ISLAMABAD: Chinese Ambassador in Pakistan Jiang Zaidong has said that under the guidance of two leadership and strong support from the people of both nations, the upcoming visit of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to Beijing would achieve complete success and become a milestone in the development of China-Pakistan ties.
He expressed these remarks during an interview with APP. He said that all preparatory works had entered the final phase, and talks on Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) were in progress.
PM’s Visit to China
At the invitation of Premier Li Qiang, the Prime Minister of Pakistan will pay an official trip to China. This is his first visit to China following assuming the office this year. Highlighting the components of the trip, the Ambassador said PM Shehbaz Sharif would meet and have talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Premier Li Qiang and the Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress Zhao Leji.
He added that the leaders will have an in-depth exchange of views on China-Pakistan ties and matters of mutual interest, and jointly draw up a blueprint for the growth of bilateral ties. In addition to China, PM Shehbaz Sharif will visit Guangdong and Shaanxi.
The Chinese envoy said that Beijing stands ready to work with Islamabad through this visit to make greater progress in their all-weather strategic cooperative partnership and take new measures in building of an even closer China-Pakistan community with a shared future in the new era.
Calling Beijing and Islamabad all-weather strategic cooperative partners and ironclad friends, the envoy said “Our friendship has stood the test of time and remained rock-solid and—to use a Chinese expression—“steady as Mount Tai.”
Jiang Zaidong said in recent years, both nations had close high-level exchanges, held fruitful and high-quality cooperation on the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), and also maintained sound communication and coordination in global and regional affairs.
CPEC
Regarding China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), the Ambassador said the landmark BRI project brought a total of US $25.4 billion in direct investment, 510km of highways, 236000 jobs, more than 8000 megawatts of electricity and 886km of core transmission network, producing a strong impetus to Pakistan’s economic and social progress.
Under the second phase of CPEC, the envoy said both nations would implement the important consensus reached by their leaders including the strengthening synergy of development strategies and policy coordination and accelerate development on mega projects including upgradation of ML-1, the Gwadar Port and realignment of Karakoram Highway Phase II. Moreover, the two sides will also strengthen cooperation in industry, mining, agriculture, information technology, new energy, and other fields based on local conditions and further negotiate and promote trade liberalization.
“Looking forward to the 2nd phase of CPEC, we are ready to work with Islamabad to inject new impetus into China-Pakistan cooperation with China’s new development, and promote the in-depth integration of “5Cs” (5 Corridors: growth corridor, livelihood-enhancing corridor, innovation corridor, green corridor and open corridor) with “5Es” framework, to create an upgraded version of the CPEC and build a closer China-Pakistan community with a shared future in the new era.”
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The Ambassador stated that Beijing was ready to further promote high-quality Belt and Road cooperation with Islamabad, to executive the Global Development Initiative (GDI), the Global Civilization Initiative (GCI), and Global Security Initiative (GSI) and make positive contributions to building an equal and orderly multi-polar world as well as a universally beneficial and inclusive economic globalization.
Regarding the launch of Pakistan’s lunar mission ICUBE-Q satellite with Chinese cooperation, Jiang Zaidong said that since May this year, China-Pakistan aerospace cooperation has achieved frequent success. A week following its launch, Pakistan’s ICUBE-Q has successfully transmitted images from lunar orbit, marking Pakistan’s inaugural step from “zero to one” in deep space exploration and making Pakistan one of the few nations of the “deep space club”.
He stated that on May 30, Pakistan’s multi-mission communication satellite, PakSat MM1, was again successfully launched from China’s Xichang Satellite Launch Center, which was on its way to the geostationary orbit and would bring revolutionary changes to the country’s telecommunications, the internet, and television landscape, contributing to Digital sphere of Pakistan.
Discussing the security cooperation and efforts to thwart the enemy’s attempts to undermine peace, the Ambassador said that the Dasu terrorist attack on March 26 further necessitated a stable and secure environment for practical cooperation between Pakistan and China.
“So far in 2024, Pakistani security forces have collectively carried out 13,135 intelligence-based operations against terrorists and their facilitators, during which 249 terrorists were killed while 396 were apprehended. Pakistan also has made great sacrifices, with two officers and 60 soldiers sacrificing their precious lives,” he said and highly lauded Pakistan’s great efforts to protect the security of Chinese personnel, institutions and projects in Pakistan over the years.
“Just as the foreign ministers of our two nations stressed… no attempt to undermine China-Pakistan cooperation will ever succeed…We express hope and believe that Islamabad will continue to handle the follow-ups of the Dasu terrorist attack, step up efforts to combat terrorism, enhance the security of Chinese personnel, projects and institutions, and such kind of terrorist attack should never take place,” the Ambassador remarked.
He said China would work with Pakistan to thoroughly implement the Global Security Initiative, promote all-weather strategic cooperative partnership into a more secure new stage, strengthen counter-terrorism security cooperation and unswervingly safeguard the common security.
