WASHINGTON: A bloody bombing and knife attack recently in the capital of China’s western Xinjiang province, apparently timed to coincide with a high-profile visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping, was awful in its own right, leaving one dead and almost 80 injured.

But the attack, which Beijing blamed on Muslim Uighur separatists, also underscored the perils of China’s plans to build a new “Silk Road” between western Chinese provinces like Xinjiang and central and southwest Asian countries like Pakistan. For now, at least, both ends of that trade route are threatened by Islamist extremists. Until those militants are defeated, the new Silk Road, the centrepiece of Beijing’s plans for diversifying its energy supply, may largely remain a pipe dream.

Losing the Silk Road would be a blow for China. Since it became a net oil importer in the early 1990s, China has watched with alarm as its economy has become increasingly dependent on the oil carried aboard the massive tankers snaking from Africa and the Middle East to the bustling east China coast. Transporting that oil using overland trade routes, like the caravan trails that connected China and the Middle East thousands of years ago, would go some way towards freeing Chinese leaders from constantly worrying that the United States will cut off their economic lifeline in the event of conflict by preventing oil tankers from bringing their precious cargo to Chinese shores.

The Obama administration is trying to pivot the US to Asia by increasing its diplomatic, economic and military presence in the fastest-growing part of the world. China has been trying to pull off its own pivot, to the west. The strategy involves spending billions of dollars to build roads, railroads and energy pipelines between western China and countries such as Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Pakistan.

The idea is to promote economic development across a stretch of the world that has seen far too little of it. At the same time, the plan offers Beijing a way to get more energy from central Asia and the Middle East. The China Pakistan Economic Corridor, for example, is meant to give China access to ports within spitting distance of the Middle East, while helping Pakistan spur growth in a moribund economy.

China’s own Silk Road was a highpoint of Chinese cultural and commercial influence under ancient dynasties, and was formally resuscitated last year by top Chinese officials. It seems to be proceeding apace, with ambitious building projects, high-level state visits and bucket loads of cash.

The problem? Violent, Islamist-inspired separatists are becoming increasingly brazen at both ends of that corridor. One of the notable points to emerge from a February meeting between Pakistan’s president and China’s premier was Beijing’s insistence that Pakistan crack down on domestic terrorism, which threatens multi-billion dollar Chinese investments.

“For decades, the US has been dealing with Islamabad” to make Pakistani interests and US interests align, said Andrew Kuchins, the director of the Eurasia Programme at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

China’s foothold at the other extreme of that future trade corridor is the little-used deep-water port of Gwadar, which it helped build and which it gained control of last year. Nestled in the southwestern corner of Balochistan, Gwadar represents both the promise and the perils of China’s approach to diversifying its energy flows.

The huge port complex is built to handle massive tankers and container ships, and is located less than 200 miles from the Persian Gulf. That is important to China, the world’s biggest oil importer. Shipping crude from the Middle East into Gwadar, and then loading it onto pipelines bound for China can shave thousands of miles off the route that oil tankers have to take all the way to Asia.

That’s no small matter for a country which has spent the last decade obsessing about the so-called “Malacca Dilemma”, China’s huge reliance on constricted and potentially vulnerable sea lanes in Southeast Asia for the overwhelming majority of its energy imports. China’s pivot to the West is a way to avoid depending too much on maritime chokepoints, a strategic vulnerability which keeps Chinese navy planners up at night.

But the move west, and the hopes and nearly $2 billion China is investing in Gwadar, carry their own risks.

Energy infrastructure, including pipelines, is a favourite target of terrorists for violent attacks in Balochistan, where they have on several occasions attacked Chinese workers developing the port complex at Gwadar.

And it’s not just the port itself that is at risk: The land link between China and Gwadar is an old, 800-mile road, the Karakoram Highway, which is prone to natural disasters and sectarian violence. China is spending hundreds of millions of dollars to upgrade the old highway, and Pakistani forces regularly patrol the route, but it remains a vulnerable chokepoint for overland connections between the two countries.

Greater Chinese reliance on Pakistan and the greater Middle East could have one silver lining for American policymakers, said Kuchins of CSIS: Beijing would likely be more inclined to support US efforts to stamp out all varieties of Islamist-inspired terrorism, rather than just worrying about its own militant Uighurs.

To be sure, the road from Xinjiang to Gwadar is far from China’s only effort at diversifying the source of its raw materials. Beijing has built pipelines and highways to tap the oil, gas and other resources of Central Asian countries in recent years. It also has an overland pipeline through Myanmar that offers another end-run around its maritime vulnerabilities. And Beijing and Moscow could soon sign a historic accord to increase energy trade between the two countries.

For the future of the new Silk Road, that means trying to make sure that Islamabad makes cracking down on terrorist groups, especially those linked to Uighur separatists, as big a priority as Beijing has. If past is prologue, China can expect a long and bumpy ride.

—By arrangement with Foreign Policy-The Washington Post