All-weather strategic partnership highlights historic visit
China and Pakistan decided on Monday to lift bilateral ties to an "all-weather" strategic partnership after Chinese President Xi Jinping arrived in Pakistan.[Special coverage]
The two sides are expected to unveil a China-led $46 billion investment plan that aims at transforming the country into a regional economic hub and boosting social stability in an area increasingly plagued by terrorism and sectarian disturbance.
It is the first state visit to Pakistan by a Chinese president in nine years and has been widely hailed as "historic" by Pakistani media.
On Monday, eight Pakistani Air Force JF-17 Thunder fighters were dispatched to escort Xi's plane when it entered Pakistani airspace.
On Monday, Xi met with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in Islamabad and is expected to meet with Pakistan President Mamnoon Hussain and other leaders, as well as people from various sectors during his two-day visit, for in-depth exchanges of views on bilateral relations and issues of shared interests. He is also expected to address a joint session of Parliament.
The visit will focus on strengthening bilateral ties and advancing the construction of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a planned network of roads, railways and energy projects linking Pakistan's deep-water Gwadar Port on the Arabian Sea with the city of Kashgar in China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.
The all-weather strategic partnership indicates that China-Pakistan relations are expected to withstand any change in international situations.
Pakistan is the first foreign nation Xi has visited this year, which analysts say carries an important symbolic significance.
"On one hand it emphasizes the close ties built on decades of efforts that date back to first-generation Party leaders Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai, a tradition that current leaders wish to honor," said Shen Jiru, a research fellow at the Institute of World Economics and Politics of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
"On the other hand, the visit is to further promote China's strategy of forging 'Silk Road' ties to markets in the Middle East and Europe, and Pakistan is in a geographically important location," he told the Global Times.
The two countries have long considered each other "the most reliable friend," which analysts say could serve as a "model" for China's other relations in the area.
"I hope this visit can consolidate the traditional China-Pakistan friendship, deepen concrete cooperation in various areas … and play a demonstrational role for China's efforts to develop a community with a shared destiny with neighboring countries," Xinhua quoted Xi as saying upon arrival.
Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said on Monday that Xi's visit will "usher in a new era of development in Pakistan."
Talking to the top executives of three Chinese companies, China Huaneng Group, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and Zonergy Corporation, Sharif said that Pakistan's government would extend all possible support to the Chinese companies to ensure timely completion of planned projects, local Pakistani news portal dawn.com reported.
China is expected to provide up to $37 billion in investment in energy projects to generate 16,400 megawatts of power, Ahsan Iqbal, Pakistan's minister for planning and development, was quoted by Reuters as saying. Concessional loans will cover nearly $10 billion of the cost of infrastructure projects.
A long-discussed plan to sell Pakistan eight Chinese submarines, worth between $4 billion and $5 billion, could also be among the deals, local media reported.
The investment will transform the country, which currently faces an acute power shortage, into a regional economic hub, Wang Guoxiang, a security analyst with the Beijing Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times. "It is not just Gwadar Port but the entire economic corridor behind it. The plan is to follow the successful example of the port of Singapore. Given the port's strategic location, Pakistan could easily develop its trade and petrochemical industry around the area. The booming industry will in turn generate tax revenues that transform into schools and hospitals and further boost other economic activities," Wang said.
However, analysts expressed caution due to the complicated political situation and ethnic tensions in the country as the CPEC will run through the province of Baluchistan, long plagued by a separatist insurgency which the army has vowed to crush.
Riaz Kohkhar, a former Pakistani foreign secretary, told the Global Times previously that to successfully complete the CPEC projects, the Pakistani government has to eliminate bureaucratic red tape and corruption, adopt clear and sustained economic policies as well as secure political stability and restore the respect for law.
By helping Pakistan achieve economic growth, China is also hoping to help it maintain social stability and therefore help improve the security situation in China's western areas that have witnessed growing disorder in recent years, Gao Huiping, a scholar from the Kunming Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times.
