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Pakistan’s Support For China: Something New Brewing?

The current global mood has been generally suspicious of the Chinese policies with respect to the spread of the coronavirus, or the maritime exercises, or even the human rights. In contrast to that, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan extended support to China and described their mutual relationship as “iron brothers” in a virtual address to the participants of the Communist Party of China and the World Political Parties agreement . These statements have revived the age old “all weather “ friendship between the two. 

He went on to defend China on the issue of human rights that has been raised on various platforms. Chinese policies against the Uighur muslims in the Xinjiang province have been criticised of being extremely violent. However according to The Independent, Pakistan’s Prime Minister believed that the situation had been mis-reported by the western media. He also said that it was unfair to report just Xinjiang and Hong Kong and raise anti-China voices when there were human rights violations taking place in so many areas of the world. He said that because of Pakistan’s affinity with China, he believed the Chinese version of the situation in Xinjiang. 

The next aspect that the Prime Minister praised was the Chinese political model as an alternate to the western notion of democracy. He believed that it was unique and had beaten all the western democracies in its success rate and praised the people centric development approach. The parameters to define the success rate are not clear as yet. The Prime Minister applauded the Communist Party of China on completing centenary of leadership in the country. 

In addition to that, Mr Imran Khan suggested that China was an important leader to take forward world peace, global development and for preservation of international peace. 

This gesture indicates the affinity between the two countries. There are several things to ponder upon. How will the western countries respond to the Pakistan’s support for China? How does it pave the way forward for the continuing dependency of Pakistan on west? What does the closeness between China and Pakistan mean for India? 

China in the past has put forward an alternate way for economy, political system as well as the notion of human rights. An alliance between Pakistan and China  is a problem for many countries including India as well as the western world. Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan suggested that the two countries join hands and work towards global peace together and cherished that this year will be 70 years of their friendship together.