Story highlights Beijing faces new security challenges as its influence expands overseas

ISIS has begun to target China

Michael Clarke is Associate Professor at the National Security College, Australian National University. He is the author of "Xinjiang and China's Rise in Central Asia: A History" and editor of "China's Frontier Regions: Ethnicity, Economic Integration and Foreign Relations." The views expressed here are solely his.

(CNN) The deaths of two Chinese citizens in Pakistan suggest that as Beijing's strategic and economic footprint grows so too will the threats posed to Chinese interests.

These threats now include ISIS, which claimed it had executed the pair that had been in the province of Balochistan on business visas. Initial reports said they were teachers; Pakistan said this week they were missionaries.

While China has often asserted that it is opposed to the terrorism perpetrated by groups such as al Qaeda or ISIS, such a position has not prompted it to join international efforts to combat them in Afghanistan or the Middle East.

Rather Beijing has maintained an aloof posture consistent with its approach to the Middle East as a whole since the end of the Cold War whereby its core interests in the region -- access to energy resources and overseas markets and investment opportunities -- have been pursued through an "offend no one" and "attach no strings" strategy.

This position now looks increasingly untenable.

Pakistani soldiers stand guard at the site where a Chinese couple was kidnapped in the neighbourhood of Jinnah town in Quetta on May 24, 2017.