Islamabad, 16 October 2022 (TDI): The Foreign Minister of Pakistan, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has extended best wishes to the Communist Party of China (CPC) at the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China.

Message of felicitation from FM @BBhuttoZardari on convening of 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of #China.

💬 “Throughout its history Chinese Communist Party has made enormous contributions to progress & prosperity of Chinese nation & for global peace”.

🇵🇰🤝🇨🇳 pic.twitter.com/MVXtmrfzc2

— Spokesperson 🇵🇰 MoFA (@ForeignOfficePk) October 16, 2022

He enunciated that the Communist Party has played an extraordinary role in the prosperity of the Chinese nation as well as world peace.

Along these lines, this journey of development started under the leadership of Chairman Mao and now this journey is going on under the leadership of the Communist Party; General Secretary Xi Jinping.

Foreign Minister Zardari went on to reiterate that the Pakistan People’s Party and the Communist Party of China have a long history of bilateral cooperation.

In this vein, he highlighted that Shaheed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto, and President Asif Ali Zardari played an important role in the friendship between China and Pakistan.

China-Pakistan Relations

Pakistan was among the first nations to recognize the People’s Republic of China (PRC) government in mainland China in 1950. Ever since both nations have given the preservation of their special relationship a great deal of priority.

Along these lines, the two have regularly exchanged high-level visits that have led to a number of accords. Pakistan has received financial, military, and technical support from the PRC.

Both nations view one another as close allies in international affairs. China and Pakistan have a long-standing, solid friendship.

Long-standing ties between the two nations have benefited both parties. The core of bilateral ties continues to be a close similarity of viewpoints and shared interests.

The Chinese government has recognized Pakistan’s unwavering cooperation on important issues. Pakistan aided China in formalizing its links with the West, making Nixon’s visit to China in 1972 possible.

Pakistan & China have worked together on numerous military and economic projects. The Muslim world has also benefited from China’s influence thanks to Pakistan. Also, China has a history of consistently assisting Pakistan in regional disputes.

The military of Pakistan is strongly dependent on Chinese arms, and continuing collaborative projects of strategic military and economic value. In order to boost Pakistan’s nuclear development, China has sent blueprints.

Pakistan has received relief supplies and financial aid from China in the wake of flash floods and subsequent property damage that have stranded thousands of people since mid-June.

Source: https://thediplomaticinsight.com/foreign-minister-of-pakistan-congratulates-on-20th-national-congress-of-cpc/

The United States has said it continues to place Pakistan among “Counties of Particular Concern” (CPC) for violations of its peoples’ religious freedom because “a lot of their actions are done by the government.”

“Half of the world’s people that are locked up for apostasy or blasphemy” were in Pakistani jails. This was another factor taken into consideration while designating Pakistan, Samuel Brownback, the US’ Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom, has said.

He has also said that Pakistan was also “one of the source countries for forced brides, mostly from religious minorities, being sent to China.”

Reporting his press conference in Washington, Dawn newspaper (December 10, 2020) further quoted what it called Brownback’s ‘claim’ : “Christians and Hindu women (are) being marketed as concubines or forced brides into China because there’s not effective support, and then there’s discrimination against the religious minorities that make them more vulnerable.”

A red-faced, but unapologetic, Pakistan is now left with a “consolation prize” or a reprieve from the departing Trump administration. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has issued presidential waiver exempting Pakistan and some other counties from being subjected to sanctions that follow such a designation.

“For Pakistan, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan, the Secretary issued a waiver for the presidential action requirement, determining that there were important national interests of the United States requiring the exercise of the waiver authority,” Brownback announced.

The US envoy rejected Pakistan’s plea, raised through a question by a Pakistani correspondent, to include India as well. Ambassador Brownback said the designations followed “an extensive review of the situation in both India and Pakistan.

“We’ve reviewed extensively the situation in Pakistan and India, and I’ve visited both countries in this role. I’ve visited both countries … and we note the problems that are taking place in our annual report in both Pakistan and India.”

While India has never been designated despite Islamabad’s propaganda, this is the second year (2019-2020) in a row that Pakistan is designated CPC for curbing religious freedom of its citizens. It had been designated in 2018-19 as well as a “country of particular concern” for engaging in or tolerating “systematic, ongoing, [and] egregious” religious freedom violations. Before that, Pakistan had been on a less serious “watch list.” This designation had come precisely a year earlier, on December 10, 2019. So, it is a long record.

Five months later, Michael Kugelman, deputy director of the Asia Program and senior associate for South Asia at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, called it “a reputational blow for Islamabad.”

In Dawn (May 21, 2019) Kugelman attributed the US decision to “pressure tactics” by the Tump administration to get Pakistan to lean on the AfghanTaliban leadership that it has been sheltering to cooperate on a resolution of the Afghan imbroglio that would enable the US to withdraw its troops.

He also reasoned the American action being out of concern for the Christian minority in Pakistan. “… we can read Washington’s move in part as a genuine effort to hold the country more accountable for its very real and very serious religious freedom violations — and particularly those that affect Christians, a very personal matter for several key US policymakers.”

The larger issue, however, is a serious lack of credibility about Pakistan in the world community. With a long record of curbing minorities, including minority Muslim groups, it has a lot to explain, but remains in denial.

A nation that complains of Islamophobia around the world has had no answer to the curbs on and killing by majority Sunnis of Shias, Hazaras, Ahmedis, besides Hindus and Christians. For that matter, why Sunnis engage in competitive strife as happens between members of the Barelvi and the Deobandi schools of Islam.

Similar is Pakistan’s role in fomenting militancy and terrorism in the region, using domestic and foreign militants as ‘assets’. It calls them “non-state actors” but has nurtured and exported them. Besides fighting in the Islamic State (IS) ranks in Syria and Iraq, the latest instance is that of these mercenary fighters involved in Armenia versus Azherbijan. None of these have remained secret, despite denials by Pakistani Foreign Office.

Pakistan’s credibility crisis worsened after Al Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, whom its military ruler Pervez Musharraf once pronounced ‘dead’, was located and eliminated in Abbottabad in 2011.

In the latest plea before its Supreme Court, the Pakistan Government is arguing that the 2002 killing of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl was “connected to international terrorism.” It is defending the reduced sentence of Sheikh Mohammed and others who have been convicted and sentenced to be hanged.

Pakistan has conjured up a narrative that it is a ‘victim’ of terrorism and has lost 83,000 of its citizens to it.
However, writing in Dawn (December 1, 2020), British journalist Owen Bennett-Jones says: “The claims that, in fact, Pakistan does not support militants have faced a couple of problems. First everyone now realises that the much proclaimed arrests of militant leaders are invariably followed by their quietly being released. And then, from time to time, people such as Gen Musharraf, let the cat of the bag by saying Pakistan does support some militant groups.”

When its own media and its friendly foreign writers say these things, it is difficult to add or comment on Pakistan’s record, either on its religious minorities or on terrorism.

By Amitabh Dixit, a Freelance Journalist and Conference Producer, APAC and Middle East region, based in Kuala lumpur, Malaysia