{"id":34443,"date":"2022-11-03T11:49:42","date_gmt":"2022-11-03T06:19:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=34443"},"modified":"2025-04-20T13:40:32","modified_gmt":"2025-04-20T08:10:32","slug":"pakistan-pm-sharif-meets-chinese-president-xi-both-agree-to-strengthen-all-weather-ties","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/pakistan-pm-sharif-meets-chinese-president-xi-both-agree-to-strengthen-all-weather-ties\/","title":{"rendered":"Pakistan PM Sharif Meets Chinese President Xi; Both Agree to Strengthen All-Weather Ties"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3><strong>What\u2019s in today\u2019s article:<\/strong><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Growing ties between Pakistan and China \u2013 About, concerns for India<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>News Summary<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Why in news?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif is on a two-day official visit to China. He is the first foreign leader to visit China since President Xi Jinping won a third term in office.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Growing ties between Pakistan and China<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Over the years, Beijing has expanded its footprint in Pakistan. Perhaps in no other country in South Asia has Beijing expanded its footprint more than in Pakistan.<\/li>\n<li>The latest example of this was the Pakistan Day Parade in Islamabad in late March 2022, which saw the country\u2019s military display several recently acquired military platforms from China.\n<ul>\n<li>Eg. J-10CE multirole fighter aircraft, battle tanks, self-propelled howitzers and air-defense equipment.<\/li>\n<li>China\u2019s supply of advanced military equipment to Pakistan \u2014 also including warships and submarines.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Just how close Sino-Pakistani ties have become can be seen in a 33-point document issued by the two countries in February 2022.\n<ul>\n<li>Through this document, the two sides emphasized their support for each other\u2019s core interests.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Concerns for India<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>The growing Sino-Pakistani cooperation has set off alarm bells in New Delhi, especially as\u00a0Chinese arms and money continue to flow into Pakistan.<\/li>\n<li>The Indian military, which is preparing for a potential two-front war with China and Pakistan, is also concerned about the possibility of the China establishing a more robust logistics and basing infrastructure in the region.<\/li>\n<li>The \u2018central pillar\u2019 of the relationship between the two countries is the China\u2013Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).\n<ul>\n<li>CPEC is a series of long-term infrastructure, transportation, and energy projects valued at $62 billion as of 2020.<\/li>\n<li>CPEC is opposed by India as this project is not only passing through India\u2019s territory but also posing a threat to the sovereignty of India.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>China continues to support Pakistan against India at the UN Security Council (as seen in the repeated blocks by Beijing on joint India-US proposals to designate two Lashkar-e-Taiba operatives).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>News Summary<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>On his maiden visit to Beijing, Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif held talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Key highlights<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>During this visit, the two leaders agreed to\u00a0<strong>strengthen the all-weather friendship<\/strong>\u00a0and the USD 60 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).<\/li>\n<li>Chinese President told the visiting Pakistani Prime Minister that he was deeply concerned about the security of Chinese personnel working on projects in the country.\n<ul>\n<li>This follows a number of attacks on Chinese nationals in the country.<\/li>\n<li>In April 2022, three Chinese were killed following a suicide attack near a Confucius Institute in Karachi.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>China also stressed Pakistan was a\u00a0priority in China\u2019s neighbourhood diplomacy.<\/li>\n<li>China offered an additional $68 million in flood relief.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Significance of this visit<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>All-weather friendship with China<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>Beijing has placed Pakistan in a priority in its neighbourhood diplomacy. On the other hand, Pakistan considers China as its Iron Brother.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Delicate balancing act<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>Pakistan faces the challenge of balancing between its close ties with China and its longstanding partnership with the US.\n<ul>\n<li>The Biden Administration has named China as its biggest challenge after Russia in its national security strategy.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Pakistan does not want to become part of any anti-China coalition.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Financial needs and the CPEC tangle<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>At the bilateral level, Pakistan is looking to China for economic help.\n<ul>\n<li>Currently, Pakistan is facing the economic crisis.<\/li>\n<li>The IMF had released $ 1.1 billion to Pakistan in August, helping it avoid a debt repayment default.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>The CPEC has struggled to move beyond the $25-bn mark (CPEC is a $ 67-bn project). It is due to:\n<ul>\n<li>China\u2019s own economic troubles are one part of the problem, and<\/li>\n<li>Pakistan\u2019s reluctance or inability to invest as Beijing wants it to.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Current Pakistani govt ran a forensic audit of CPEC and found that only three out of 15 projects in Gwadar, valued a little over $300 million, were completed.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif held talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":34444,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-34443","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-mains-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34443"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34443\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}