When Imran Khan was asked this month why he did not criticise China's alleged mass detentions from its Uighur Muslim minority, Pakistan's prime minister was uncharacteristically coy.

The former cricketer said he did not know much about the situation in China's neighbouring Xinjiang province, where Beijing is allegedly holding hundreds of thousands in brainwashing re-education camps.

Moreover, if there were truth to the allegations, he would not criticise his Chinese allies publicly, but raise the subject in private “because that's how [the Chinese] are”, he said.

His restraint contrasted with his own previous condemnation of the Islamic world's “shameful” silence over attacks on another Muslim minority, the Rohingya of Myanmar.

Yet for the Uighur community inside Pakistan that has seen friends and family across the border suffer in Beijing's crackdown, Mr Khan's silence is not surprising.

“Pakistan is seeking help from every part of the world. China is giving us billions of dollars, if we are in debt to China, what can we do?” said Abdul Rahim, at his silk shop in Rawalpindi.

The 52-year-old trader said neighbouring China had launched a war to stamp out Uighur culture and many of his friends and business associates had disappeared in recent years. But Pakistan would not speak out for fear of angering an ally which is providing billions in loans and investment.