BEIJING, :Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif is visiting China at a critical time when the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) has completed the first phase of construction, achieved fruitful results and is moving towards second phase of practical cooperation, Cheng Xizhong, Visiting Professor at Southwest University of Political Science and Law, said on Friday.
“I feel that this visit by Pakistani Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif to China is a very important one. First, this is his first visit to China since he was elected prime minister for the second time in March this year. Second, it is a visit at a critical time when the CPEC has completed the first phase of construction, achieved fruitful results and now is moving to the second phase of practical cooperation. Third, this is a visit at a time when the international and regional situation is grave and complex and the threat of terrorism poses a challenge to the economic cooperation between the two countries,” he told CGTN while commenting on PM Shehbaz’s five-day visit of China.
Giving a sense of the outcomes of the first phase of the CPEC and its progress in the second stage, he highlighted that the first phase of the CPEC construction has made great achievements, mainly having opened up Pakistan’s land transportation and basically solved the problem of Pakistan’s energy shortage.
He said that Prime Minister Shahbaz has brought representatives of dozens of Pakistani companies in the fields of industry, agriculture, mining, energy and information technology and they have got extensive exchanges with Chinese entrepreneurs in related industries and discussed possible cooperation opportunities.
China and Pakistan recently confirmed that in the second phase, they will jointly build a growth corridor, a livelihood corridor, an innovation corridor, a green corridor and an open corridor. The construction of these five new corridors will become a new growth engine for the common development of China and Pakistan, he added.
Cheng Xichong said that it was worth noting that at present, certain international power and certain regional power do not want to see the further development of China-Pakistan close relations and try to undermine the CPEC construction.
However, the friendship between China and Pakistan is unbreakable, and no force can shake the iron brotherhood between the two countries, no force can stop the CPEC from moving forward, he added.
About the security for Chinese citizens and businesses in Pakistan, he said that objectively speaking, recently, the security situation in Pakistan has been rather grim, with terrorist attacks occurring from time to time. To this end, the Pakistani security forces have resolutely taken a series of anti-terrorist operations. “I feel, although the security situation is grim, Pakistan has strong enough counter-terrorism forces and capabilities, and the security situation is still under full control”.
Pakistan attaches great importance to the protection of the CPEC and Chinese enterprises, projects and personnel in Pakistan. At the same time, the relevant Chinese departments are also carrying out close counter-terrorism cooperation with relevant Pakistani organizations, he added.
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