Currently on a two-day state visit to Islamabad, Chinese president Xi Jinping is expected to announce the construction of a USD46 billion super highway through longtime ally Pakistan that will give China access to the Indian Ocean and beyond.
The 3,000-kilometer highway is expected to link Kashgar in China's Xinjiang region to Gwadar, a coastal town on the shores of the Arabian Sea where a state-owned Chinese firm has recently acquired rights to develop and run a deep-sea port.
The route, with skirts Indian-administered Kashmir and snakes around to Islamabad and Lahore before striking the country's littoral south, will give China easy access to the Middle East and Europe - but to get there it will have to make its way through some of the deadliest regions on the planet.
Gwadar is located in Balochistan, the country's largest and poorest province and home to a decades-old insurgency fought to establish an independent Balochistan.
Senior Pakistani officials have said that the country's military will train over 12,000 security personnel to keep the Chinese workforce safe, as they begin work in regions where Chinese are already being killed by insurgents linked with al Qaeda and the Taliban who accuse them of looting natural resources such as coal and iron ore.
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[Images via BBC]
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