ISLAMABAD: PM Li Qiang of China arrived in Islamabad Monday to a 21-gun salute and a security overdrive that included shutting schools and businesses in the capital city for three days as Pakistan pulled out all stops to avoid any safety slip-up during the first visit by a Chinese premier to the country in 11 years.
Li’s four-day trip to oversee the signing of bilateral trade and economic agreements, inaugurate an international airport in the southwestern port city of Gwadar, and attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit comes just over a week after a suicide attack near Karachi airport in which two Chinese engineers died and 11 others were wounded.
As PM Shehbaz Sharif and members of his cabinet received Li at the Chaklala airbase in the garrison city of Rawalpindi, adjacent to Islamabad, news arrived of at least three cops and as many militants being killed during an attack on the district police headquarters in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
A wave of violence has swept Pakistan lately, including 21 miners being shot and killed in Balochistan, where the new Gwadar airport is located. Li is likely to virtually inaugurate the CPEC-funded airport in the southwestern province, bordering Afghanistan and Iran.
Neither side commented on the reason for a virtual inauguration, but sources cited heightened security concerns following the recent Karachi attack for Li being advised against travelling to a restive region.
Islamabad, too, has sought to temporarily curb the movements of Chinese nationals in the country, citing fears of violence from armed groups. Officials said the Karachi blast is likely to figure in talks between Li and his Pakistani counterpart.
“We will review progress on existing initiatives, especially the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), and also explore new avenues of mutually beneficial cooperation. The Pakistan-China all-weather strategic cooperative partnership is the cornerstone of regional stability and prosperity,” Shehbaz wrote on X.
According to the foreign office, Li will also call on President Asif Ali Zardari and hold meetings with parliamentary members and the senior military leadership.
The two-day SCO meeting starts Tuesday in Islamabad. The administration announced a three-day public holiday in the capital city, beginning Monday, with contingents of police, army and paramilitary forces out on the streets in what appeared to be a veritable lockdown.
The SCO participants include the PMs of Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. India’s foreign minister, S Jaishankar, and Iran’s vice-president, Mohammad Reza Aref, are also expected at the summit.
Jaishankar has already stated that he wouldn’t discuss bilateral ties with Pakistan during his visit, the first in nearly a decade.
The opposition Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) of jailed ex-PM Imran Khan announced a protest Tuesday in Islamabad if the govt did not allow his family members, lawyers and doctors to meet him in prison.