President wants China, Pakistan to lead world towards trade, multilateralism

ISLAMABAD: President Dr Arif Alvi said as both China and Pakistan stood for peace, they had the great opportunity to lead the world towards multilateralism and ensure the establishment of morality-based institutions in the future.

The president, in his address as chief guest at the Virtual Reception on 70th Anniversary of China-Pakistan Diplomatic Relations, said the vested interests, instead of the morality, were dominating in international affairs at different forums in the world that was why the oppressed people of Kashmir and Palestine did not get any hearing.

"Even, the promises made to the Kashmiri and Palestinian people were not fulfilled just because of the vested interests", he added. He reaffirmed the commitment to build a closer Pakistan-China community of shared future in the new era where 1.3 billion people of China and 207 million Pakistanis stood together in friendship leading the world towards peace and prosperity. “It is important that this message goes out and this camaraderie spreads throughout the world,” the president told the event which was also attended by Senate Chairman Sadiq Sanjrani, Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee General Nadeem Raza, federal ministers, politicians and Chinese Ambassador in Pakistan Nong Rong.

The president said the goals of China and Pakistan was friendship but both the countries cemented their goals for humanity. He said at a time when environment and global warming were the issues, peace was also essential and both China and Pakistan also believed in that endeavor. “China and Pakistan have great opportunity to lead the world, in the matter of trade towards multilateralism, towards not creating or raising walls for each other’s products as well as to establish institutions and ensure that the institutions in future are morality based which is the foundation of our relationship. The more we move forward in that direction, the more peace we will have,” the president remarked.

He thanked President Xi Jinping for the congratulatory letter to him and congratulated China on successful landing on Mars which he said proved that the country was second to none in the field of science and technology.

Referring to China’s journey towards a developed country by uplifting around 800 million people out of poverty, the president said Pakistan should also strive for and learn from it. He said during the seven decades, the bilateral friendship stood firm and even got stronger into strategic partnership and people to people contacts.

Calling both the countries “Iron brothers”, the president said Pakistan and China believed in a future which bound the people together and lead them to prosperity and peace.

President Alvi said China was the largest trading and investment partner of Pakistan having collaboration in the fields of agriculture, trade, finance, education, science and technology was strengthening, besides the cooperation between the two people.

He said Pakistan fully supported President Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative of which CPEC was important part. From the beginning, when Pakistan needed to improve its energy supplies, establish industry not only along the route but across the country, special economic zones, CPEC was going to be a harbinger.

He highly appreciated China for “exemplary handling” of COVID-19 pandemic and recalled his China visit in March last year. He also thanked China for sending medical team and now vaccine to Pakistan and added that the Chinese assistance and advance learning helped Pakistan a lot. The president said that Pakistan had done reasonably well to handle the pandemic comparing the regional countries but the country still needed to be careful during the third wave.

He said both the countries stood for humanity and Pakistan was learning from China as how it focused on health, education and investment to encourage people to rise on their own. He said both countries had a vision for peace and improvement in the health and education standards and ensure food security. The virtual reception was jointly organised by Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Chinese Embassy in Islamabad to mark the 70th anniversary of bilateral diplomatic relations established on May 21, 1951.