA), signaling an intent to transition from a guerilla movement to a national army. Besides accelerating the fight against the state for an independent homeland for the Baloch, the stated objectives of the alliance included resisting and undermining the economic initiatives under the multibillion-dollar project, the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), and the exploitation of the province’s resources. Balochistan is the largest and the most resource-rich, yet the least developed federating unit of Pakistan, showing some of the worst socio-economic indicators compared to the rest of the country. The province has been reeling from a secessionist insurgency since the early 2000s. However, it has increasingly become more lethal since 2018, expanding its geographical reach, choosing high-value targets, launching sophisticated attacks ( including the recent incident of hijacking of a moving train), and running an effective media campaign using modern means of communication.

One of the significant aspects of the militant attacks has been the frequent targeting of Chinese nationals and their interests in Pakistan, with Baloch separatist groups characterizing CPEC as a ‘neo-colonial’ project focused on exploiting the province’s resources, and a threat to their national identity. In October 2024, the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) carried out a terrorist attack using a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device (VBIED) against a Chinese delegation just outside the Karachi airport, killing two people.  Although the roots of the Baloch separatist movement lie in historical grievances, economic and political marginalization, and the belief that the collective aspirations of the Baloch nation can only be realized in an independent state, the economic interventions under the CPEC have acted as a catalyst for escalating the insurgency in two important ways: by fostering fear and alienation among the Baloch population and influencing the evolving geo-political competition in the region. First, rather than integrating Balochistan into the national economic mainstream and ushering in a new era of development and prosperity in the region, CPEC has amplified local discontent and acted as a catalyst for the Baloch separatist insurgency by deepening economic disparities, fostering demographic anxieties, and serving as a symbol of exploitation, not unlike previous mega development projects in the province. Second, CPEC has also influenced the evolving geopolitical competition in the region, placing Balochistan as an important strategic player in the external power struggles The key question this article focuses on is: What role has the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor played in intensifying Baloch separatism and deepening local grievances in Balochistan?

The Baloch have had a history of troubled relations with the Pakistan state, marked by mutual distrust, frequent use of force, and fight over political autonomy and resources. While the state has blamed the archaic social and tribal structure of the Baloch people for their lack of development and foreign interference for the troubles, Baloch nationalists trace the roots of the problem to the controversial accession of the Kalat State in 1948,  the heavily securitized governance approach in the province, unfulfilled promises,  loss of autonomy, and political marginalization, resulting in recurrent cycles of violence and counter-violence between the state and the Baloch. Within the first three decades after Pakistan’s independence, Balochistan witnessed four waves of skirmishes and insurgencies, each more aggressive than the previous one. The last wave of the insurgency started in 1973, when the first-ever elected provincial government was toppled by the central government, forcing Baloch nationalists to take up arms and wage a guerilla war. The insurgency continued for four years, involving thousands of fighters from both sides. Although the insurgency was defeated by the state with the generous military support from the Shah of Iran, who had his own fears of the Baloch minority in Iran taking inspiration from their compatriots across the border, the underlying issues of economic justice, political rights, and control over resources persisted. 

Underdevelopment and Resource Exploitation Balochistan has suffered from chronic state neglect and rampant exploitation of its resources, widening the economic chasm between the Baloch and the rest of the country and planting seeds for long-term political alienation. The province has an overall head-count poverty rate of over 70% and based on the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI), more than half of the top 20 districts are from Balochistan. Other socio-economic indicators paint an equally grim picture. Balochistan's per capita income is only 73% of the national average, while literacy languishes at 40% compared to 60% nationally. Educational deprivation is particularly acute, with nearly 60% of children out of school—almost double the national rate of 36%. Youth unemployment stands at 37%, and the province's maternal mortality rate of 298 per 100,000 live births far exceeds the national average of 186, reflecting the severe healthcare crisis. These disparities reveal a province systematically excluded from Pakistan's development trajectory. Gas was first discovered in Balochistan in 1952, but it was only made available to the province in 1983. Even now more than half the districts of Balochistan still do not have access to it. Most of the border towns ‘import’ gas from neighboring country of Iran to fulfill their energy needs. During the 1990s, Balochistan accounted for 56% of the total natural gas in the country and consumed less than 6%. The province has also not benefitted much from other foreign investments in its mineral resources. For example, the million-dollar Saindak Copper and Gold project earned the Pakistani government $2 billion from 2002 to 2017, but it failed to bring prosperity to indigenous people and uplift the region from poverty

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Balochistan is presently experiencing its fifth insurgency, which can be traced back to the early 2000s –however, it witnessed an intensification after the assassination of the Baloch political and tribal leader, Nawab Akbar Bugti, during a military operation in 2006. Unlike previous insurgencies that sought greater autonomy, this current phase is driven by demands for outright secession.

Waves of Militancy During the 1970s insurgency, the more ideologically driven insurgency inspired by leftist movements still drew a majority of their fighters from dominant tribes. For instance, American journalist Selig Harrison, during his visits to refugee camps in Afghanistan between 1977 and 1989, reported that the Baloch People Liberation Front (BPLF) had about 7,500 fighters, over 60% belonging to the Marri tribe. Over the decades, Baloch nationalism, particularly in its militant form, has undergone a sociopolitical transformation due to factors such as increased mobility, improved connectivity, the gradual weakening of traditional tribal bonds, and continued state policies of exploitation. This has resulted in a militant movement increasingly associated with a young, middle-class demographic of non-tribal origins. Most of the most prominent militant groups in Balochistan  today are led by middle-class leaders who rose through the ranks of politics and militancy. The Makran division, historically one of the few non-tribal regions in Balochistan, remained unaffected by earlier waves of insurgency. However, it has since become a stronghold for the separatist movement and was linked to some of the earliest terrorist attacks, including those targeting Chinese engineers working on the Gwadar port in 2004.

Previous insurgencies in Balochistan were geographically limited, with much of the province, including Baloch-majority areas, remaining unaffected. The insurgency from 1973 to 1977, regarded as one of the most brutal, was largely confined to the Marri-majority regions and parts of the Jahlawan area. Government statistics from 1974 indicate that 84 out of 178 military encounters occurred in the northeastern Marri regions. In contrast, the current phase of the insurgency has impacted most parts of Balochistan. In one notable incident, the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) executed over 40 simultaneous attacks across 13 districts. This phase has also seen Baloch separatist groups targeting high-value locations outside Balochistan, expanding the conflict beyond its traditional geographic boundaries. While past insurgencies usually lasted only a few years, this one has endured for over two decades, and current trends suggest that it is gaining momentum.

From Local Insurgency to Geopolitical Flashpoint One added variable contributing to the escalation of the insurgency is the development of the Gwadar port and the CPEC. The politics and discourse over Gwadar reflect the troubled relationship between ethnic Baloch populations and the state of Pakistan. While the state has seen the development of the port city as central to its vision of economic transformation, for local communities, Gwadar has become a site of anxiety and fear. These incongruities are reflected in the contrasting visions regarding the CPEC.  As discussed in the next section, CPEC has fundamentally transformed the dynamics of the Baloch insurgency by raising the stakes for all parties involved.  The insurgency has shifted from being a local ethnic-based secessionist struggle to a geo-strategically significant conflict with implications for regional and global power dynamics. No longer merely a domestic dispute over resources and autonomy, the conflict now intersects with China's global ambitions and regional power competition. The strategic targeting of Chinese nationals and infrastructure by separatist groups, especially the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), is not just to communicate the resentment of Baloch people and draw media attention to their cause, but also to undermine the multi-billion-dollar project, sow distrust between Beijing and Islamabad and undermine their vision for regional connectivity and transnational trade corridors. 

Gwadar's transformation tells two irreconcilable stories: Pakistan's gateway to prosperity, and Balochistan's road to erasure. When the remote and sleepy coastal town of Gwadar was catapulted into global limelight due to Chinese investments, it elicited a wave of both fantasies and nightmares. Pakistan has portrayed the CPEC as a game-changer, bringing in unprecedented foreign direct investment. It was lauded as a transformative initiative to elevate Pakistan’s stature as a regional connectivity hub and as a pathway toward geo-economic ascendancy. The $62 billion project was sold as a panacea for its perennial energy crisis, a much-needed impetus for economic revitalization, an opportunity to revive its aging infrastructure, and a nation-building initiative that would push the historically neglected communities into a new path of prosperity and integration. The heightened optimism was best captured by a rush for properties in the port city and the immense billboards across the country, projecting a future ‘Dubai’ with golf courts and blue beaches. The government encouraged these dreams, with its Smart City Plan envisioning Gwadar to become the third largest city in Pakistan in terms of economic output, overtaking Karachi as the biggest hub of trade within a decade.

Where Pakistan sees development, the Baloch see displacement—a pattern etched in their memory since Sui's gas fields lit up Pakistan while Balochistan remained in darkness. For the Baloch, the development of the Gwadar port and subsequent investments under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor have evoked fear, resentment and reminiscences of outcomes of past development interventions in the province. The apprehensions stem from concerns over equitable benefit distribution, greater centralization in decision-making over CPEC, prioritization of the Eastern Route to the disadvantage of Balochistan, and anxieties regarding potential demographic changes that could relegate indigenous communities to a minority within their own region. The government’s projection that the port city’s population would rise to over 1.3 million from its current population of less than 0.2 million within a decade has only helped amplify these fears, especially for an ethnic minority group that has struggled to maintain its distinct cultural identity and has had a history of troubled relationship with the centre.

Yet for all the rhetoric and investment, today's Gwadar tells a starkly different story—one of broken promises. Although it has been more than a decade since the launch of CPEC - during which Pakistan attracted substantial direct Chinese investment amounting to $25.4 billion across diverse domains including transportation, energy, and infrastructure development- and even longer since the development of the port, Gwadar city continues to be in a decrepit state. Basic amenities such as energy and water continue to be inaccessible. The port is barely functional and has thus far been unable to attract much trade volume in comparison to that of Karachi and Qasim. The poor infrastructure has made the city more vulnerable to frequent climate-induced floods. The main sources of livelihood continue to be informal border trade with Iran, and fishing, the latter affected by the infrastructure projects linked to CPEC and rampant and unchecked bottom-trawling.

This set of grievances have evoked a spectrum of responses, both violent as well as non-violent. A couple of years ago, a social movement named Haq Do Tehreek (Rights Movement), led predominantly by fishing communities, emerged in Gwadar, demanding a halt to illegal trawling and increased surveillance at security check posts, and an easing of restrictions on border trade. Meanwhile, the Baloch Yekjheti Committee (BYC), a popular movement led largely by women and predominantly focused on the recovery of missing persons and alleged extrajudicial killings by security forces, has, in recent times, widened the canvas of their struggle to protest against foreign investments in the province and the exploitation of the resources, by carrying out huge protest rallies in the port city of Gwadar and in Dalbandin, Chagai, the site of multi-billion dollar copper and gold projects, Saindak and Rekodiq. But the most lethal reaction has come from the Baloch militant groups, who have carried out attacks targeting Chinese nationals and interests to undermine CPEC, besides launching a propaganda campaign. The gap between promises and outcomes in Gwadar has only deepened local disillusionment. While state officials continue to frame CPEC as a development initiative, many in Balochistan view it as a vehicle for resource extraction, exclusion, and demographic marginalization. This perception, coupled with the lack of tangible improvements in living conditions, has fueled a growing sense of betrayal—one that militant groups have been quick to exploit.

In August 2018, a suicide bomber targeted a convoy carrying Chinese engineers in the border town of Dalbandin, the headquarters of Chagai district, when they were going back to Quetta, the provincial capital of Balochistan. China has been working on the multi-billion copper and gold mines in Chagai district near the Iran and Afghanistan borders since 2002. Although the attack only resulted in five injuries, including three Chinese citizens, it was significant in three important ways. The attack heralded a new wave of attacks by Baloch separatist groups targeting specifically Chinese nationals and their interests in the country. Although Chinese nationals had been attacked in the past, the attacks were very sporadic and few and far between. The responsibility of the attack was accepted by the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), a U.S. designated terrorist organization. It also introduced the emergence of a new faction in the Baloch militant landscape, led by a new crop of leadership not shy of challenging the traditional leadership and their orthodox methods, and accused by the parent organization for violating party discipline and courting external support without prior consultation. Third, the attack perhaps also marked a radical change that would follow in the tactics and strategies of Baloch separatist groups, including the use of suicide and Fedayeen (self-sacrificing) attacks, and the enlistment of female fighters.

Since then, the BLA’s Majeed Brigade, its elite squad, has carried out multiple attacks targeting Chinese nationals and installations. Some of the most prominent attacks have been an armed assault on the Chinese consulate in Karachi in November 2018; an attack on the Pearl Continental hotel in May 2019, reportedly frequented by Chinese nationals, in the heavily fortified Gwadar port; an attack on the Stock Exchange in Karachi in June 2020, which holds a good share of Chinese investment, and an attack on a high-level Chinese delegation at the Karachi Airport in October 2024. Moreover, the first female suicide bomber of BLA also targeted Chinese educators at the Confucius Institute of Karachi University in April 2022.

Beyond Bullets: The Information War These attacks have been accompanied by a media campaign, with BLA sharing prerecorded videos of suicide bombers and fedayeen attackers, explaining their motivations and targets, specifically accusing China for being complicit in military repression and exploitation of resources of the province, characterizing CPEC as a new-colonial venture and warning Chinese to leave Balochistan or expect more attacks. CPEC is portrayed as a move to plunder Balochistan’s resources and further suppress their rights. The Baloch separatist groups have sought to disrupt the relationship between China and Pakistan, creating insecurity around Chinese economic and infrastructure initiatives in Pakistan. This strategy aims to delay the progress of these projects and raise questions about their potential benefits. The Pakistani state, on the other hand, has intensified its own information and media campaign to counter the propaganda of separatist groups by framing the movement as externally sponsored and using the narrative of grievances to incite the Baloch youth. One key element of this narrative is the labelling of Baloch insurgents as proxies of India. The government has directed both government officials and media houses to use the term Fitna-al-Hindustan while referring to the Baloch militant groups in Balochistan. This framing seeks to undermine the insurgent’s claim to local roots and garner support for increased kinetic action in the province in the wake of the increased intensity in the insurgency.

The New Face of Baloch Militancy These attacks take place in the context of a revitalized insurgency, adopting new tactics and strategies and demonstrating new strength in personnel as well as access to modern weapons. Traditionally, the Baloch separatist groups have relied on classic guerilla tactics of hit and run, and targeted security forces, buses, transportation, communication networks and non-Baloch, especially Punjabis. But over the years, they have evolved, transiting from a low-simmering guerilla movement to a more organized and aggressive insurgency with new level of sophistication, choosing high-value targets intended to capture media attention, erode state legitimacy, and have been accompanied with an effective propaganda in the cyber and digital space. The unprecedented attack on the Jaffar Express in March, 2025, when the BLA hijacked the train as it passed through the Bolan tunnel and held hundreds of passengers hostage for nearly two days before the militants were neutralized in a special operation,  marked a significant shift  in the tactics of Baloch militants. Unlike past attacks, which typically involved using IEDs to sabotage railway tracks, this incident demonstrated a new level of planning, coordination, and operational sophistication.

The transformation of the insurgency reflects in the steadily deteriorating security situation in the province. In 2019, Balochistan accounted for over 40% of the country’s total terrorist-related deaths. In 2022, over 90% of militant attacks across Pakistan took place in just two provinces, Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK). In the first quarter of 2024, 41% of all terrorist fatalities in the country happened in Balochistan, a trend which has continued into 2024. The federal government claims that it has made concrete efforts to alleviate the dire socio-economic indicators in the province and address structural issues by devolving power and resources through 18th amendment and the restructuring of the National Finance Commission (NFC). These have enabled the province to have a greater say in policy-making in important sectors including education and health. The Balochistan province receives 9% of NFC, 3% more than it would receive on a population-based formula. Moreover, the government points out that a disproportionate amount of the province’s development as well as non-development expenses are met by federal transfers through the NFC. The federal government contends the province is primarily responsible for the failure to convert its increased share of resources into improved service delivery, due to the influence of the political elite, poor governance, and a lack of accountability. Moreover, the current federal government has also partnered with the provincial government to solarize agricultural tube wells for agriculture and has also pledged to complete the second phase of Kachhi Project to improve irrigation in Balochistan. While some analysts attribute the intensified violence in the province to the radical tactics and strategies of the Baloch separatist groups and increased cooperation among the different factions, others focus on the evolving regional and global power politics that have a bearing on the trajectory, direction and the intensity of the separatist movement in Balochistan. 

The escalating violence in Balochistan intersects with—and is amplified by—the broader geopolitical competition unfolding across the Indo-Pacific. As the U.S.-China rivalry increases and South Asia becomes one of its important sites/frontiers, Gwadar as the hub of CPEC, the linchpin of Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), has become deeply enmeshed in the intensified Sino-US geopolitical competition and the evolving politics for regional ascendency.

Global Stakes Gwadar and the CPEC play an important part in the realization of China’s foreign policy vision, developing new land and maritime corridors through a series of roads, railways, and energy infrastructure projects in the Indian Ocean. The land and maritime routes will converge in the port city of Gwadar. Balochistan gives China access to the Indian Ocean and offers it a place near the Middle East, from which China imports most of its energy. This corridor serves as a strategic link, providing China access to the Arabian Sea, and bolsters its energy security by reducing reliance on the Malacca Strait.  Beijing is acutely aware of the vulnerabilities associated with its maritime routes, particularly through the Strait of Malacca.
On the other hand, the U.S. views China’s increasing regional influence as a direct challenge to its interests in the Indian Ocean. Moreover, the US has raised apprehensions about certain aspects of CPEC, such as the specter of debt trap for the developing economies. It has also accused China of instrumentalizing economic means to further its geopolitical goals, arguing that Chinese investment in the port city goes beyond purely economic objectives and is driven by strategic interests.  To counter China’s increasing economic and military power and its perceived threat to upset the balance in Asia, the U.S. has increasingly aligned with India, envisioning it as a counterweight to China and as a “net security provider” in the Indian Ocean and Indo-Pacific.

Regional Stakes New Delhi has its own set of reservations regarding the CPEC, amplified by a history of hostile relations and border tensions with China. India not only reciprocated Beijing’s call to become a part of CPEC with a snub, but has frequently raised concerns that the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor passes through the ‘disputed territory’ of Gilgit Baltistan and alleges that China’s interest in Gwadar goes beyond economic investment and harbours strategic motives, including a component of establishing military bases in the Indian Ocean to project and expand its military power, evoking fears of encirclement. Pakistan, in turn, has accused India for fomenting instability within Pakistan by supporting the separatist groups in Balochistan, mentioning the arrest of an Indian spy, Kulbhushan Jadhav, who was attempting to  enter the province from Iran, and its international campaign to diplomatically isolate Pakistan and undermine the CPEC. Pakistan also points to India’s own acknowledgement of pursuing a policy of offensive defense to exploit domestic fault lines to mire Pakistan in its internal troubles, thereby weakening the country and alleviating the perceived threat from Pakistan. Islamabad also invokes frequent statements by Baloch leaders overtly courting Indian support for the separatist movement in Balochistan, including offering to attack Pakistan from the western side to complement Indian aggression from the eastern front during the recent short war between the two nuclear-armed states in South Asia.   This has added a new source of tension to the already strained relationship between New Delhi and Islamabad and compounded their geo-political competition in the region.

While Pakistan sees CPEC as a unique opportunity to become a hub of regional connectivity, it has also elicited competition from a rival port emanating from Sistan-Balochistan, the Baloch majority region of Iran. Meanwhile, India has tried to invest millions of dollars in the Chabahar Port in the Sistan-Balochistan province of Iran, to connect to Central Asia via Afghanistan, bypassing Pakistan. The development of rival ports is seen as an indication of emerging strategic alignment and energy politics in the region. As both sides try to become the axis of regional connectivity, access the markets and mineral and fossil fuel resources of Central Asia and, in turn, offer the land-locked republics a route to international waters for trade, the competition has, among other things, led to a proxy war of sorts, with each side capitalizing on existing social and political faultlines to serve their geopolitical interests. The political and social dynamics of the Baloch regions along the Iran-Pakistan border add further complexity to the conflict in Balochistan. The persistent separatist movement in Pakistan and the militancy from religio-ethnic groups, such as Jaish ul Adl, in Iran, have fostered deep mistrust, mutual accusations, and frequent border skirmishes, as well as military strikes and counterattacks between Islamabad and Tehran.

Adding to the complexity is the Afghanistan factor. Afghanistan and Pakistan have had a fraught relationship, characterized by irredentist claims, a policy of ‘strategic depth’ and mutual support to armed and non-state actors by each other. Among the litany of charges Islamabad makes against Kabul, supporting Baloch separatism is one of them. This charge is not new. During the 1970s, Pakistan accused Afghanistan of sheltering Baloch militant groups. Post-2001, Pakistan blamed Kabul for allowing India to use its consulates to destabilise Pakistan, and has also pointed out the presence of Baloch separatist leaders in Afghanistan in recent past. More importantly, since the withdrawal of the U.S.-led international forces in August, 2021, the billions of dollars worth of weapons left behind have flooded the black market, potentially enabling groups like the BLA to acquire modern arms and increase the sophistication of their attacks.

The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), which initially raised the prospect of facilitating the integration of historically neglected parts of the country, has become an added source of chasm between the Baloch and the State. With its internal roots and favourable geo-political dynamics, the Baloch separatist insurgency, one of the longest-running militant movements in South Asia, poses a serious threat to Pakistan’s security, its vision to become a hub of regional connectivity and the CPEC, a linchpin for its economic revival and an emblem of Pakistan’s strategic partnership with China.

Addressing this threat requires both recalibration of internal policies and deft diplomacy on the external front. Pakistan’s counterinsurgency policy has largely been guided by kinetic means and coercion. One of the outcomes of this approach has been the issue of enforced disappearances, and, attendant to it, the extrajudicial killing of missing persons, fostering further resentment and alienation. Lacking a long-term political vision to address deep-rooted grievances, apprehensions regarding the CPEC and other foreign investment initiatives, and most importantly, the place of ethnic minorities in a plural and multi-ethnic state, the state’s predominant interaction with the Baloch has been determined by a logic of violence and counter-violence. The state’s challenge to tackle the insurgency is made harder by the geopolitical alignment and competing interests that help create favourable conditions for the insurgency. This challenge is further exacerbated by Pakistan’s less than cordial relations with its neighbours. Although there have been instances of mutual cooperation, they have been fleeting and few and far between. Their relationships have been characterized by mutual accusations, border tensions, and tit-for-tat military attacks. The recent, unprecedented train attack has once again brought Balochistan in the spotlight. This attack highlights the gravity of the situation and should push the state to reflect on what has gone wrong in the province and make radical policy corrections.  The Pakistani state and its strategic ally, China, should create local stakes in development projects,  ensure political and economic inclusion, address the apprehensions regarding demographic change with due sensitivity, and make them as prerequisites for sustainable investment in the region. Any durable solution to the conflict must involve meaningful engagement with Baloch political actors, tribal leadership and civil society, including the BYC. Mega projects without creating local stakes risk perpetuating and exacerbating the conditions that fuel the separatist movement.

Since the Baloch insurgency has become entangled with broader geo-political competition in the region, Pakistan should take a proactive approach to resolve the sources of tensions with its neighbours and pursue bilateral engagement on cooperation on border security, intelligence-sharing and cross-border development.