News | Xi Jinping
Xi Jinping assures Pakistan’s Sharif of China’s support
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has held talks with top Chinese leaders during two-day visit
in Beijing.
By Abid Hussain
2 Nov 2022
Islamabad, Pakistan – President Xi Jinping has said China will continue to support
Pakistan to help it stabilise its economy, as he hosted Pakistani Prime Minister
Shehbaz Sharif for talks.
The leaders met at Beijing’s Great Hall of the People on Wednesday, the last day of
Sharif’s two-day visit to China, his first since taking office in April.
Xi said the two neighbours should boost collaboration in the development of the
China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a $60bn infrastructure project, as well as
speed up work on building the Gwadar seaport in Pakistan’s Balochistan province,
according to Chinese state media.
Balanced approach
Muhammad Faisal, an Islamabad-based foreign policy analyst and a close ob- server
of Pakistan-China ties, said Sharif’s visit was an important marker for Pakistan as it
seeks to maintain a balanced approach in the face of the escalat- ing strategic
competition between China and the United States, which has di- rect implications for
the regional order in South Asia.
He said he expected issues related to Afghanistan and India, which has
emerged as Pakistan and China’s biggest regional rival, to have topped the agenda in
the leaders’ talks.
Andrew Small, the author of The China-Pakistan Axis, says that
“It is trying to reconcile the deepening of ties with China with the opportunity to reset
relations with the US after the withdrawal from Afghanistan, all in the context of
intensifying Sino-US rivalry. Normally US-Pakistan and China- Pakistan relations
have been able to coexist happily – now there are pressures from both sides,” he told
Al Jazeera.
“The visit is taking place at a time when Pakistan is facing serious economic
challenges, multiplied by the recent flooding in the country. If Pakistan man- ages to
achieve guarantees of rescheduling of debt and rolling over of de- posits, it could be a
landmark achievement of this visit,” Fazal ur Rahman, di- rector of the Pakistan
Institute of China Studies at the University of Sargodha, told Al Jazeera.
Small also said the issue of debt would be closely watched in the US.
“The real question in Washington [is] about whether Pakistan will fix some of its
debt issues directly with China, or expect other actors to do the heavy lifting,” he
added.
Security incidents
China’s growing presence in Pakistan has coincided with an increase in the number
of attacks against Chinese nationals and installations, especially in the country’s
restive southern region.
Many of the Chinese infrastructure projects are situated in the resource-rich province
of Balochistan, which is also Pakistan’s most impoverished region and home to a
long-running armed campaign by fighters.
Three Chinese citizens were killed in a suicide attack in Karachi in April. Pakistan’s
largest city saw another attack in September in which three more
Chinese-Pakistani citizens, who worked as dentists and had lived in the coun- try for
decades, were killed.
Rahman said a stable and secure Pakistan was in China’s strategic and re- gional
interests.
“However, one should keep in mind that Pakistan will be going for elections, so the
Chinese may not agree to any long-term commitments with the incum- bent regime,”
he added.
Small noted that China was “uncertain about the political landscape in Pakistan – and
there’s not much the visit can do on that front.
“The Chinese government likes Shehbaz Sharif and this government gener- ally, but
they will be waiting to see whether things settle before making any really major new
commitments.”