ISLAMABAD: Former foreign secretary Tehmina Janjua on Monday said the United States’ policy of containing China would have wider and far reaching implications instead of just affecting China.

“The US and its allies’ efforts to limit China on all fronts is unfortunate, because that approach will have major ramifications not just for the global South, but also for the US and its allies, because such a development impacts everyone, not just the one being targeted,” Ms Janjua said while presiding over a webinar titled ‘Big Power Competition in the Post-Pandemic World Order and the Belt and Road Initiative’.

The webinar, hosted by Pakistan - China Institute (PCI), was attended by officials from Pakistan, China, Cambodia, Sri Lanka, United Kingdom and the US.

The belief in US policy circles that the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has strategic rather than economic grounds, she said, undermined Chinese aspirations to build a prosperous community.

Chairman of Senate Defence Committee Senator Mushahid Hussain Syed said Pakistan was in a strategic location where huge transformations and transitions were taking place, including the retrenchment of American power, the peaceful rise of China and Pakistan as they endeavoured to be the hub of regional connectivity through China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), by making a transition from geo-politics to geo-economics.

He said after 42 years of war in Afghanistan, which affected Pakistan directly, the country cannot be a party to any new conflict, confrontation, or a Cold War, as connectivity and cooperation are the need of the hour. Similarly, he called for an end to the war in Ukraine, adding it was raising new tensions and has had unexpected consequences like food and fuel shortages.

Published in Dawn, June 21st, 2022