Beijing: Chinese President Xi Jinping and Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Friday discussed deepening their strategic cooperation as both Beijing and Islamabad keenly watched Prime Minister Narendra Modi embarking on his record third term with a swearing-in ceremony to be attended by all his South Asian neighbours.
Pakistan would be the only country to be conspicuously absent from the Sunday event in New Delhi to be attended by all other leaders from SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) nations.
Heads of state from Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Maldives, Bhutan, Seychelles and Mauritius have responded positively to attend Modi’s swearing ceremony at a time when China seeks to expand its footprint in India’s neighbourhood wooing those countries with massive investments, much to the chagrin of New Delhi.
Incidentally, Sharif’s elder brother and former Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, regarded as a supporter of the improvement of India-Pakistan ties, had attended Modi’s swearing-in in 2014, the first time he took the oath as the prime minister.
However, the New Delhi-Islamabad ties failed to make any headway with Pakistan’s pursuit of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), firmly objected to by India as it will pass through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (POK), apart from continued cross-border terrorism.
Xi spoke of “solid public support” with a strong internal driving force and broad prospects for development for the China-Pakistan all-weather strategic cooperative partnership during his meeting with Sharif, whose maiden visit to Beijing after he took over for a second term, coincided with the end of the electoral process in India leading to the formation of the new government.
“China stands ready to work with Pakistan to firmly support each other, strengthen cooperation, deepen strategic coordination, accelerate the building of an even closer China-Pakistan community with a shared future in the new era, and make greater contributions to regional peace, stability, development and prosperity,” Xi was quoted by state-run Xinhua news agency.
Earlier, Sharif met Chinese Premier Li Qiang after which the two countries signed 23 agreements according to Pakistan’s state-run Associated Press of Pakistan (APP) news agency.
However, conspicuously absent from the list of agreements was the second phase of CPEC besides the much-advertised USD eight billion high-speed railway project connecting Karachi to Peshawar.
“We discussed various dimensions of the multi-faceted Pakistan-China relationship and reaffirmed our longstanding and steadfast friendship, All-Weather Strategic cooperation, economic and trade ties, and the CPEC,” Sharif said in a post on X.
He wrote that the two countries have mutually decided to enhance their economic cooperation through the timely completion of ongoing CPEC initiatives as it enters into the next phase with five new corridors.
“I underscored that Pakistan would continue to work with China to promote regional connectivity and economic development and to make Gwadar a connectivity hub for the socio-economic development of Pakistan,” Sharif emphasised.
President Xi reassured that China would “continue supporting Pakistan’s sovereignty, territorial integrity and development, and would continue supporting us in harnessing our geo-economic potential as a hub of regional trade and economics,” he wrote.
A report by the state-run Associated Press of Pakistan said that during the talks Sharif and Premier Li vowed to protect the CPEC from its “detractors and adversaries.”
“They also expressed their firm commitment to protect CPEC from its detractors and adversaries and to upgrade CPEC in the form of enhanced cooperation,” a statement from Pakistan PMO said without elaborating.
Pakistan in recent times has been blaming Taliban-led Afghanistan for the terrorist attacks on Chinese nationals, including the March suicide attack in which five Chinese workers and a Pakistan driver were killed.
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