Pakistan’s Musharraf begins state visit to China

BEIJING (Reuters) – Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf
arrived in Beijing on Sunday for a state visit intended to
highlight China’s support at time when Pakistan faces domestic
and regional uncertainty.

Musharraf told Chinese interviewers before his departure
that his five-day visit would “broaden our cooperation” and
reach strategic agreements between the two countries, the
official Xinhua News Agency reported on Saturday.

The murder of three Chinese engineers in southwest Pakistan
on February 15 has raised fears about threats to Chinese
citizens there from religious and political militants.

China is heavily involved in building Pakistan’s
infrastructure of roads, ports and power stations, and it
provides hundreds of millions of dollars of development finance
to Islamabad. Trade between the two countries rose to $4.25
billion in 2005 from $3.06 billion a year earlier.

“Pakistan now needs to put Chinese investors at ease,” said
Zhang Li, an expert on China-South Asian relations in Sichuan
University in China’s west. “Especially with the cartoon
incident, investors need to feel they won’t be threatened.”

Violent demonstrations against European newspapers’
publishing cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad have occurred
almost daily in Pakistan in recent weeks.

Musharraf said the killings of the Chinese citizens would
not harm long-term relations between the two countries.

“Our friendship with China is very strong and it will not
be affected by the incident,” he told the Chinese reporters
before he left. “We are determined to carry out development
activities as we were doing before.”

Musharraf will meet President Hu Jintao and other leaders
on Monday. During his visit, he will also sign agreements to
bolster economic and technological cooperation, possibly
including civilian nuclear help from China, Chinese analysts
said.

A spokesman for China’s Foreign Ministry indicated the two
sides would also discuss strengthening cooperation against
religious and political threats.

“Both sides treat fighting terrorism as an important issue
on the agenda in their high-level exchanges,” the spokesman,
Qin Gang, told reporters at a regular briefing on Thursday.