ISLAMABAD (Agencies): Chinese Ambassador to Pakistan Jiang Zaidong announced on Sunday that China is prepared to work with Pakistan to actively implement its Global South initiative, which focuses on common development and shared cooperation.
Chinese President Xi Jinping recently unveiled a series of measures for Global South countries, including the establishment of a Global South research center, 1,000 scholarships under the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence Scholarship of Excellence, and 100,000 training opportunities over the next five years.
In an interview with APP, Ambassador Jiang expressed China’s readiness to implement these measures for Pakistan and other countries, highlighting China’s firm determination to promote the development and revitalization of the Global South1. He emphasized that China’s five principles of peaceful coexistence provide a vision to address global challenges and ensure a shared vision of global peace, security, and prosperity.
The Global South region has shown strong momentum in recent years, contributing up to 80% of world economic growth over the past two decades and increasing its global share of GDP from 24% to more than 40% in the past 40 years. Politically, Global South countries are now seen as a key force for transforming the international order.
President Xi, during the recent Beijing Declaration of the Conference marking the 70th Anniversary of the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, emphasized that the Global South should lead in building a community with a shared future for mankind1. Pakistan participated in the conference with high-level representation from over 100 countries.
Ambassador Jiang reiterated China’s commitment to supporting Pakistan in safeguarding its sovereignty and territorial integrity, and in pursuing a development path suited to its national conditions. He also highlighted the outcomes of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s recent visit to China, which focused on strategic and security cooperation and upgrading the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) in line with the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
The visit achieved its goals and provided guidelines for promoting all-weather strategic cooperation in the new era1. The two countries agreed to cooperate in various sectors, including mining, offshore oil and gas resources, clean energy, artificial intelligence, science and technology, finance, and space cooperation.
In terms of major cooperation, he highlighted consensus on accelerating the Main Line-1 railways and Karakoram Highway projects, the year-round operation of the Khunjerab Pass, development of Gwadar Port, and supporting Chinese companies to invest and operate in the Special Economic Zones.
“At present, China-Pakistan cooperation is facing important opportunities for quality improvement and upgrading, but also under the realistic pressure of climbing over obstacles,” he said.
He emphasized strengthening Sino-Pak cooperation at international forums to jointly safeguard multilateralism given China’s presidency of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and Pakistan’s upcoming hosting of the meeting of the SCO’s Council of Heads of Government besides its non-permanent membership of the United Nations Security Council.
On security cooperation, he expressed confidence that the high-level consensus and joint efforts of relevant departments of both sides would take the security cooperation to new heights, providing safe environment and reliable protection for the development of China-Pakistan relations.
He recalled that since the visit was carried out after the terrorist attack on the Chinese convoy of the Dasu Hydropower Project on March 26th, 2024, both sides attached great importance to security issues.
“President Xi Jinping made it clear that China supports Pakistan in firmly combating terrorism and hopes that Pakistan will continue to create a safe, stable and predictable business environment and effectively protect the safety of Chinese nationals, projects and institutions in Pakistan,” he said.
He mentioned that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif promised that Pakistan would resolutely crack down on and severely punish the terrorists involved and take all measures necessary to ensure the safety of Chinese personnel, projects and institutions in Pakistan.
The envoy appreciated that Pakistan firmly supported the Chinese government’s every effort to achieve national reunification and on the issues concerning Xinjiang, Xizang, Hong Kong and the South China Sea.
Ambassador Jiang concluded by stating that these practical measures will inject new impetus and open up new prospects for consolidating, deepening, and expanding practical cooperation between China and Pakistan.