China-Pakistan agreed to further advance their defence and anti-terrorism cooperation. Pakistani Army Chief Qamar Javed Bajwa led a tri-service delegation to Quindío, the capital city of East China Shandong province for Military level talks on Sunday.
The talks were completed between the Pakistani Army chief Bajwa and his accompanied tri-service top military officials and General Zhang Youxia, Vice Chairman of Central Military Commission during the visit from 9 to 12 June.
This visit was part of the China-Pakistan Joint Military Cooperation Committee (PCJMCC). It is the Supreme committee of the highest military cooperation body and it has two sub-committees including Joint Cooperation Military Affairs (JCMA) and Joint Cooperation Military Equipment and training(JCMET).
Pakistani Army said in a statement that “Both sides discussed their perspectives on the international and regional security situation, and expressed satisfaction on defence cooperation between the two countries.”
The statement emphasized that “Pakistan and China reaffirmed their strategic partnership in challenging times and agreed to continue the regular exchange of perspectives on issues of mutual interest. Both sides also vowed to enhance their training, technology and counterterrorism cooperation at the tri-service level.”
The main engagement was done between the Pakistani Army Chief Bajwa and General Zhang Youxia on 12 June. China’s Gen. Zhang said that “China and Pakistan are all-weather strategic cooperative partners.” He further said that over the years, both sides have kept close coordination and firmly supported each other on issues concerning each other’s core interests.
In the meeting both sides strongly condemned the terrorists attack on the Confucius institute at the University of Karachi which was happened in April this year, and the statement read-out that any attempt to undermine the China-Pakistan friendship is doomed to fail.
In this attack, four peoples including three Chinese teachers were killed and four other were injured when a burqa clad women suicide bomber exploded herself, which was linked with the Baluchistan Liberation Army (BLA), and after the attack, China had called back some Chinese teachers from Pakistan.
China announced 46 billion dollars worth of projects under CPEC in 2015 and Baluchistan was the major part of the invested money, as the region is rich with natural resources, but the investment triggered ethnic issues and Baluchi’s political and military front has been opposed to the investment in the region.
During the military talks, the Chinese side said that China wants to strengthen communication, enforce cooperation, establish a pragmatic exchange between the two countries, and build military-to-military relationships to deal with the “complicated” situations in the region.
General Bajwa said that Pakistan-China friendship is rock solid, he further reiterated that Pakistan will stand strongly with China in every geopolitical and regional situation. He noted that Pakistan wants to advance the dialogue and Cooperation with Chinese PLA in the area of anti-terrorism, security challenges, and safeguarding the common interests.
