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Pakistan's Musharraf begins state visit to China

Posted on: Sunday, 19 February 2006, 06:23 CST

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.

Source: REUTERS

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