By Shyam Bhatia
As tensions simmer along the Line of Control (LoC), China’s growing presence in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) is once again under scrutiny. But while Indian officials remain wary of Beijing’s strategic ambitions, there’s an emerging case to be made that peace – not conflict – best serves China’s long-term interests in the region.
For over a decade, the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) has stood as a crown jewel of Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) – a trillion-dollar plan to reshape global trade routes. Running from Xinjiang to the Arabian Sea, CPEC threads through some of the most volatile terrain in South Asia, including disputed parts of Kashmir. Stability here is not a luxury for Beijing. It is a precondition for success.
While framed as development, CPEC offers China strategic overland access to the Arabian Sea and bolsters Pakistan’s military logistics in sensitive frontier regions. As Beijing exports not just finance and technology but also private security, the line between commerce and military ambition continues to blur.
That is why, behind the steel-reinforced bunkers and encrypted telecom towers reportedly built with Chinese assistance, lies a deeper logic: the infrastructure of deterrence. Sources indicate that China is helping upgrade Pakistan’s surveillance and communication capacities in frontier areas. This is not just about projecting influence – it’s about insulating its investment corridor from sabotage, insurgency, and geopolitical flare-ups.
Recent battlefield evidence – including the recovery of Chinese-made PL-15E missile debris in Punjab and encrypted telecom devices in the hands of cross-border militants – has sparked alarm in New Delhi. Yet this hardware, while symbolic of deeper defence ties, also betrays the vulnerabilities China seeks to contain. The more CPEC embeds itself in disputed territory, the more exposed it becomes to cycles of violence. And the more China invests, the more it has to lose.
Already, the stakes are high. Chinese private security contractors, once active mostly in Africa, are now quietly expanding operations in Pakistan – including in Sindh and potentially in Kashmir. In Sindh alone, particularly at the Thar coal power projects, approximately 60 Chinese security personnel have been deployed to safeguard Chinese nationals working on CPEC-linked infrastructure. Firms like DeWe Security and Frontier Services Group (FSG) are tasked with protecting Chinese workers, but their presence hints at an uncomfortable reality: Beijing does not fully trust the Pakistani state to secure its nationals.
According to the Africa Centre for Strategic Studies, Beijing DeWe and Huaxin Zhong An employ over 35,000 personnel across Africa, South Asia, and the Middle East. In Kenya alone, DeWe guards the $3.6-billion Chinese-funded railway line. This growing international footprint now appears to extend into volatile regions of Pakistan, including Sindh and, potentially, Kashmir.
This reliance on paramilitary proxies is double-edged. While it may offer short-term protection, it also risks entangling China in South Asia’s sectarian and insurgent fault lines. The Mercator Institute for China Studies (MERICS), a Berlin-based think tank and one of Europe’s leading authorities on Chinese policy, has highlighted this risk. Established in 2013 by Germany’s Stiftung Mercator, MERICS analyses China’s political, economic, and security strategies and their global implications. It warns that the spread of Chinese private security companies presents a “strategic challenge” to European and allied interests, particularly because their activities are largely unregulated and their contractors often lack the training to operate in complex conflict zones.
FSG, co-founded by former US Navy SEAL Erik Prince, has publicly endorsed China’s Belt and Road Initiative. MERICS reports that the company has signed contracts to build logistics and training bases in Xinjiang – moves that have drawn scrutiny given the region’s documented human rights abuses.
China’s broader ambitions – whether in Africa, Central Asia, or the Indian Ocean – depend on a narrative of non-interference and peaceful development. A high-profile clash involving Chinese assets or citizens in Kashmir would jeopardise not only CPEC, but the very model China is trying to export: infrastructure-led diplomacy, backed by commerce, not confrontation.
An Indian security analyst puts it bluntly: “The Chinese presence in PoK is a double bind. Yes, it helps Pakistan militarily. But it also binds China to a region it can’t control, in a conflict it doesn’t want to own.”
For Beijing, therefore, the challenge is to balance its strategic foothold with its global image. The Line of Control may be a frontier between two rivals – but for China, it is increasingly a fault line that must not rupture. CPEC cannot run through chaos. In that sense, stability in Kashmir isn’t just India’s concern, it’s additionally become a Chinese imperative.
