President Xi Jinping assured steadfast support to Pakistan

Lahore : President of China Xi Jinping Friday reiterated his country’s firm commitment to strengthen Pakistan-China Strategic Cooperative Partnership for a shared future and assured his country’s steadfast support to Pakistan on all issues
of core interest.

He was talking to Prime Minister Imran Khan here at the
Great Hall of the People in Beijing.

This is prime minister Imran Khan’s first official
visit to China on the invitation of President Xi Jinping. The two
leaders discussed regional and global issues of mutual interest and
agreed to work closely towards overcoming growing political-economic uncertainties. They also reviewed and held in-depth discussions on Pakistan-China bilateral relations.

Imran Khan said Pakistan stood by China in safeguarding
mutual interests, shared ideals and promoting multilateralism.

President Xi Jinping congratulated Prime Minister Imran
Khan on his election and assumption of the office. He conveyed his
desire to work with him for strengthening Pakistan-China strategic
cooperative partnership for shared future.

Prime Minister Imran Khan thanked the Chinese president, government and the people of China for their warm sentiments.
He congratulated them on the 40th anniversary of “Reform and Opening-up”, which has led to China’s meteoric rise.

He said friendship with China was the cornerstone of
Pakistan’s foreign policy and expressed the earnest desire of his
government to further consolidate this relationship.

The prime minister emphasized that President Xi’s
vision of connectivity – Belt and Road, and its flagship project CPEC, would translate into a win-win for shared prosperity in the region and beyond.

They reviewed the progress on CPEC, expressed satisfaction on its achievements, and vowed for its early completion to maximize the benefits for Pakistan.

The prime minister extended an invitation to President Xi Jinping to visit Pakistan, who accepted the invitation. He said his government was keen to learn from China’s experience in poverty alleviation and anti corruption.

Imran Khan said he had followed President Xi as a
statesman during his political carrier spanning over 22 years. The
prime minister said he had watched other world leaders but the people of Pakistan were very impressed with the way China had progressed under President Xi Jinping.

Imran Khan lauded President Xi and other Chinese leadership for bringing down poverty in China and bringing out 700
million people from poverty in 30 years. He said no other nation in
human history had been able to achieve this success.

He said that the main goal of his party and the government was to take people of Pakistan out of poverty as half of the population in the country was either on or under the poverty line and added, “China is the one country from which we can learn.”

Prime Minister Imran Khan said the way leadership of
President Xi had tackled corruption was appreciable and said, “No
other nation has held so many powerful people accountable for
corruption in the last five years.”

He said that his government and party wanted to learn
from China in this area because white collar crime was very difficult
to detect.

“It is easy to catch low level criminals but it is much
more challenging to expose white collar crime which actually
devastates a country,” he added.

During the meeting, Prime Minister Imran Khan thanked
President Xi for extending warm hospitality to him and his delegation in China.

President Xi Jinping said relations between China and
Pakistan had already been growing and now these had touched new heights. “These relations have not only benefited the two all-weather strategic partners but the region and world.”

He said China was ready to work together with the new
government under Prime Minister Imran Khan to build a community of shared destiny for mankind.

Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, Finance Minister Asad Umar, Railways Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, Minister for Planning Makhdoom Khusro Bakhtiar, Advisor to Prime Minister on Commerce, Abdul Razzak Dawood, Chief Minister of Balochistan, Jam Kamal Khan and Pakistan Ambassador to China, Masood Khalid were also present during the meeting.

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