KEY POINTS
- COMSATS scholar tells DW Pakistan will not choose sides
- Washington opens door with $500m U.S. Strategic Metals MoU
- Beijing pledges deeper cooperation in mining and industry
- Analysts warn the real contest is over contracts, processing and community benefit
ISLAMABAD: The question of whether Pakistan is being pushed to choose between China and the United States in tapping its mineral wealth is increasingly defining the South Asian country’s foreign policy debate.
When Deutsche Welle asked the question directly, COMSATS University academic Azeem Khalid replied: “Do we need to choose? I think no. Pakistan will balance and make deals with both countries.”
That balancing act was on display earlier this month, when Islamabad signed a $500 million memorandum of understanding with US Strategic Metals, a Missouri-based firm, which the American embassy described as “a strength of the US-Pakistan bilateral relationship that will benefit both countries.”
The agreement followed Beijing’s own high-level outreach a month earlier, when Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told Pakistani leaders that China was “willing to cooperate with Pakistan in industry, agriculture and mining” while stressing the need to safeguard its personnel and assets.
For Washington analysts, the new U.S. footprint may help offset long-standing Chinese dominance. Uzair Younus of The Asia Group told Al Jazeera that American investment could prove a “net positive” because it “increases the costs of insurgent attacks in Balochistan” by raising the stakes for multiple global actors.
China already maintains a deep presence through the Saindak copper and gold mine in Balochistan, run by the Metallurgical Corporation of China, and through its legacy role in CPEC-linked infrastructure.
Meanwhile, the Reko Diq project—revived last year as a 50-50 joint venture between Barrick Gold and Pakistan’s federal, provincial government and state-owned entities—remains the flagship of Western investment, with production expected later this decade.
But experts warn that the real test is not whether the partners are American or Chinese, but whether Pakistan negotiates contracts that deliver value at home.
“Without robust negotiating capacity and local processing, there is a serious risk that minerals will once again be exported raw while communities remain excluded from benefits,” an Islamabad-based economist told WE News, requesting anonymity.
With U.S. capital entering for the first time, Chinese assurances of continuity, and Western firms already entrenched at Reko Diq, the question of “choosing” appears less binary than ensuring that foreign partners do not dictate terms.
Analysts agree that transparency, security and local inclusion will decide whether Pakistan’s mineral wealth delivers prosperity—or simply deepens dependency.
