Date: 29 June 2023

China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a $62 billion flagship project of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), was launched in 2015 to bring economic sustainability to Pakistan and strengthen the political and strategic relationship between China and Pakistan—the two “all-weather friends.” Many Chinese companies since entered the country to work on CPEC projects, constructing roads, ports, power plants, pipelines, and railway lines. However, soon Chinese enterprises in Pakistan started to face two issues: an increase in security-related threats and Pakistan’s growing inability to repay foreign loans. So far, hundreds of Chinese nationals have been killed through suicide attacks and targeted killing in Pakistan. Also, Pakistan’s deteriorating economic conditions make the country’s ability to repay Chinese CPEC-related loans highly unlikely. In this talk, I ask what the future of Chinese companies in Pakistan looks like under such an environment of threats and uncertainty. By exploring the case of rising Chinese demands to import Pakistan’s donkeys to prepare traditional Chinese medicine, ejiao, I argue the animal trade offers a unique opportunity for Chinese firms to operate in Pakistan’s volatile political and economic conditions.