Dr. Wang Xu
Recently, the opposition tabled a no-trust motion against the government led by Prime Minister Imran Khan in the National Assembly. President Dr. Arif Alvi dissolved the National Assembly, and Pakistan’s political uncertainty is growing.
Pakistan is the only all-weather strategic cooperative partner of China. The political instability in Pakistan is always a cause for concern. However, with the time-honored history and solid foundation of friendship, and having just celebrated the 70th anniversary of the establishment of formal diplomatic ties, the two countries are confident enough to maintain and shape the steady development of bilateral ties. The ties between the two have been friendly for generations, regardless of the international and domestic political changes.
Chinese President Xi Jinping described China and Pakistan as good brothers and partners sharing a special friendship. Throughout history, no matter how international and regional situations change, China and Pakistan have always stood by each other, sharing joy and sorrow, understanding and supporting each other’s core interests. This is because the two countries have a high degree of consistency in safeguarding their joint and regional common development and security interests.
During the Cold War, China and Pakistan supported each other to break the geo-containment of the superpower and worked together in safeguarding regional peace and stability in South Asia. Two countries cooperated to promote the normalization of China-U.S. relations, which changed the global landscape of the Cold War in one stroke. Since the turn of the century, both countries have supported each other in formulating and implementing counter-terrorism strategies following their respective national conditions and have jointly opposed “double standards” and “stigmatization” in counter-terrorism by international and regional hegemonism.
In the past decade, the U.S. adjusted its global strategy to promote great power competition in the name of “Asia-Pacific Rebalancing” and “Indo-Pacific strategy” and even hastily withdrew its troops from Afghanistan, disregarding the ground reality resulting in political, economic, security and humanitarian crises.
As neighbors of Afghanistan, China and Pakistan have always supported the political settlement on the Afghan issue, considering the historical and practical factors of Afghanistan, and have been cooperating to promote the post-withdrawal era of Afghanistan from chaos to stability and prosperity.
In April 2015, President Xi Jinping paid a historic state visit to Pakistan. Both leaders agreed to upgrade the bilateral relationship to an all-weather strategic cooperative partnership and continue to promote the construction of the CPEC, building a closer China-Pakistan community with a shared future in the new era.
In the meantime, the cooperation between China and Pakistan in the development field, especially the construction of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), has injected new impetus into the in-depth development of bilateral relations.
The CPEC has brought 25.4 billion dollars in direct investment to Pakistan, created more than 70,000 jobs directly, and launched many social and livelihood priority projects. It has helped Pakistan solve the problem of insufficient installed capacity for power supply, improve domestic transportation, promote the Gwadar port toward the goal of a logistics hub and industrial base, and achieve a period of stable and rapid economic growth.
China has always adhered to the principle of non-interference in Pakistan’s internal affairs, no matter how political changes have taken place from time to time in Pakistan. The first highest-level official contact between Prime Minister Mohammad Ali Bogra and his Chinese counterpart Zhou Enlai, during the Bandung Conference in 1955, enhanced mutual understanding and trust.
At this meeting, the “Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence,” one of which is “non-interference in each other’s internal affairs,” became the consensus among Afro-Asian countries in handling inter-state relations. This lays the foundation for the China-Pakistan friendship and is also why the China-Pakistan relationship has become a model of friendly exchanges between countries with different social systems.
Since establishing diplomatic relations between the two countries, Pakistan’s political situation has gone through different periods, but maintaining the China-Pakistan friendship has always been the consensus of all Pakistan’s political factions and social segments. The friendly relations between the two countries have kept growing from strength to strength.
Since the construction of the CPEC was launched, the past eight years have been a time of empathy, mutual trust, and support between China and Pakistan. In these eight years, Pakistan has undergone two power transitions of government. Nevertheless, CPEC has always maintained a mutually beneficial and win-win development direction and a stable and far-reaching development momentum.
The cooperation and mutual trust between the two sides transcend party differences in Pakistan, which also shows that the construction of CPEC gives no preference to cooperation with any particular faction, political party, or region in Pakistan. The principle of extensive consultation, joint contribution, and shared benefits has always been open to the Pakistani nation.
The current political scenario in Pakistan is rather complicated, resulting from the accumulation of contradictions over a while, but so far, it has not affected the overall development of China-Pakistan relations.
Recently, State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi visited Pakistan and attended the 48th Sessions of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the OIC, reaching a critical consensus with Pakistan on deepening strategic cooperation between the two countries under the current international, regional situation.
China expressed its unwavering adherence to the policy of friendship with Pakistan. While Pakistan reaffirmed that the ironclad friendship between Pakistan and China serves as the cornerstone of bilateral relations, Pakistan has always been firmly committed to upholding the all-weather strategic cooperative partnership between the two countries.
There have been speculations on CPEC at the time by seizing the chance of political changes in Pakistan. The CPEC has not regressed but has made significant progress. From time to time, Pakistan’s economic development has been affected by political factors, and China has always held a positive approach towards this.
However, unlike other significant powers or international institutions, China has never attached political conditions, set political agendas, or exported political models to aid or cooperation projects. CPEC is new to international economic cooperation, which requires close cooperation between two countries with different histories, cultures, social systems, development paths, and stages.
It is usual for different voices in this process, and the construction of the CPEC is not vulnerable to criticism as a snowflake. However, the consensus between China and Pakistan in seeking development and stability has never been shaken, and the desire to promote the CPEC to achieve more comprehensive, sustainable, and high-quality development has never wavered.
The two meetings between China and Pakistan’s Foreign ministers in less than ten days reflect the high-level strategic coordination and solid mutual trust between the two countries.
On March 29, Foreign Minister of Pakistan Shah Mahmood Qureshi arrived in Tunxi, Anhui Province, to attend the Third Foreign Ministers’ Meeting Among the Neighboring Countries of Afghanistan and the “Neighboring Countries of Afghanistan Plus Afghanistan” Foreign Ministers’ Dialogue. This is another essential engagement between the two countries after State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s recent visit to Pakistan.
*The writer is Executive Deputy Director of the Centre for South Asian Studies, Peking University, China.
*The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own and do not necessarily represent those of the magazine.
