MUZAFFARABAD : The AJK President Sardar Masood Khan has said that Pakistan- China strategic cooperative partnership aims at building a community of shared future and the relationship between the two countries will weather all storms.
In his article written for English Edition of Armed Forces’ Hilal Magazine, he said this is not empty rhetoric; it embodies a strong commitment of the two states to promote peace, stability, and development in the region and safeguard each other’s core interests.
He stated that China supports Pakistan’s security, independence and territorial sovereignty, whereas Pakistan fully endorses the One China Policy.
Moreover, China pays close attention to the situation in Jammu and Kashmir and has reiterated its position several times that the Kashmir dispute should be properly and peacefully resolved based on the UN Charter, relevant UN Security Council Resolutions, and bilateral agreements.
Describing the Sino-Pak ties as a catalyst for mutuality of interests, stability, and shared prosperity, he said that the Sino-Pak equation is a sui generis and it is not a competitor with any other sets of bilateral relationships.
“They threaten no other nations; they do not want to be threatened by other nations”, he emphasized.
Tracing the history of China-Pakistan relations, Sardar Masood stated that at the height of Cold War, in the 1960s, Pakistan realised that it has to diversify its relationships because its staunchest ally at that time – the USA – was balancing its relations with both India and Pakistan, with an emerging tilt towards India though it was practically in the Soviet camp, Pakistan forayed into what it called a triangular approach in its foreign policy by introducing equilibrium in its relations with the U.S., China and Soviet Union.
The experiment, he added, did not go well because the U.S. was not comfortable with that stance, though it later used Pakistan as a conduit for mending its relations with China; and USSR’s response was tepid. But the 1960s became a watershed in Pak-China relations”, President Khan pointed out.
