China, Pakistan not allies but friends: Weidong

ISLAMABAD: Chinese Ambassador Sun Weidong on Tuesday said that Pakistan and China were not allies but friends adding that the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) was a flagship project of the Belt and Road Initiative that had entered the stage of an early harvest.

He said this while addressing a national conference on 'Changing Security in South Asia and Development of CPEC' here. The Islamabad Policy Research Institute (IPRI) and Hanns Seidel Foundation organised the two-day conference.

"Presently, 19 projects are under construction or have been completed with a total investment of $19 billion.  "The CPEC projects have directly created thousands of local jobs. Chinese enterprises always lay emphasis on training the youth talents and actively provide training opportunities," he said.

Ambassador Sun Weidong said CPEC was the best reflection of Silk Road spirit, featuring peace, cooperation, openness, inclusiveness, mutual learning and prosperity. The ambassador said CPEC had cross-border consensus from the people of both sides because it followed the principles of mutual partnership and peaceful development.

He explained that CPEC followed a new type of international relations based on win-win cooperation by forging partnerships of dialogue with no confrontation, on the basis of friendship rather than alliances. China, he stressed, wanted to actively promote policy synergies rather than Cold War doctrinal divisions.