While there is evidence that Baloch are increasingly willing to embrace the political Islamist projects of the state, there is no reason to believe that this has mitigated their ethnic identity and frustration with the state’s efforts to exploit the province. At the same time, there is no evidence that the state is willing to back away from its centralizing impulses or expand the benefits of CPEC and other projects in the state. *If the Pakistan state is gambling that deepening support for its Islamist projects among the restive ethnic Baloch will make them more amenable to its strategic interests in Balochistan, they seem to be making a losing bet.*
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