Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif (3L) walking along with Chinese Ambassador Jiang Zaidong (2R) and Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar (R) before a meeting over the death of Chinese nationals who were killed in a suicide attack, at the Chinese Embassy in Islamabad. (File image: AFP)
China’s interest in Pakistan’s terror tactics is very old and it has blocked India’s moves multiple times in the UN over this, including cornering Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) chief Maulana Masood Azhar
Shehbaz Sharif made his first visit to Beijing after taking over as Pakistan’s prime minister and recent attacks on Chinese workers on CPEC routes in his country.
The Chinese are upset with Pakistan due to continuous ongoing attacks on their workers in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and they want foolproof security.
According to sources, Pakistan’s army chief General Asim Munir claimed before the Chinese that his country has no funds to manage the CPEC where terror groups are mostly sent by India.
The Chinese told Pakistan that it would get funds for this job and a security pact was established.
Pakistan is stable right now because of IMF and American funding as well as with this new budget and huge tax provisions.
Pakistan needs one financier every decade. From the early days to 1996, and from 2002 to 2010 it had the Americans, and now it is China.
According to Pakistani establishment sources, they will be diverting this fund from the CPEC to take on India at the Kashmir border.
Shehbaz Sharif on Tuesday said that his recent five-day visit to China remained successful as a high-powered Chinese delegation would visit Pakistan soon.
The prime minister, chairing the meeting of the federal cabinet, told the members that the collective efforts by his team including the federal ministers and federal secretaries came to fruition and that the visit was a great opportunity to strengthen the Pakistan-China bilateral relations.
He said that despite the security issue highlighted during the engagements with the Chinese leadership and business community, the visit concluded with a “positive note.”
“I can say unequivocally that the visit ended with a positive note. During the conversation with the Chinese ambassador at the banquet hosted by the Communist Party Secretary during my visit to Shanxi province, I got a deep feeling that the visit remained very successful,” Prime Minister Shehbaz remarked while apprising the cabinet members of his visit.
The prime minister thanked all of his cabinet members particularly Ishaq Dar, Ahsan Iqbal, Khawaja Muhammad Asif, Dr Musaddik Malik and Shaza Fatima Khawaja, and relevant federal secretaries for their collective efforts which led to the success of the visit.
He expressed confidence that the collective efforts would lead to the swift and successful execution of the second phase of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.
Originally valued at $46 billion, the value of CPEC projects was $62 billion as of 2020. In 2022, the Chinese investment in Pakistan rose to $65 billion.
The biggest task is an 800 km motorway from Gwadar to Ratodero, which is only built on paper, while on the ground it’s only two kilometres at a cost of about 5 billion dollars.
Another project is the Hyderabad to Sukkur Motorway which has been pending for ten years and the Chinese want these to be done as soon as possible while Pakistan wants more money.
Now Pakistan says this is pending due to security concerns in Balochistan, meddling by India, and killings on a daily basis.
Now at top-level meetings in China, only security issues are being discussed and this development money is linked to that.
Part of this money will be used by Pakistan to foment trouble in Kashmir and help China at the Ladakh border.
China’s interest in Pakistan’s terror tactics is very old and it has blocked India’s moves multiple times in the UN over this, including cornering Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) chief Maulana Masood Azhar.
Another part of the Pakistani strategy is to bring India to the table for talks.
To resume talks, India wants terrorism to be stopped, but the survival of Pakistan’s economy depends on trade with India.
