On his visit, the Chinese premier signed off on deals worth up to $30 billion over five years
WITH PAKISTAN feeling a little short of friends at the moment, it was hardly surprising that this weekend’s visit of Chinese premier Wen Jiabao appeared to put a spring in the step of officials here.
Even before Wen touched down in Islamabad on Friday, Pakistan had declared 2011 the “Year of Pakistan-China Friendship”.
Pakistanis like to call Beijing their “all-weather friend” – a sentiment not just limited to official circles. A Pew survey of Pakistani public opinion last year found that 84 per cent said they had a favourable view of China, compared with just 16 per cent who felt the same about the US.
One Chinese woman who works for an international agency here says she is always struck by the response of everyone from taxi drivers to market traders when they learn of her nationality. “They tell me: ‘the Chinese are our friends’.”
The relationship between the two countries – a complex blend of economics, security and self-interest – is almost as old as Pakistan itself.
Pakistan was one of the first countries to recognise the People’s Republic of China, and Islamabad has sided with Beijing ever since.
Even with the recent warming of relations between China and Pakistan’s arch nemesis India, the ties with “Pakistan’s true and most reliable friend” – as Pakistan’s foreign ministry calls China – remain crucial.
From the beginning, China’s investments in Pakistan have centred on infrastructure. In the 1980s, the famed Karakoram Highway, which cuts through Pakistan’s highest mountains to link western China with Islamabad, was completed.
In recent years, Chinese money funded a major port complex at Gwadar naval base in the southwestern province of Balochistan. The harbour provides Beijing with strategic access to the Gulf.
More controversially, China has assisted Pakistan with its nuclear programme. Beijing agreed this year to provide Islamabad with two nuclear reactors.
Pakistan is also keen for Chinese assistance in addressing one of the country’s most basic needs: providing a reliable electricity supply for its 170 million people. One of the biggest deals inked during Wen’s visit was a multibillion-dollar plan to develop wind and solar power.
Following the devastating floods that washed through Pakistan in August, China pledged $250 million towards aid and recovery efforts.
Bilateral trade between the two countries amounts to about $7 billion a year – up from $1 billion in 2002 – much of which consists of cheap Chinese imports into Pakistan.
Islamabad has hinted that this imbalance should be addressed. Wen, who arrived in Pakistan with more than 200 Chinese businessmen, signed off on agreements worth up to $30 billion over five years during his three-day visit. He also discussed plans by Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, one of the largest lenders in the world, to open branches in several Pakistani cities, and he floated the possibility of a currency swap deal.
For all the talk of increased economic co-operation, China’s investment forays in Pakistan have not been without complications. In recent years, Chinese workers have been abducted or killed by militants.
In 2007, then president Pervez Musharraf ordered the army to move on Lal Masjid, a radical mosque in the heart of Islamabad, after students there kidnapped seven Chinese nationals they accused of running a brothel. Analysts say such incidents have made some Chinese investors wary.
Wen’s visit could not have come at a better time for Pakistani officials still smarting from US diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks which painted the government as dangerously weak and corrupt, and a series of recent barbs from France, Germany and the UK criticising its record on combating terrorism.
Little wonder then that when Wen, in the first speech by a Chinese leader to Pakistan’s parliament, said Islamabad’s sacrifices in the battle against terrorism should be recognised and respected by the international community, his words were greeted with the thumping of desks by appreciative parliamentarians.
Wen made no mention of India, although he had visited New Delhi just days before.
The Chinese premier compared the Sino-Pak relationship to a pine tree that “remains evergreen despite the harshest of winter” and stood the test of time “like a strong horse, whose worth is known only when it accomplishes a long journey”.
Before he departed for Beijing, Wen inaugurated the Pakistan-China Friendship Centre, a huge Chinese-funded cultural facility in Islamabad.
Its address? Zhou Enlai Avenue.