August 30, 2006	Wednesday	Sha'aban 5, 1427

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ISLAMABAD, Aug 29: Pakistan and China should expand their cooperative relationship to face the challenges of the new century, suggested a visiting leader of the Communist Party of China (CPC) here on Tuesday.

“It is our shared responsibility in the era of globalisation,” said Liu Yunshan, member of the Politburo and Secretariat of the Central Committee of CPC, addressing a national conference held at the Institute of Strategic Studies Islamabad (ISSI) to celebrate the solid friendship between the two countries.

“Our friendship has always maintained great vitality and remained unbreakable in the changing international situations,” he said, stressing that it was so because the friendship was based on “morality and justice”.

Development of the Gwadar port and the Chashma nuclear power plant were “the new testimony to our friendship in the new century”, he added.

Mr Liu, who is leading a 17-member delegation of the CPC on a visit to Pakistan at the invitation of Pakistan Muslim League (PML), said some 100 Chinese enterprises were participating in “key projects” in Pakistan.

Since PML president Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain was tied up with the opposition’s no-confidence move in the National Assembly, vice-president Gohar Ayub Khan and secretary-general Senator Mushahid Hussain Sayed represented the party at the conference.

Senator Mushahid Hussain assured that Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain would pursue the proposals made by Mr Liu during his upcoming visit to China.

Other steps proposed by Mr Liu to deepen the China-Pakistan strategic partnership included closer consultations and enhanced mutual trust, exploring new areas of economic cooperation and setting up free trade area, enhancing cultural exchanges and intensifying multilateral cooperation “to safeguard mutual interests and to preserve peace and stability” in the region and the world.

Mushahid Hussain gave President Ayub Khan the credit for initiating “the strategic relationship” with China which, he said, put Pakistan on the road to self-reliance.

President Pervez Musharraf’s visits to China “strengthened and broadened the strategic dimensions” of the friendship, he said, citing the entry of China and Pakistan in the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation respectively.

PML vice-president Gohar Ayub Khan said late Chinese premier Zhou Enlai had shared his thoughts about building Pakistan-China relations with him but said he would narrate them only in his forthcoming book.

ISSI chairman Inamul Haque announced on the occasion that his institute was establishing a China Studies Centre devoted to research on avenues to further promote and strengthen the relations between the countries.