Time-tested all-weather Pak-China friendship

Between 2010 and 2015, Pakistan and China will actually have signed pacts worth at least $75 billion on the Pakistani soil alone, besides helping their bilateral trade volume increase to $16 billion in 2014 through a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) that currently allows both nations to have a market access in around a dozen economic sectors in each other’s territory, a research conducted by the Jang Group and Geo Television Network reveals.
While the incumbent President Xi Jinping has arrived in Pakistan “bearing gifts worth $45 billion,” in the words of a top Indian newspaper “The Hindu,” a Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao had landed in Islamabad in 2010 to ink accords valued at more than $30 billion dollars.
Touring Pakistan after deferring his September 14-16, 2014 visit for about seven months, the visit of the Chinese President Xi Jinping is also being prominently highlighted for obvious reasons by various numerous Indian and Western media outlets like the Times of India, the BBC, the CNN, the New York Times, the Hindu, the Hindustan Times, Reuters, the Telegraph Media Group of UK, the Indian Express, Zee News, NDTV, the CNN-IBN and the Times Now etc.
Although Pakistan was the first Muslim country to recognise the People’s Republic of China in 1950 and by 1963, Pakistan had ceded the Trans-Karakoram Tract to China in a bid to end a border dispute, the Sino-Pak ties were actually bolstered in 1970 when Pakistan had helped the United States arrange the February 21-28, 1972 Richard Nixon visit to Beijing.
According to the “The Economist” and the “People’s Daily China,” it had marked the first time an American President had visited China, which at that time considered the United States as one of its key adversaries and the visit had ended 25 years of separation between the two sides.
During the 1972 visit, the US First Lady Pat Nixon had toured schools, factories and hospitals in the cities of Beijing.
Having opened its largest overseas diplomatic mission in Pakistan on February 13 this year, President Xi Jinping has arrived “bearing gifts worth $45 billion” in the words of a top Indian newspaper “The Hindu.”
Currently the largest supplier of arms to Pakistan and its second-largest trading partner, China had helped open the Karakoram Highway in 1978 to link the mountainous Northern Pakistan with Western China
By 1986, China and Pakistan had reached a comprehensive nuclear cooperation agreement.
In 1999, a 300-megawatt nuclear power plant, built with Chinese help in Punjab, was completed.
In 2002, the building of the Gwadar deep-sea port had begun, with China as the primary investor.
In 2003, Pakistan and China had signed a $110 million contract for the construction of a housing project on Multan Road in Lahore and in 2007.
In 2008, China and Pakistan had signed a free trade agreement, besides announcing the building of a railway track through the Karakoram Highway.
In 2010, China had donated $260 million in dollars to flood-hit Pakistan and had sent four military rescue helicopters to assist in the rescue operations. In 2010, the then Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao had signed $30 billion worth of deals.
In 2013, the management of Gwadar port was handed over to state-run Chinese Overseas Port Holdings after previously being managed by Singapore’s PSA International, compounding Indian worries.
In 2013, the then Chinese Premier Li Keqiang had visited Pakistan as the bilateral trade between the two nations had hit a 12-month figure of $12 billion for the first time in 2012.
It was in July 2013 that the two neighbours had approved the Pak-China Economic corridor to link Gwadar Port with Kashghar in northwest China. The $18 billion project also included the construction of a 200km-long tunnel.
On December 24, 2013, China had announced a commitment $6.5 billion to finance the construction of a major nuclear power project in Karachi. This project with two reactors was estimated to generate a capacity of 1,100 megawatts each.
On May 22, 2014, the two governments had signed an agreement to start a metro train project in Lahore. The 27.1-kilometre long track - named Orange Line - was estimated to be built at the cost of $1.27 billion.
On November 8, 2014, Pakistan and China had signed 19 agreements related to the Pak-China economic Corridor. China had pledged a total investment worth of $42 billion for this purpose.
The signing ceremony was witnessed by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his Chinese counterpart Li Keqiang in Beijing.
The 19 agreements signed bilaterally in November 2014 had included the Economic and Technical Cooperation Agreement, the Framework Agreement on Provision of Concessional Loan by China to Pakistan, the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) Energy Projects Cooperation, the Chinese Government’s concessional loan agreement on construction of cross-border optical fibre cable system for international connectivity of voice/data traffic project and the Framework Facility Agreement on Suki-Kinari hydro power project, a capacity building project for the development of CPEC between NDRC of China and Ministry of Planning, Development and Reform of Pakistan, building of a Surface Mine in Block-II of Thar Coalfield and the Engro Thar coal-fired power plant, the Memorandum of facilitation agreement on the 660MW Muzaffargarh coal-fired power project, the development of coal-fired power project at Qadarabad in Sahiwal, the 900MW Quaid-i-Azam Solar Energy Park, the Implement Agreement on Dawood 50MW Wind Farm between Hydro China Corporation and AEDB Pakistan (PowerChina, also known as the Power Construction Corporation of China, has already initiated the construction of this wind power plant that will use 33 units of 1.5-MW turbines and is expected to generate approximately 130,131 MWh of electricity per year upon completion. Messrs HydroChina Corp will build the plant. The company has already signed a deal with Industrial and Commercial Bank of China for a $78.8-million (EUR 72.1m) credit line to back the construction of the Dawood facility), an Open Pit Mine project in Thar Block I, development of thermal power assets in Pakistan, a Framework Agreement on Ruyi-Masood Textile Industrial Park and another self-generation coal-fired Power Plant between the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and the Ruyi-Masood Textile Company of Pakistan and an agreement on setting up a coal power plant at Port Qasim.
In addition to these above-mentioned undertakings, the Chinese firms are also working on six other mega power projects in Gilgit-Baltistan.
These projects include: A $7.8 billion Dasu Hydropower Project, a $70 million Phandar Project, a $40.01 million Bashu Hydropower Project, a $44.608 million Harpo Hydropower Project and a $6 billion Yulbo Hydropower Project.
To understand the dynamics of Pak-China relationship even better, writer Andrew Small’s book “The China-Pakistan axis: Asia’s new geopolitics” should serve to be a handy source for interested researchers.
Andrew Small is a fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States and has worked on Chinese foreign policy issues in Beijing, Brussels, London and Washington DC.
“The Economist” says this book is “An impressive account of a little-understood friendship.”
China and Pakistan also share close military relations, with China supplying a range of modern armaments to the Pakistani defence forces.
According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Pakistan is China’s biggest arms buyer, accounting for nearly 47 per cent of Chinese arms exports.
Since 1962, China has helped Pakistan establish ammunition factories, besides having provided technological assistance and expertise to modernise the existing facilities.
Pakistan and China have jointly developed the JF-17 Thunder fighter aircraft, the F-22P Frigate for the Pakistani Navy, the MBT-2000 (Al-Khalid) tanks, the K-8 Karakoram advance training aircraft, a tailor made training aircraft for the Pakistan Air Force and an airborne radar picket system designed to detect aircraft, ships and vehicles at long ranges and perform command and control of the battle-space in an air engagement by directing fighter and attack aircraft strikes.
China has also helped Pakistan in building the Khushab reactor, which plays a key role in Pakistan’s production of Plutonium and just days ago on April 19, 2015, China has concluded the sale of eight conventional submarines worth $5 billion, the biggest ever arms sale by China in its history.
(Reference: A December 2002 report of the Federation of American Scientists)
A prestigious Australian newspaper “Sydney Morning Herald” writes in its April 19, 2015 edition: “China is likely to conclude a sale of eight conventional submarines during President Xi Jinping’s visit to Islamabad on April 20, more than doubling Pakistan’s fleet. Analysts say it may be the first step to help Pakistan gain the ability to fire nuclear weapons at sea, keeping pace with rival India. Pakistan has the fastest-growing nuclear programme in the world, according to the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations. Its arsenal, built with the help of Chinese technology, stands at between 100 and 120 warheads, compared with China’s 250 and India with between 90 and 100.”
It is imperative to note that during all these years, Chinese professionals and experts working in Pakistan have certainly had very tough times since the construction of the KKH Highway, Heavy Mechanical Complex at Taxila and the Chashma Nuclear Plant, which has a power generating capacity of 330 MW of electricity.
Many of us might know that there is a Chinese cemetery in Gilgit that houses the graves of many workers from China who had died during the construction of the Karakoram Highway in Pakistan during the 1960s and 1970s.
According to the archives of BBC, Xinhua News Agency, the Boston Globe and the AFP etc, terrorism against Chinese professionals had actually started at 9 am on May 3, 2004, when a car bomb in Gwadar city had killed three visiting engineers.
The remote-control blast had occurred as 12 visiting Chinese engineers were being taken to work on a project developing port facilities in the city of Gwadar. Six Chinese engineers were seriously hurt consequently, and four of them were airlifted to Karachi for treatment.
More than 400 Chinese engineers and construction workers were working on this $250 million port project, around 80 per cent of which was funded by China at that time.
This was the first major attack on foreign workers since a suicide bomber had killed 11 French engineers in Karachi in 2002.
While the Chinese government had demanded an investigation into the attack and told its diplomatic mission to help the victims, the then Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf had ordered a full probe, pledging publicly that the perpetrators would be punished.
On October 10, 2004, two Chinese engineers working at the Gomal Zam Dam were kidnapped along with their driver and bodyguard in South Waziristan along the Afghanistan border.
Although Pakistani forces had managed to rescue one of the engineers several days later, the other engineer was killed during the rescue attempt.
On February 15, 2006, unknown gunmen had killed three Chinese engineers in the town of Hub in troubled Balochistan. The engineers were working at the Attock Cement Factory.
On July 8, 2007, unidentified gunmen had killed three more Chinese workers near Peshawar.
On February 28, 2012, a 40-year old Chinese woman Jiang Hua and her 25-year old Pakistani companion Mohammad Suleman Shams were shot dead in Peshawar. The assailants had managed to escape the scene.
And on June 22, 2013, gunmen dressed as paramilitary forces had killed nine foreign tourists, including two Chinese nationals and one Chinese-American, in an unprecedented attack in the Himalayan region of Gilgit-Baltistan. One Chinese survivor was rescued though.