BEIJING/RIYADH: China President Xi Jinping on Tuesday urged Islamabad and Beijing to build a closer Pakistan-China community with a “shared future in the new era”, Xinhua reported.
In a phone conversation with Prime Minister Imran Khan, Jinping also called on the two nations to stand together even more firmly and push forward the “all-weather” strategic and cooperative partnership between them under the new circumstances, the Chinese state-owned news agency said.
The prime minister is currently in Saudi Arabia on a three-day trip to attend the Middle East Green Initiative (MEGI) summit to motivate consensus to deliver against shared environmental commitments.
According to his office, the prime minister also appreciated Beijing’s leading role in combating climate change and briefed President Jinping on Pakistan’s wide-ranging measures for climate change mitigation and adaptation, including the ambitious, flagship Billion Tree Tsunami programme.
Prime Minister @ImranKhanPTI spoke on telephone with President Xi Jinping of the People’s Republic of China today. 🇵🇰📞🇨🇳 pic.twitter.com/Vr1ylNZHQE
— Prime Minister’s Office, Pakistan (@PakPMO) October 26, 2021
The two leaders also urged the international community to swiftly send humanitarian and economic aid to Afghanistan, where people are facing food and medicine shortages in the shadow of winter.
They agreed people in the war-ravaged nation needed international help “to alleviate their suffering, prevent instability” and rebuild after the United States withdrew and the Taliban seized power in August.
The conversation came a day after Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met with the Taliban representatives in Qatar to discuss a range of issues.
Khan also lauded Chinese investment in special economic zones (SEZs) as part of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor framework, the Prime Minister’s Office said.
CPEC is a central part of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) under which China has pledged over $60 billion for infrastructure projects in Pakistan.
Khan “lauded the successful, timely and high-quality implementation of the CPEC projects, and welcomed Chinese investments in the CPEC Special Economic Zones”.
Jinping and Khan also agreed to work to strengthen bilateral economic and commercial ties, including “full realisation of the potential offered by the Phase-II of the China-Pakistan Free Trade Agreement, to overcome the economic headwinds,” the statement said.
Khan also appreciated China’s successful containment of the Covid-19 pandemic as well as relief and assistance measures for the developing countries, including the vaccine cooperation with Pakistan.
During the conversation, he stressed the need to continue with the momentum of high-level exchanges to further diversify the “all-weather strategic cooperative partnership” between the two nations.
The two leaders also felicitated each other on the important milestone of the 70th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Pakistan and China, reviewing the entire gamut of the bilateral strategic cooperative partnership.
The prime minister renewed his invitation to President Jinping to visit Pakistan “at his early convenience”.
