PAF escorts Xi's Boeing with Chinese-designed planes!
Posted on 04/22/2015 6:25:22 AM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
The friendship between China and Pakistan, read billboards in Chinese and English dotting Islamabad this week, "is higher than mountains, deeper than oceans, sweeter than honey, and stronger than steel." This sort of romantic sloganeering routinely bubbles up ahead of key bilateral summits between the two countries, and so it did this week as Chinese President Xi Jinping made his maiden visit to the South Asian nation.
"This will be my first trip to Pakistan, but I feel as if I am going to visit the home of my own brother," Xi wrote in an article published in Pakistani papers ahead of his arrival, adding another metaphor about how the relationship between the two countries "has flourished like a tree growing tall and strong."
It's easy to see such rhetoric as the cringe-worthy, cynical clap-trap that accompanies international diplomacy. After all, China and Pakistan may share a border, but cultural ties between the two nations and its people are thin, to put it mildly.
But the bond between Beijing and Islambad is indeed old and strong, stretching back to the 1970s and the Nixon administration's opening with China. Here's a primer of what you need to know.
What's happening now
Xi arrived in Islamabad on Monday bearing real gifts: an eye-popping $46 billion worth of planned energy and infrastructure investment to boost Pakistan's flagging economy. This would include adding some 10,400 megawatts to Pakistan's national grid through coal, nuclear and renewable energy projects.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
PAF escorts Xi's Boeing with Chinese-designed planes!
Bad news for India.
I was thinking the same thing. The sad part is a country whose court forced a woman whose husband stole a neighbor’s wife to move in with man or pay 5 grand is our best ally in that area.
What is China up to? Don’t they have problems of their own with muslims?
Its a risky venture. Investing in such an unstable country where the possibility of overthrow and the control of nukes is always a possibility seems scary.
China is seeking trade routes to the Middle East that aren’t controlled by Western military powers, specifically the US Navy.
This overland route to the Indian ocean gets them around the Malacca Straits, a geographic choke point for China trade.
Ping
"move in with man..."? huh? which country?
China doesn't "invest" in Pakistan -- they just want to have india kept busy with the failed state of Pakistan and not focusing on China
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