The announcement said Lieutenant General Asim Saleem Bajwa will step down as head of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor Authority (CPECA), ending the military’s de facto two-year control over a scheme that has been riddled with delays and wobbled by militant attacks.
Khan’s statement came soon after the July 16 bomb attack on a bus that killed nine Chinese nationals including engineers working on a CPEC-related hydropower dam project. Pakistani officials have since indicated it was the dirty work of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), a Uighur militant group bent on targeting Chinese interests both in Xinjiang and abroad, and other militant groups.
