The Pakistani prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani, arrived in China on Tuesday for a four-day visit, picking up some welcome diplomatic support at a critical moment in Pakistan’s relations with the United States.
The prime minister’s visit was planned as part of a long-planned celebration of diplomatic ties, but analysts said Pakistan is using it to hint that China is an alternative source of security and economic aid — a reassuring message for a nation angered and humiliated by the covert American raid that killed Osama bin Laden.
“It is being used for show, for politics, for domestic reasons, to show to the Pakistani public that if relations deteriorate with the United States, China is there to swing in with diplomatic and other support,” said Andrew Small, a fellow with the German Marshall Fund in Brussels. “China is playing along to some extent because Pakistan is in sort of a tight spot at the moment.”
Though Mr. Gilani arrived late Tuesday, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said his visit would officially begin on Wednesday. The prime minister will meet with Premier Wen Jiabao, President Hu Jintao and various economic officials, the Chinese government said. He met earlier this week with Senator John Kerry, who flew to Islamabad to try to ease tensions over the raid.Both Mr. Gilani and the Chinese media played up Pakistan’s ties with China. Xinhua, China’s official news agency, quoted Mr. Gilani on Tuesday as saying, “We are proud to have China as our best and most trusted friend.”
A Foreign Ministry spokesman on Tuesday promised China’s unswerving support to Pakistan’s fight against terrorism. A signed commentary the day before in People’s Daily, the official newspaper of the Communist Party, urged Americans to critically examine the unilateral nature of its raid and infringement on Pakistan’s territorial rights.
Analysts said that while China is happy to offer Pakistan diplomatic cover, it is wary of tilting too far in Pakistan’s direction. Annual trade between the two countries amounted last year to $8.7 billion, and China supplied Pakistan with two new civilian nuclear reactors, balancing a nuclear deal between the United States and India.
But “China wants to hold back from a full-on alliance,” Mr. Small said. “They don’t want to be stuck in a situation where they seem to have taken on too much direct responsibility” for a country with Pakistan’s security and political problems. While there is some talk in Islamabad that China might supplant the United States as Pakistan’s main economic backer, the Pakistani officials privately express little expectation that that will happen.
Rong Ying, vice president of the China Institute of International Studies, said tense relations between the United States and Pakistan were more of a threat than a benefit to China. China has a huge stake in a stable Pakistan, he said, partly because it fears that Islamic militants could spill over into its western Xinjiang region.
“I think the United States should think about how it can damage-control relations with Pakistan,” he said.
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