China | Pakistan

Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar on Wednesday met his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi, where the pair discussed and reaffirmed mutual support in core sectors, including agriculture, mining, industry and security, Chinese media reported. Dar was on a three-day visit to China for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation’s (SCO) Council of Foreign Ministers meeting in Tianjin on Tuesday. According to the Foreign Office (FO), Dar and Wang were scheduled to meet on the sidelines of the event. The Foreign Office (FO) said in a post on X: “The two leaders held wide-ranging discussions on key areas of mutual interest, including the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and multilateral cooperation.” According to Chinese state-owned broadcaster CGTN, the top diplomats reaffirmed their mutual support on issues concerning each other’s core interests. “China is ready to work with Pakistan to implement the important consensus reached by the leaders of the two countries, and push forward the building of a China-Pakistan community wit...

Posts from users and Indian accounts on social media platform X on Monday were claiming that China has removed Pakistan from its list of countries allowed visa-free entry. However, no such development has occurred since Pakistan was never included in China’s list of countries with visa-free entry. Pakistan and China share a longstanding strategic partnership rooted in mutual trust, economic cooperation, and regional connectivity. Over the decades, ties have expanded across different sectors, including trade, energy, infrastructure, and media collaboration, with initiatives like the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor symbolising a shared vision for development. On July 14, a user, who appears to be a PTI supporter based on his previous posts, claimed in a post on X that China has removed Pakistan from its list of visa-free countries. A social media graphic from a news outlet accompanying the post reads: “China just announced visa-free entry for 74 countries, but Pakistan didn’t make the list.” The post garnered ...

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on Monday that Beijing and New Delhi should work towards mutual trust and “win-win” cooperation, after talks with his Indian counterpart Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, state news agency Xinhua reported. China and India should “adhere to the direction of good-neighbourliness and friendship” and “find a way for mutual respect and trust, peaceful coexistence, common development and win-win cooperation”, Wang said, according to Xinhua. The two foreign ministers met in Beijing on Monday as the two rivals seek to repair ties following a 2020 clash on their border. The world’s two most populous nations are intense rivals competing for strategic influence across South Asia, and their 3,500-kilometre frontier has been a perennial source of tension. The 2020 clash between their troops led to a four-year military standoff, but they agreed in October on patrols in disputed areas. India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and China’s President Xi Jinping met for the first time in five years late...

India and China must resolve friction along their border, pull back troops and avoid “restrictive trade measures” to normalise their relationship, India’s foreign minister told his Chinese counterpart in Beijing on Monday. Subrahmanyam Jaishankar met Wang Yi in Beijing during his first trip to the country since 2020, when a deadly border clash between their troops led to a four-year military standoff and damaged ties until a thaw began in October, when they agreed to step back. “Good progress” made by the countries in the past nine months for normalisation of relations is a result of the resolution of friction along their border, Jaishankar told Wang. India and China share a 3,800-kilometre border that is poorly demarcated and has been disputed since the 1950s. They fought a brief but brutal border war in 1962, and talks over the decades to settle the border dispute have made slow progress. Last month, Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh told his Chinese counterpart that the two countries should seek a “per...

Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar will travel to Tianjin, China, tomorrow for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation’s (SCO) meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers, state media outlet Radio Pakistan reported on Sunday. The SCO is a 10-nation Eurasian security and political grouping whose members include China, Russia, Pakistan, India, and Iran. Their foreign ministers’ meeting was held as a precursor to the annual summit of its leaders set for the autumn. According to the report, the top diplomats from Belarus, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan will also attend the event. “The upcoming Council of Heads of State will take place on August 31 and September 1 in Tianjin, China,” Radio Pakistan reported. “At the invitation of the Foreign Minister of China Wang Yi, the Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Pakistan Ishaq Dar will lead the Pakistan delegation to the meeting of the SCO Council of Foreign Ministers,” the Foreign Office (FO) said. The ...

Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar will lead Pakistan’s delegation at the three-day meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Council of Foreign Ministers, scheduled to begin tomorrow in Tianjin, China.

The succession of Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, is a thorn in China-India relations, the Chinese embassy in New Delhi said on Sunday, as India’s foreign minister prepares to visit China for the first time since deadly border clashes in 2020. Ahead of celebrations this month for his 90th birthday that were attended by senior Indian ministers, the head of Tibetan Buddhists riled China again by saying it had no role in his succession. Tibetans believe the soul of any senior Buddhist monk is reincarnated after his death, but China says the Dalai Lama’s succession will also have to be approved by its leaders. The Dalai Lama has been living in exile in India since 1959 following a failed uprising against Chinese rule in Tibet, and Indian foreign relations experts say his presence gives New Delhi leverage against China. Yu Jing, a Chinese embassy spokesperson, said on X that some people from strategic and academic communities in India had made “improper remarks” on the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama. Yu...

BEIJING: Minister for Information and Broadcasting Attaullah Tarar emphasized the profound and ancient civilizational connection between Pakistan and China and said that interconnected mountains and rivers of both nations carry a shared history spanning centuries. Addressing a forum on the theme of ‘Civilizational Exchange and Mutual Learning: Cultural Heritage and Innovation in Beijing, the initiative […]

United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Friday that he had “positive and constructive” talks with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, as the two major powers vied to push their agendas in Asia at a time of tension over Washington’s tariff offensive. The top US diplomat was in Malaysia on his first Asia trip since taking office, seeking to stress US commitment to the region at the East Asia Summit and the Regional Forum of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), where many countries were reeling from a raft of steep US tariffs announced by US President Donald Trump this week. Rubio had his first in-person talks with the Chinese foreign minister, which came after Beijing warned the US against reinstating hefty levies on its goods next month and threatened retaliation against nations that strike deals with the US to cut China out of supply chains. Wang has sharply criticised Washington during talks with Asian counterparts in Malaysia, calling the US tariffs “typical unilateral bullying beh...

Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Attaullah Tarar met with Cao Shumin, Deputy Head of the Communist Party of China’s (CPC) Publicity Department and Minister of China’s National Radio and Television Administration (NRTA), to advance Pakistan-China media collaboration through joint productions, combating disinformation,.

Pakistan and China on Thursday agreed to further enhance ties and joint broadcasting projects between their state broadcasters to tackle fake news and disinformation, Radio Pakistan reported. Pakistan and China share a longstanding strategic partnership rooted in mutual trust, economic cooperation, and regional connectivity. Over the decades, ties have expanded across different sectors, including trade, energy, infrastructure, and media collaboration, with initiatives like the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) symbolising a shared vision for development. The government, as well as the military, have previously warned about “fake news and propaganda” proliferating on social media, with Inter-Services Public Relations Director General Lieutenant General Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry saying that not enough was being done against “digital terrorism” under the law. The decision was made during a meeting in Beijing between Minister for Information and Broadcasting Attaullah Tarar and Cao Shumin, Deputy Head of the Pu...

PAF, PLAAF chiefs discuss regional security dynamics Lt-Gen Wang Gang describes PAF performance during recent conflict with India as textbook example Pakistan and China enjoy historic and time-tested ties: Air Chief Marshal Zaheer Ahmed Baber Sidhu.

Preparations are in full swing for Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s anticipated visit to China at the end of August 2025, with a strong focus on enhancing economic collaboration.

The online retail platform of Chinese tech giant Alibaba announced on Wednesday that it will issue $7 billion in subsidies for certain purchases, providing a much-needed boost for a country struggling with sluggish spending. Taobao, China’s e-commerce champion launched by Alibaba in 2003, said in a WeChat statement that the 50bn yuan ($6.97bn) would “directly subsidise consumers and merchants” over a 12-month period starting Wednesday. The spending incentives on Taobao’s “flash purchase” feature will take the form of “red envelopes” — a digital form of traditional cash gifts — as well as discounts on products, deliveries and commissions, the statement said. Taobao said that the subsidies will “provide consumers with preferential and convenient services and experiences, further stimulating consumption vitality”. Beijing is battling to stave off deflationary pressure, which has threatened to dampen economic growth even as challenges elsewhere mount. A lengthy property sector crisis and a fierce trade war with t...

KARACHI: China has rolled over $3.4 billion in loans to Pakistan, two senior Pakistani government officials told Reuters on Sunday, in a move that will help boost Islamabad’s foreign exchange reserves, a requirement of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Beijing rolled over $2.1 billion, which has been in Pakistan’s central bank’s reserves for the last […]

NEW DELHI: India is vigilant of developments in its neighbourhood that “have a bearing” on its “interest and security”, the external affairs ministry said of a recent trilateral meeting between Pakistan, Bangladesh and China, adding that it factors in the “evolving context” in its bilateral relations with these countries. According to The Wire, during a trilateral meeting in Kunming, China, on June 19 involving Chinese vice foreign minister Sun Weidong, Bangladesh’s acting foreign secretary Ruhul Siddique and Pakistan’s additional foreign secretary Imran Siddiqui, the three sides agreed to explore cooperation in a number of sectors including trade, ‘maritime affairs’, health and the environment. Asked for comment on the meeting during the ministry’s weekly press briefing on Thursday, spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said that “we maintain a constant watch on the developments in our neighbourhood that have a bearing on our interest and our security”. “Our relations with individual countries, while they stand on th...

Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh told his Chinese counterpart that the two countries should seek a “permanent solution” to their decades-old border dispute, India’s defence ministry said on Friday. Singh met China’s Dong Jun on the sidelines of the meeting of the defence ministers of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in Qingdao on Thursday and stressed on solving issues between the two countries through a structured roadmap, the ministry said in a statement. The world’s two most populous nations — both nuclear powers — share a 3,800-km, largely undemarcated and disputed border in the Himalayas and have gone to war over it. Although the frontier has been mostly peaceful in recent decades, a deadly clash between their troops in 2020 resulted in the deaths of 20 Indian and four Chinese soldiers. The clash led to a four-year military standoff with both armies deploying tens of thousands of troops in the mountains until they reached a pact in October to step back, leading to a thaw in ties. During h...

Defence ministers attending the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) meeting on Thursday failed to reach a consensus on a joint statement due to India’s refusal, while Pakistan’s Defence Minister Khawaja Asif reaffirmed the country’s commitment to combating terrorism and promoting regional peace and security within the SCO framework. The SCO is a 10-nation Eurasian security and political grouping whose members include China, Russia, Pakistan, India, and Iran. Their defence ministers’ meeting was held as a precursor to the annual summit of its leaders set for the autumn. Addressing the session, Asif condemned Israel’s recent 12-day war against Iran and stressed the importance of collective efforts to address evolving global and regional security challenges, state broadcaster PTV News reported. “Terrorism is a common threat. Pakistan calls on all states to desist from politicising the joint effort of the International Community to fight the means of terrorism to deflect attention from their internal failures...

China hosted defence ministers from Iran and Russia for a meeting in its eastern seaside city of Qingdao on Thursday, against the backdrop of war in the Middle East and a summit of North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) countries in Europe that agreed to boost military spending. Beijing has long sought to present the 10-member Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) as a counterweight to Western-led power blocs and has pushed to strengthen collaboration between its member countries in politics, security, trade and science. The Qingdao meeting of the organisation’s top defence officials comes as a fledgling ceasefire between Israel and Iran holds after 12 days of fighting between the arch-foes. It is also being held the day after a summit of Nato leaders in The Hague, where members agreed to ramp up their defence spending to satisfy United States President Donald Trump. Beijing’s ties with Moscow are also in the spotlight. China has portrayed itself as a neutral party in Russia’s war with Ukraine, although ...

United States President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that China can continue to purchase Iranian oil after Israel and Iran agreed to a ceasefire, a move that the White House clarified did not indicate a relaxation of US sanctions. “China can now continue to purchase oil from Iran. Hopefully, they will be purchasing plenty from the US, also,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social, just days after he ordered US bombings of three Iranian nuclear sites. Trump was drawing attention to no attempts by Iran so far to close the Strait of Hormuz to oil tankers, as a closure would have been hard for China, the world’s top importer of Iranian oil, a senior White House official told Reuters. “The president continues to call on China and all countries to import our state-of-the-art oil rather than import Iranian oil in violation of US sanctions,” the official said. After the ceasefire announcement, Trump’s comments on China were another bearish signal for oil prices, which fell nearly 6 per cent on Tuesday. Any relaxation o...