Pakistan, China Friendly Relationship on a rollback?
Journalist and foreign affairs expert Kugelman Michael has said that Beijing did not respond to Islamabad's request for a loan of 6.5 billion, relationship between both sides is changing, but alliance between China and Pakistan is inevitable due to growing closeness of America and India.
Journalist and foreign affairs expert Kugelman Michael has said China-funded infrastructure projects in Pakistan have slowed down, but their longstanding partnership is indispensable.
Journalist and foreign policy expert Michael Kugelman published in Foreign Policy magazine In an article, the question has been raised whether there is a change in the relations between Pakistan and China.
According to Kugelman Michael, due to the economic crisis in Islamabad, the speed of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) projects has slowed down, while Beijing’s own economy is also suffering from a slowdown.
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Michael said that the slowdown of the CPEC project is a sign of a setback in China-Pakistan relations. Beijing remained silent on India’s anti-Pakistan initiative at the BRICS meeting last year.
According to the article in the Foreign Policy magazine, Shahbaz Sharif visited China in November and requested the payment of a loan of 6.5 billion dollars, but Beijing did not respond to it.
According to Kogelman, Pakistan’s Finance Minister Ishaq Dar has claimed that China will increase Pakistan’s debt by more than 4 billion dollars, but Beijing has not confirmed this.
The article states that both parties have recently made a statement to speed up the CPEC projects, but according to ground realities, both Pakistan and China have slowed down.
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According to Kugelman, Pakistan is slow to complete CPEC core projects while China is slow to fund new projects.
Michael said that it would be a mistake to think that China-Pakistan relations are in dire straits. Chinese loans continue to flow into Pakistan, although not all of them are for infrastructure projects.
Kugelman Michael says in his article that China may prefer ties with a more stable government in Islamabad, but it has ties to the Sharif family.
CPEC was formally launched during the tenure of Nawaz Sharif, the elder brother of current Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, while Imran Khan damaged the CPEC agreements in the name of investigating corruption.
He said that the current political situation makes the alliance between China and Pakistan inevitable. The improving relations between the US and India are worrying for Islamabad and Beijing.
