the new silk road

I have mentioned this in the past in various posts, about China building a new road via Pakistan, getting a port in Pakistan, taking over the sea routes in the west Philippine sea, investing in Africa, etc.

The Tech guy has a summary of Chinese investments.

one of the problems, at least in the poorer countries, is that China uses their own people to build these places (e.g. Pakistan's port, and in Africa). This means not a lot of local jobs, and resentment of local Chinese, not to mention spying.

this SP article (scroll down) discusses their work in Pakistan.

This project began in 2013 when China agreed to spend $18 billion to build a road from Gwadar into northwest China. This will require drilling long tunnels through the Himalayan Mountains on the border (in Pakistani controlled Kashmir.) The road and a natural gas pipeline are part of the larger CPEC project. This will make it much easier and cheaper to move people, data (via fiber optic cables) and goods between China and Pakistan.

more here

the Pakistanis have a large military commitment to keep the Chinese who are doing much of the work safe from the crazies. This is not an idle threat: The red mosque kerfuffle was about Chinese "health workers" (aka hookers) being targeted by the militant students from that mosque.

Translation: Pakistan might just have to stop helping those Islamicist terrorists they use to attack India so that their military can stay in power and get lots of funding (which they can siphon off into their bank accounts).

Of course, if they work it better, those guys could get nice bribes from China.