- Chinese Vice President’s productive visit
‘They flee from me that sometime did me seek’ aptly describes the not-so-splendid isolation that invariably and unfortunately confronts the country, especially in times of crisis such as FATF grey listing or Line of Control skirmishes. Poverty of clean, dedicated leadership, mistaken policies and economic havoc wreaked by self-serving, pale apology of leaders of all hues, have shattered Pakistan’s credibility, image and self-respect among the comity of nations. The sole constant or saving grace in the equation, even in these times of rapidly changing, revolving-door, national interests, is Pak-China amity, the all-weather friendship that on Sunday brought another high Chinese official, Vice President Wang Qishan, to these welcoming shores on a three-day visit. And all the surrounding rhetoric really translates into reality of ‘projects’, for the ‘awakened giant’ means what he says and says what he means, without being frightened by frowns in Washington or closer at hand.
Though Vice President Wang duly cited Pakistan’s support, at ‘critical moments’ and also reiterated his country’s continued support for Pakistan’s ‘core interests’, the close friendship between the two has now dovetailed into the regional game-changing China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, a dominant component of President Xi Jinping’s visionary 2013 Belt and Road Initiative, encouraging global connectivity, infrastructure development and investment. The CPEC’s early harvest projects have already resulted in substantial road-building in Balochistan, development of Gwadar port, employment to thousands of locals, and completion of fast-tracked energy projects which have nearly overcome Pakistan’s energy supply conundrum. The next five years promise, among others, four new mega-ventures in the fields of energy, technology and education, launched on Sunday by the Chinese Vice President and PM Imran Khan, namely the 660 KV transmission line project from Matiari to Lahore to transmit power from the Sindh coal-based plants, Rashakai Special Economic Zone Project to promote industrialisation in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, tech giant Huawei’s Technical Support Centre bringing in massive investment and Confucius Institute at Punjab University. All political parties and the general public in Pakistan fervently support CPEC, which is duly reciprocated by the Chinese government and people, and the PM on Sunday too spoke of Pakistan’s ‘unwavering commitment’ to and further increasing interaction under CPEC. The doubter’s with their mischievous agendas and the ‘debt-trap’ agitators stand silenced.
