ISLAMABAD: Senate Chairman Mian Raza Rabbani said on Monday that the Pakistan-China relationship was a bulwark against western designs in the region.

Speaking as the chief guest at the launch of a report, ‘CPEC: Facts versus Fiction’, he said the western designs in the region included destabilisation through regime change. The United States, he added, was currently trying to impose India as a regional policeman.

The programme was organised by the Pakistan-China Institute, a think-tank devoted to promoting people-to-people relations between Pakistan and China, in collaboration with JS Group. The report has been prepared with an aim to clear misconception about the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).

At the programme the institute’s project of establishing Chinese language classes in various cities of Pakistan was also inaugurated.

Report ‘CPEC: Facts versus Fiction’ launched

The Senate chairman said that the Pakistan-China friendship was the demonstration of the ‘Asian Dream’. This friendship should not be seen as a cultural takeover of China, he said, adding: “We made this mistake with the West by totally submitting ourselves to it in the past.”

He said initiatives like the CPEC and ‘One Belt One Road’ have added further impetus to bilateral relations between Pakistan and China.

Mr Rabbani lambasted western countries for their imperialist past, colonialism and their current political philosophies that included designs to politically destabilise various countries of the world.

“The India-Israel-US nexus would jeopardise regional peace and developments make it abundantly clear that the US is trying to make New Delhi a new policeman of this region as the West has finally realised that the people of Asia would shape the destiny of their region and would take a lead in making the Asian dream come true by controlling its own resources,” he said.

Mr Rabbani called for the country’s provinces to work for promotion of local languages. He said respecting cultures of each other would lead to an environment of national harmony. He regretted that the military dictators in the country discouraged regional cultures on the assumption that they would weaken the federation.

Ambassador of China MrYao Jing said that the Pakistan-China relations were achieving new heights and that the CPEC was the manifestation of the bond between the two countries.

He said China had always stood by Pakistan just as Pakistan stood by China. This is “all weather” friendship between the two “iron brothers”, he added.

The founder of Pakistan-China Institute, Senator Mushahid Hussain Saiyed, said that there had been deliberate attempts to create misconceptions about the CPEC in which India and its western patrons played a prominent part. The reason behind creating such misconceptions was geo-political because there was an attempt to build up India as a counterweight to China with baseless propaganda about the “China threat”.

In reply to a question about the CPEC, he said when the economic corridor project was launched in 2013, Pakistan was perceived to be isolated, terror-stricken and a ‘failing’ state.

Published in Dawn, February 20th, 2018