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BEIJING, Sep 7 (APP):China and Pakistan, on occasion of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s visit to China, released the Action Plan on Building a Closer China-Pakistan Community with a Shared Future in the New Era (2025-2029). This has further elevated the China-Pakistan all-weather strategic cooperative partnership to a new height and brought unprecedented opportunities for the development of both countries and the entire region.
These views were expressed here Sunday by Prof. Cheng Xizhong, Senior Research Fellow at the Charhar Institute, a non-governmental Chinese think-tank on diplomacy and international studies based in Beijing.
The all-weather strategic cooperative partnership between China and Pakistan is widely acclaimed as a model in international relations. This profound friendship, forged through historical evolution and nurtured by the mutual affinity between the two peoples, has grown even deeper and more enduring despite the test of time.
Against the backdrop of a volatile world fraught with frequent regional conflicts, building a China-Pakistan community with a shared future is not only a strategic choice for both countries, but also a powerful response to the timeless theme of our era: peace and development, he said in a statement here.
He said that from an economic perspective, the Action Plan is of extraordinary significance as it aims to further strengthen economic and trade ties. The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) has achieved substantial outcomes, and in the days to come, both sides will continue to make efforts in areas such as trade, investment and industrial cooperation.
In terms of trade, the two parties will expand cooperation fields and promote trade diversification, which is expected to further increase the bilateral trade volume. In terms of investment, greater investment will be made in infrastructure, energy, manufacturing and other sectors, helping Pakistan enhance its own development capacity.
In terms of industrial cooperation, through complementary advantages and joint construction of industrial parks, the two sides will drive Pakistan’s industrial upgrading and enhance its position in the global industrial chain. Such in-depth integrated economic cooperation will not only enable the peoples of the two countries to share the dividends of development but also make the economies of China and Pakistan more resilient and competitive in the global economic landscape.
Security cooperation serves as a crucial guarantee for China-Pakistan relations, and the two countries will work hand in hand to address both traditional and non-traditional security threats. Deepening security cooperation will build a solid defensive line for bilateral cooperation in various fields, ensuring the steady and long-term progress of cooperation between the two sides, he added.
Prof Cheng said that in the field of people-to-people and cultural exchanges, the Action Plan emphasizes deepening cooperative exchanges in multiple areas such as education, youth affairs and culture, so as to inject new vitality into the inheritance of China-Pakistan friendship.
From the perspective of international affairs, he said, China and Pakistan will maintain close coordination and collaboration. The two sides will make the voices of developing countries more forceful on the international stage, uphold international fairness and justice, and promote the development of multilateralism. In regional affairs, China and Pakistan will work together to encourage regional countries to resolve disputes through dialogue and consultation, and advance regional peace and development.
The Action Plan has outlined a grand blueprint for the development of China-Pakistan relations. It is believed that with the joint efforts, China and Pakistan will achieve more fruitful results in the political, economic, security, cultural and people-to-people exchange fields, and make greater contributions to regional and global peace, stability, prosperity and development, he concluded.