1.Your Excellency Ambassador Jiang Zaidong, today the spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China announced that H.E. Mr. Li Qiang, Premier of the State Council of the People’s Republic of China, will attend the 23rd Meeting of the Council of Heads of Government of Member States of Shanghai Cooperation Organization held in Pakistan and pay an official visit to Pakistan. The SCO is the comprehensive regional organization with the largest territory and population in the world today. It is of great significance for regional countries to seek common stability and promote development. What expectations does China have for this meeting?
Thank you for your question. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization is the first international organization founded with Chinese participation and named after a Chinese city. Since its establishment 23 years ago, it has expanded from 6 members to a SCO “big family” consist of 26 countries. The Shanghai Spirit has become increasingly popular among the people, and the SCO’s strength has been continuously consolidated and expanded. Especially under the new situation of accelerating changes unseen in a century, President Xi Jinping pointed out at the SCO Plus Meeting in Astana in July this year, that the SCO stands on the right side of history and on the side of fairness and justice, and is crucial to the world. He said that China supports all countries follow a development path that suits their own national conditions, strengthen unity and cooperation among Global South countries, and better safeguard their own development rights and international fairness and justice. The unity and cooperation emphasized by President Xi Jinping is the successful experience of the SCO along the way. China and Pakistan are both members of the SCO and the Global South. We stand ready to work with countries including Pakistan, to strengthen unity and expand cooperation, to join hands in creating a reliable strategic support for member states to achieve common prosperity and revitalization, and to advance the building of a common home of solidarity and mutual trust, peace and tranquility, prosperity and development, good-neighborliness and friendship, and fairness and justice.
Pakistan is one of the first non-founding countries that joined the SCO, and its status and role in the SCO are becoming increasingly important. Early in 2015 when President Xi Jinping visited Pakistan, he made it clear that China welcomes Pakistan to become a full member of the SCO. We are pleased to see that Pakistan has not only officially joined the SCO, but also is about to host the Meeting of the Council of the Heads of Government of the SCO Member States for the first time. China is holding the rotating presidency of the SCO. We would like to have close cooperation with Pakistan, and implement the consensus of the SCO summit well, to strengthen cooperation in politics, security, economy, people-to-people exchanges and other fields, to advance the building of an even closer SCO community with a shared future, and to make new contributions to promoting the development and growth of the Global South and the common prosperity and development of regional countries.
2.Your Excellency Ambassador, in addition to attending the SCO meeting, Premier Li Qiang will also pay an official visit to Pakistan. If I’m correct, this is a visit paid by the Premier of China to Pakistan after 11 years. How do you think of the significance of this visit in deepening the all-weather strategic cooperative partnership between the two countries?
Yes, for this news released by Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China today, I believe that not only media friends, but also the whole world pays great attention to it. I am also very happy to share some personal opinions. China and Pakistan are all-weather strategic cooperative partners and ironclad friends. We have just celebrated the 73rd anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Pakistan, and have reviewed the glorious history of China and Pakistan together. We deeply feel that the relationship between the two countries has withstood the test and remains rock-solid. Especially President Xi Jinping made a historic visit to Pakistan in 2015, defining the positioning of China-Pakistan relations as all-weather strategic cooperative partnership, promoting China-Pakistan relations into the best period in history, and injecting strong impetus into building an even closer China-Pakistan community with a shared future in the new era. We would like to adhere to the development direction and strategic arrangements of China-Pakistan relations determined by President Xi Jinping, further seek greater synergy in the development strategies of the two countries, to promote the high-quality CPEC cooperation, to deepen our practical cooperation in various fields, and strengthen multilateral collaboration including SCO. What I want to emphasize is that, this visit is the exchange of visits between our two countries’ prime ministers within just four months after H.E. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif visited China. This in itself, has fully reflected the great importance China attaches to the development of China-Pakistan relations and its strong support for the new government of Pakistan.
What I also want to tell you is that, during H.E. Prime Minister Shehbaz’s visit to China in June this year, President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Qiang held meeting and talks with him, which provides important strategic guidance on the development of China-Pakistan relations under the new circumstances, and publishes a joint statement. President Xi Jinping pointed out that China stands ready to strengthen mutual support for each other, to tighten cooperation ties, to deepen strategic coordination, and to accelerate the building of an even closer China-Pakistan community with a shared future in the new era. Premier Li Qiang said that China stands ready to work with Pakistan to carry forward traditional friendship and expand mutually beneficial cooperation, to better benefit the two peoples. This provides fundamental guidance and action plan for both sides to promote China-Pakistan all-weather strategic cooperation. We would like to cooperate with Pakistani side based on the existing achievements, promote China-Pakistan all-weather strategic cooperative partnership to achieve new development, and take new steps forward in building an even closer China-Pakistan community with a shared future in the new era.
3.On October 6th, the Chinese convoy of the Port Qasim Power Plant was attacked near Jinnah International Airport in Karachi, which resulted in the deaths of two Chinese along with injury to one Chinese. We are extremely sad and express our deep condolences to our China friends who died in the terrorist attack; we are also extremely angry and strongly condemn the despicable actions of the terrorists. May I ask, Your Excellency, how do you think China and Pakistan should work together to deal with the terrorist threats that we are facing?
Thank you and thank all sectors of Pakistani society for the deep condolences to Chinese citizens who lost their lives in the 6 October terrorist attack. Chinese side strongly condemns this terrorist act, expresses deep condolences to the victims, extends sincere sympathy to the relatives of the victims, and wishes the injured a speedy recovery. After the incident, H.E. President Zardari, H.E. Prime Minister Shehbaz and all walks of life in Pakistan strongly condemned this insane terrorist act and vowed to resolutely defend China-Pakistan friendship. A large number of people in Balochistan Province also held rallies, holding banners with Chinese and Pakistani flag and also the slogan of “Balochistan and China Stand Together” on it, chanting “Support Pakistan-China Friendship” and “CPEC has changed the destiny of Balochistan Province” and other slogans, which let us deeply feel the solid foundation of China-Pakistan friendship.
Peace is like sunshine, and security is like rain and dew. They are hardly noticed when people are benefiting from it. But none of us can live without it. President Xi Jinping emphasized that “security is the prerequisite for development and development is the guarantee of security” and “without security and stability, nothing can be achieved.” A safe and stable environment is crucial and indispensable to China-Pakistan practical cooperation, including CPEC construction. In particular, CPEC cooperation has entered a new stage of forging an “upgraded version”, which puts higher demands on reliable security guarantees. Our two sides must better coordinate security and development, and ensure the new development pattern with a new security pattern. We must not allow similar incidents to recur and delay the construction of CPEC and even the process of major China-Pakistan cooperation.
The terrorist attacks on 6 October once again showed that violent terrorist acts challenge the common bottom line of human civilization. Terrorism is the common enemy of all mankind, and resolute and decisive measures must be taken to strictly crack down it. We appreciate the efforts and sacrifices made by the Pakistani government and military to combat terrorism. We hope that Pakistan will speed up the investigation of cases, severely punish criminals, and resolutely and effectively fight terrorism. We stand ready to further strengthen counter-terrorism and security cooperation with Pakistan, improve the Shanghai Cooperation Organization’s mechanism to respond to security threats and challenges, strengthen close cooperation with all parties, work together to combat terrorism, and jointly safeguard regional peace and stability and international fairness and justice.
4.The Belt and Road Initiative proposed by President Xi Jinping benefits the whole world, and the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor is an important landmark project of it, making significant contributions to Pakistan’s economic development and improvement of people’s livelihood. At the same time, CPEC construction and even overall practical cooperation between the two countries are also facing some difficulties. What do Your Excellency think that should be done?
Your question is worth our two sides carefully thinking about and answering. Over the past 11 years, CPEC has indeed made outstanding contributions to Pakistan’s economic development. Pakistani friends often call CPEC a“game changer”for Pakistan. H.E. President Zardari and H.E Prime Minister Shahbaz also spoke highly of CPEC, believing it to be the “cornerstone” of Pakistan’s development. The Chinese tradition is to help friends without taking credit for it, but the statistics speak for themselves. CPEC has brought to Pakistan a total of US$25.4 billion in direct investment, created 236,000 jobs, and helped Pakistan add 510 kilometers of motorways, 8,220 megawatts of electricity and 886 kilometers of national core transmission grid. Ultimately, these all thanks to the “1+4” cooperation layout determined by President Xi Jinping together with Pakistani side, and to the fruitful work done by all sectors from both China and Pakistan to implement this cooperation layout. During H.E. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s visit to China in June this year, President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Qiang reached important consensus with him, emphasizing the need to promote the aligning of high-quality “Belt and Road” cooperation with Pakistan’s development plan, and to forge an “upgraded version” of CPEC, which further pointed out the direction for CPEC construction in the new stage. We stand ready to work with Pakistan to implement it, and jointly build a growth corridor, a livelihood-enhancing corridor, an innovation corridor, a green corridor and an open corridor.
As for the temporary difficulties faced by CPEC construction and even the entire China-Pakistan practical cooperation mentioned above, there are both constraints from Pakistan’s security environment and the impact of the global economic downturn. I think the first thing to solve is not what to do, but how to look at it. The key is to hold confidence. For example, Pakistan’s new government has only assumed office for a few months, and Pakistan’s GDP has returned from negative growth and achieved a positive growth of 2.4%. Pakistan’s CPI has dropped from 28.7% at the beginning of this year to 6.9% last month, reaching a new low in 44 months. As for the long-standing foreign exchange reserve issue, Pakistan’s foreign exchange reserves rose to nearly US$16 billion last month, reaching the highest over the past several years. Therefore, when I visited Karachi and Lahore recently, I especially told Chinese and Pakistani entrepreneurs to thank the efforts made by Pakistani government under the leadership of H.E. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, and to have confidence in your country’s development prospects. The better Pakistan develops, the more favorable conditions China and Pakistan have to promote cooperation. As President Xi Jinping pointed out, conditions are not static. If you actively strive for them, they may get better. If you don’t work hard, they will definitely get worse. This is called “the matter depends on the individual”.
What I want to emphasize is that the more difficult the time is, the more we should face up to the challenge and work hard, instead of just talking the talk and complaining. As Premier Li Qiang pointed out at a recent symposium held in China domestically, we should both recognize the general trend and strengthen our confidence, and also face up to the difficulties and respond to them positively. Of course, I am not blindly optimistic, but there are facts to support my views. For example, Pakistan is a major agricultural country, and its cotton, mango and wheat production respectively ranks fifth, sixth and seventh in the world. Pakistan is also the world’s fourth largest producer of dairy products, but its modernization level needs to be improved. For this, one of our Chinese companies are cooperating with Pakistani side to establish a modern high-efficiency water-saving agriculture demonstration base covering an area of 660 thousand square meters, and will train 1,000 technical and management personnel and talents for Pakistani agriculture sector. Another Chinese company has established buffalo embryo lab in Pakistan, and has exported buffalo embryos to China, and has also successfully launch dairy products production in Pakistan, exporting 4,000 tons to China each year. Another company has developed new rapeseed varieties in Pakistan, increasing the rapeseed oil content by 20% and the oil yield by 10%. This year, it will promote the planting by 66 thousand hectares. These are all proactive actions, trying to find a way out at the end of the road and open up a new chapter in the predicament. The Chinese people now believe that even when you have good wine, you still needs to make it well-known; in addition to producing good things, one must also be able to sell them at a good price. This year, we will hold a new round of China International Import Expo in November, and we welcome more Pakistani companies to promote products. I believe that as long as both sides make solid efforts, we will surely overcome difficulties and challenges, promote China-Pakistan practical cooperation to achieve high-quality development, and will bring tangible benefits to the people of both countries, especially our Pakistani brothers and sisters.
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