Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari hailed China as “the future of the world” ahead of his arrival in Beijing yesterday for a trip that is expected to see him seek urgent financial help.
Zardari made it clear in an interview with China’s official Xinhua news agency that building economic ties would be his top priority during his four-day trip, his first state visit anywhere since taking office last month.
“China is the future of the world. A strong China means a strong Pakistan,” Xinhua quoted Zardari as saying in an interview in Islamabad on Monday ahead of his departure.
His comments come as Islamabad’s alliance with Washington in the “war on terror” falls on rocky ground given Pakistan’s inability to shut down Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters based in its tribal belt.
Zardari, due to arrive in Beijing at 6pm, inherited a country on the brink of bankruptcy and plagued by huge security problems from Islamic extremists.
The global financial crisis has pushed Pakistan closer to the financial edge, with reports — denied by Islamabad — that it faces bankruptcy as early as February.
And while Pakistan has looked to the US for financial help, it is also one of China’s closest allies in Asia, with Beijing seeing the country as a counter-balance to rival India.
China has boosted its economic interests in Pakistan in recent years, funding major infrastructure, engineering and mining projects, including a deep sea port, as well as helping develop its nuclear power industry.
Bilateral trade between China and Pakistan is worth more than US$7 billion a year and officials from both sides have said they are looking to increase that to US$15 billion by 2011.
Zardari indicated he wanted to go further.
“We have a lot of cultural ties, friendly ties, but that is not properly depicted by our economic relationship,” he told Xinhua.
The Financial Times newspaper reported yesterday, without citing sources, that Zardari would seek a soft loan of between US$500 million and US$1.5 billion from China to help Pakistan out of its financial crisis.
It also quoted Western defense officials as saying that he would request new reactors from China to boost Pakistan’s civilian nuclear power sector.
Pakistan’s foreign exchange reserves are widely considered to be at the root of its financial problems.
Until recently buoyed with US aid to former president Pervez Musharraf, they fell to US$8.135 billion this month from US$9.129 billion last month, putting Pakistan at risk of defaulting on foreign loans.
Zardari, who will meet Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) and Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶) in Beijing, also said in his interview with Xinhua that he would seek to step up cooperation with China in the fight against terrorism.
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