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| Zardari to visit China on 9th as president |
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Friday, September 05, 2008
By Qudssia Akhlaque
ISLAMABAD: PPP Co-chairman and presidential hopeful Asif Ali Zardari, who is expected to win hands down on Saturday, is all set to embark on a visit to China within 72 hours of his election as the head of the state.
If all goes as expected, Asif Ali Zardari will go on his first foreign trip to China as the 12th president of the country on Sept 9, sources told The News on Thursday. Pakistan’s permanent representative to the UN in Geneva, Masood Khan, who has been nominated as Pakistan’s new ambassador to China, also arrived here on Sunday. Reportedly, Masood Khan is here for consultations on the planned visit and there are indications that he may leave for Beijing ahead of Zardari’s arrival there.
Zardari was invited by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games last month and was to lead the delegation. However, he changed his plan due to a move by the ruling alliance to impeach President Musharraf. Instead, his son and PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, who was also invited by the CCP, represented the party at the opening ceremony.
Amid speculations that all is not so well on the Pakistan-China front, the planned Zardari visit would send a strong signal to Beijing and the world community of the high priority Pakistan accords to its relations with China. It also gains importance as Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani had visited the US before China.
The planned Zardari trip may also be an attempt to blunt the growing criticism that there is a shift in the PPP government’s policy towards China and that it is distancing itself from Pakistan’s most-trusted ally.
Symbolically, too, the visit would have immense value, as the founder of the ruling PPP, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, was the actual architect of the Pakistan-China relations. However, in substantive terms it is to be seen what comes out of the trip. As Pakistan is on the verge of an economic default, there are hints that Pakistan may be turning again to China for help. A top bureaucrat in Islamabad who has been dealing with China sounded confident that China could help Pakistan get over its economic difficulties. There are signals that as a goodwill gesture, China may bail out Pakistan financially as it has done twice in the last one year or so.
Brushing aside rumours that the Chinese were not too happy with Pakistan, as Beijing felt Islamabad was sidelining it, a former Pakistani ambassador to China noted: “China and Pakistan relations are too deep-rooted to be derailed.”
In a recent interview to a private TV channel, Zardari had underscored the importance Pakistan attached to its relations with China and pointed out that late Zulfikar Ali Bhutto had laid the foundation of this relationship.
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ISSN 1563-9479 
