Comment by Riaz Haq on October 31, 2022 at 10:59am

As Pakistan's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif will start his visit to China on Tuesday, China expresses a warm welcome and looks forward to further promoting high-level strategic cooperation with Pakistan, including the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), Zhao Lijian, a spokesperson of China's Foreign Ministry, said on Monday.

https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202210/1278381.shtml

According to China's National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), the country's top economic planner, the 11th JCC was held by videoconference on Thursday, with both sides vowing to promote the high-quality construction of the CPEC and build a China-Pakistan community of shared destiny.

During the meeting, Lin Nianxiu, vice chairman of the NDRC, said that China has always attached great importance to China-Pakistan relations, which have endured the test of international changes for more than 70 years and remained rock-solid.

Since the 10th JCC, China and Pakistan have promoted the construction of the corridor with fruitful results amid a time of challenging conditions, Lin said, adding that the two countries will strengthen cooperation to ensure the smooth construction and operation of CPEC projects.

Moreover, the two sides will expand cooperation fields to empower the construction of the corridor and ensure the safety of project construction and personnel. "China will pragmatically promote the high-quality operation of the CPEC and create demonstration projects under the BRI in a bid to build a China-Pakistan community of shared destiny in the new era," Lin noted.

Ahsan Iqbal, Pakistan's federal minister for planning development and special initiatives, said that the CPEC has emerged as the top national priority of the Pakistan-China All-Weather Strategic Cooperative Partnership, according to a report published by the ministry.

According to the report, all important memorandums of understanding (MOU) will be signed during Sharif's visit to China.

"During the visit, leaders from the two countries will likely discuss the consensuses that were reached in the 11th JCC, in fields such as energy, infrastructure construction, advanced technology and agricultural cooperation," Liu Zongyi, secretary-general of the Research Center for China-South Asia Cooperation at the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies, told the Global Times on Monday.

During the meeting, Iqbal also noted that after Pakistan was hit by severe floods this year, the Chinese government and people generously assisted the country in disaster relief and post-disaster reconstruction, fully reflecting the "ironclad" friendship between the two countries.

Since the 10th JCC, the construction of the CPEC has achieved many milestones, further enhancing economic ties between the two countries and promoting regional peace, stability and prosperity, Iqbal said.

The corridor has entered the second phase of high-quality development, and Pakistan will do its utmost to realize the great vision of the two leaders, providing security and relevant policy support for Chinese personnel, institutions and projects in Pakistan, in a bid to make Pakistan a more attractive investment destination, the minister noted.

During the meeting, the Joint Working Groups on Energy, Transport Infrastructure, Gwadar, Industrial Cooperation, Science and Technology, and Agriculture Cooperation made presentations, reaching a series of important consensuses.

The JCC highlighted the significance of key projects for energy and infrastructure development, including power plants, motorways and highways, which have provided a myriad of opportunities for socioeconomic development in Pakistan.

"The decisions we take today will go a long way in furthering the aims of the CPEC, which has regained the momentum it had during 2013-18," the minister said in the report.

Comment by Riaz Haq on November 1, 2022 at 6:59pm

“The Chinese government likes Shehbaz Sharif personally and a number of the other figures in this government, and will generally want to do them some favours, but they are not certain in the medium term who will be running things,” said Andrew Small from the Asia programme of the German Marshall Fund, a Washington-based think tank.

https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3197922/will-pakist...


Political turbulence in Pakistan since 2017 has made China “less certain” about whether some of its long-term economic bets will “pay off if there aren’t governments that can sustain their commitments or a really solid political consensus behind these investments,” he added.
Since taking office in April, Sharif has prioritised the revival of the estimated US$62 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a Belt and Initiative programme connecting Xinjiang province to Pakistan’s Arabian Sea port of Gwadar.


Sharif hopes his coalition government’s efforts to fast-track the completion of lagging CPEC projects and target militant separatists who have carried out lethal attacks against Chinese nationals have been enough to persuade Beijing to pay huge amounts for mass transit and power generation schemes.
“There have certainly been tactical issues” between Beijing and Islamabad over security and delayed payments to Chinese-owned power projects, said Mustafa Hyder Sayed, executive director of the Pakistan China Institute in Islamabad.
“But strategically the alignment is very robust. Particularly in the wake of the accelerated big power [between nations] competition, we see there are more and more convergences and shared interests with Beijing,” he said.

The US national security strategy unveiled on October 12 prioritised the building of strategic relations with India, with which China and Pakistan have both fought wars over territorial claims.

China knows a “stable and strong” Pakistan is in “the national interest of the People’s Republic,” Sayed said.
Small said Pakistan’s security situation will be at the top of Beijing’s agenda in talks, because of the killing of 13 Chinese nationals in terrorist attacks by Taliban insurgents and ethnic Baloch separatists since July 2021.
During a recent meeting with Sharif during the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Uzbekistan, President Xi Jinping hoped Pakistan would protect “the security of Chinese citizens and institutions in Pakistan as well as the lawful rights and interests of Chinese businesses”.

The killing by suicide bomb of nine Chinese men working on the Dasu hydropower project was “a particular shock to the Chinese government, even more so than some of the soft target attacks in Karachi”, said Small.
Beijing’s overall view is that between the Tehreek-e-Taliban (TTP – the Pakistani Taliban) and the Baloch insurgency, there has been a serious deterioration in the security environment and not enough is being done to protect Chinese workers, Small said, delaying projects’ progress and increasing the risk that China will pull personnel out.
It also means Beijing may use more of its own security staff.
Pakistan has recently arrested the leaders of Baloch insurgent cells responsible for attacks on Chinese nationals in the province of Balochistan and the port city of Karachi, said Abdul Basit, a research fellow at Singapore’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies.

China is also maintaining pressure on the Taliban in Afghanistan to rein in the approximately 5,000 Pakistani Taliban insurgents it hosts, he said.
Despite a Taliban-brokered ceasefire agreed in June, the TTP has launched daily lethal attacks against the security forces and police in the northwest of the country since negotiations broke down in late July.
A major military operation in Pakistan’s tribal districts bordering Afghanistan “is in the offing”, Basit said.
“Beijing is concerned, but it has full trust in the Pakistan Army’s counterterrorism capabilities,” he added.

Comment by Riaz Haq on November 4, 2022 at 7:04pm

#China to #US: Ties with #Pakistan ‘none of your business’. China Expert Yun Sun: “China has plenty of confidence that its relationship with Pakistan is going to continue regardless of the modality of US-Pakistan relations.” #CPEC #India #XiJingping https://www.dawn.com/news/1718723


Speaking at a two-day seminar on US-Pakistan relations, Chinese foreign policy expert Yun Sun said Pakistan’s relationship with the US was a factor in China’s overall strategy for South Asia, but “China has plenty of confidence that its relationship with Pakistan is going to continue regardless of the modality of US-Pakistan relations.”

She, however, said that China was also adjusting or recalibrating its policy and expectations towards Pakistan, especially in terms of the CPEC.

“And from that recalibration there’s almost a welcoming attitude in China that Pakistan should re-balance its external strategy. And there’s a welcoming attitude that Pakistan is reaching out to the United States again,” Ms Yun said.

“This readjustment of Pakistan’s expectations and external alignment strategy has much approval in China.”

The Chinese, she said, did not believe that the recalibration of US-Pakistan relations would come at the expense of China’s interests in the region “because India’s still there and because CPEC will remain one of the most significant campaigns regardless of how people feel about it.”

About China’s reaction to US-Pakistan interactions, she said, “[it] has more to do with what the US has said, rather than what Pakistan has said.

“This is none of your business,” said Ms Yun when asked about China’s reaction to the US suggestion that Pakistan should renegotiate its debt with Beijing.

---

“Dan, is it none of our business?” Moderator Shamila Chaudhary asked another panelist, Daniel Markey of the US Institute of Peace (USIP).

“At some level, of course, it is our business… We look at its debt burden… have concerns about the growth of its economy. We see Pakistan going to the IMF and other lenders. So, of course, it’s right that the US asks questions about the other forms of debts that Pakistan holds, including from China,” he said. “Gap in transparency is also a cause of concern for us.”

Pakistan’s envoy in Washington, Masood Khan, however, explained how the end of the war in Afghanistan had created an opportunity for Pakistan and the United States to start afresh.

“Pakistan-US relations have been de-hyphenated from India and Afghanistan,” said Ambassador Khan in his keynote address at the two-day conference, organised by the Center for Security, Strategy and Policy Research (CSSPR), University of Lahore, the School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University, and Engro Corporation here this week.

“The US policy in the past was based on regional equilibrium,” the ambassador said, adding that the US relationship with India stood on its own. “We are engaged right now to recalibrate, reenergise and rejuvenate a broad-based relationship in the new technological age,” he said.

Others were not as confident. Former Chief of Naval Staff Tahir Afzal suggested correcting past mistakes to build a better relationship. “The relationship needs another event. When there is an event, the relations will be good. When the event is over, we will move from being the cornerstone of US policy to being the most sanctioned country,” he said.

Comment by Riaz Haq on November 4, 2022 at 7:06pm

#China to #US: Ties with #Pakistan ‘none of your business’. China Expert Yun Sun: “China has plenty of confidence that its relationship with Pakistan is going to continue regardless of the modality of US-Pakistan relations.” #CPEC #India #XiJingping https://www.dawn.com/news/1718723


Ms Chaudhary, a non-resident Senior Fellow at Atlantic Council, noted that Pakistan was not even mentioned in the new US national security strategy, released last month, although “there’s a lot of conversation” about the region, as well as Afghanistan and India.

“The strategy is talking around Pakistan, but if you look at the themes of strategy …there’s a lot of fruitful conversation that we can have about how US and Pakistan can collaborate with each other.”

Mr Markey noted that some equate strategic stability in Pakistan with the safety of its nuclear assets. Noting that this was “a very narrow context,” he said, Pakistan was also strategically important to the US because “it’s an enormous country”.

The nuclear issue, however, was “central to the US interests” as it would like to “ensure that these types of weapons are never used”.

The nuclear issue was also “central to Pakistan’s sense of its own security. It is at the core of Pakistan’s security in the region. So, that continues to be a strategic concern,” he said.

Mr Markey noted that the US has a strategic partnership with India, while Pakistan has a strategic partnership with China and this arrangement too has become strategically important as US-China and Pakistan-India relations are strained. The US and Pakistan, he said, “need a firm and established equilibrium… to move forward”.

Comment by Riaz Haq on November 5, 2022 at 7:24am

Another $13bn incoming from China, S. Arabia

https://www.dawn.com/news/1719075


ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Friday said to have secured about $13 billion in additional financial support from two traditional friends — about $9bn from China and over $4bn from Saudi Arabia — on top of assurances for about $20bn investments.

Finance Minister Ishaq Dar told journalists that during Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s recent visit to Beijing, the Chinese leadership promised to roll over $4bn in sovereign loans, refinance $3.3bn commercial bank loans and increase currency swap by about $1.45bn — from 30bn yuan to 40bn yuan. The total worked out at $8.75bn.

“They promised the security of financial support,” Mr Dar said and quoted Chinese President Xi Jinping as telling Mr Sharif to “don’t worry, we will not let you down”.

Mr Dar said the Pakistani delegation had four major engagements, including meeting with the Chinese president and the prime minister, and the chairman of the National People’s Congress, the country’s legislature.


These would be rolled over whenever they reach maturity, the minister said, adding that about $200 million worth of commercial loans had already flowed in a few days back.

Responding to a question, Mr Dar said the Chinese side had also agreed to fast-track the processing for a $9.8bn high-speed rail project (Main Line-1) from Karachi to Peshawar and both sides would immediately trigger their respective teams.

Another official said the two sides were hoping to arrange bidding for the project by December and negotiations for financing terms and conditions could follow once a bidder is selected.

Mr Dar said the Karachi Circular Railway (KCR) and Hyderabad-Karachi motorway projects were also taken up and the KCR would soon be in the implementation phase. The minister said he had also suggested a part of outstanding dues of Chinese power producers to be converted into overall debt stock and had already cleared about Rs160bn in recent months.

Responding to a question, he said Saudi Arabia had also “given a positive response” to Pakistan’s request for increasing its financing by another $3bn to $6bn and doubling its deferred oil facility of $1.2bn.

The two heads worked out at $4.2bn and the finance minister said there was no delay except a month or so of processing time.

Mr Dar said Saudi Arabia had also agreed to revive the $10-12bn petrochemical refining project at Gwadar, for which he had been assigned by the prime minister to coordinate with respective ministries for finalisation.

On top of that, the minister said Pakistan was engaging Saudi Arabia in privatisation transactions like in LNG power projects and shares in other entities to ensure non-debt creating foreign inflows.

Moreover, the minister said another $1.4bn worth of inflows were almost mature, including $500m from the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and two World Bank loans of $900m under the national harmonisation of general sales tax.

He said he had a positive meeting with the Sindh chief minister to harmonise GST and the financing envelope could be settled amicably. He noted that harmonising GST was important for World Bank inflows to arrive in the country.

On the exchange rate, the minister insisted that the rupee’s real effective exchange rate (REER) was around Rs194 per dollar, even lower than Rs200. He expected the stakeholders to also keep in mind the national interest instead of “just outrageous profitmaking”.

Pakistan had been engaging with China and Saudi Arabia for financial support, including rolling over maturing loans as part of arrangements for about $35bn putouts against debt and liabilities during the current fiscal year. The minister parried a question relating to the extension in debt repayments of Chinese independent power producers (IPPs).

Comment by Riaz Haq on November 6, 2022 at 11:20am

Optimising CPEC
Muhammad Amir Rana Published November 6, 2022


https://www.dawn.com/news/1719296


PAKISTAN is finally getting back on the right diplomatic track. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s successful visits to Riyadh and Beijing have created an air of optimism regarding economic revival in the country. Army chief Gen Qamar Bajwa’s attempts to normalise the country’s relationship with the West using channels in London and Washington are also helping to reduce the external pressure which had been looming over the country for the last several months. That Pakistan is no longer on the Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF) ‘grey list’ is also a good omen.

During the prime minister’s visit to Beijing, China had assured full support for Pakistan’s efforts to stabilise its economy and financial situation. The Pakistani prime minister was the first foreign leader to travel to China since President Xi Jinping won his third term as supreme leader. That has political and strategic significance as well, which is also needed to boost Pakistan’s economic confidence. Earlier, during the prime minister’s visit to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia reportedly pledged an investment package worth $10 billion for Pakistan. Islamabad is hopeful that the kingdom will resuscitate the mega oil refinery project, which was shelved due to some political complications that had arisen between the two states during the rule of the PTI government.

Gen Bajwa has been successful, for the most part, in repairing the country’s trust deficit with the West, mainly the US, which is essential for generating regional geopolitical balance for Pakistan. These are positive developments which the coalition government and the establishment could use to gain domestic support, as the ongoing political crisis has put them both in a defensive position.

Pakistan had lost its balance in its foreign relations over the last few years. The Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, and the cipher controversy propagated by former prime minister Imran Khan were the two key events that aggravated that imbalance and caused bitterness in Pakistan’s relationship with the US and the West.


Two other factors caused diplomatic stress for Pakistan. First, Pakistan’s decision to join the short-lived alternative Muslim leadership initiative led by Turkey, Iran, and Malaysia annoyed its friends in the Gulf. Secondly, the Chinese did not like the attempts by the outgoing PTI government to renegotiate the costs of CPEC projects and establish the CPEC Authority. Mr Khan presumed that most of the CPEC projects were scarcely negotiated or done so in a skewed manner. The establishment also believed he could convince China to renegotiate CPEC projects as Malaysia had done the same. However, our power elites ignored the fact that sovereign guarantees were involved in the projects. This reorientation discourse slowed down the CPEC projects.


Mr Khan was not solely responsible for making errors of judgement. It was a collective mistake on the part of the power elites who were overconfident that they could manoeuvre a relationship with their allies in the East and West, despite the country’s weak economy and the crippling impact of the Covid-19 impact on the global economy. The establishment wanted complete control, and Mr Khan joined the venture to remove the tag of PML-N from the CPEC projects.

Comment by Riaz Haq on November 17, 2022 at 11:01am

Increasing U.S. Aid to Pakistan Is a Strategic and Moral Imperative
By increasing aid to Pakistan, the United States will propel forward its own strategic interests and fulfill humanitarian obligations while simultaneously helping this South Asian nation avert crisis.

Blog Post by Andrew Gordan, Guest Contributor


https://www.cfr.org/blog/increasing-us-aid-pakistan-strategic-and-m...

Pakistan faces a grave and growing crisis. In late summer, historic floods ravaged the South Asian nation, submerging a third of the country under water and displacing millions. Meanwhile, Pakistan’s economy has reached a breaking point and political unrest threatens to throw the nation into further disarray. At the climax of the floods, international media covered the disaster extensively and donor countries—including the United States—rushed in with pledges of assistance. As of November 2022, the United States has delivered $97 million in aid to Pakistan. However, this figure barely registers on the scale of Pakistan’s recovery requirements, estimated at $40 billion. Increasing assistance will not only avert the deepening crisis in Pakistan and fulfill U.S. humanitarian obligations, but will also serve U.S. strategic interests.

The scale of Pakistan’s predicament cannot be understated. Over 1,500 people died and 12,000 were injured in the summer floods. Infrastructure across Pakistan was crippled: thousands of kilometers of road and hundreds of bridges were destroyed, as well as almost two million homes.

Adding pressure in crisis, Pakistan is suffering from high inflation—roughly 26 percent year-on-year in October 2022—and low foreign exchange reserves. As prices for liquified natural gas skyrocket with the war in Ukraine, Pakistan is struggling to secure essential imports. The resumption of International Monetary Fund (IMF) funding in August has done little to plug the gaps. While bilateral creditors have offered debt relief, this is largely confined to allowing the postponement of payments in the short-term and the forgiveness of small amounts of debt.

Political tensions have also added to the challenges in Pakistan, hampering government capacity. After his ouster by a vote of no-confidence in April, former Prime Minister Imran Khan has consolidated his political popularity, challenged the sitting government to hold early elections, and survived an assassination attempt on November 3.

Comment by Riaz Haq on November 17, 2022 at 11:02am

Blog Post by Andrew Gordan, Guest Contributor


https://www.cfr.org/blog/increasing-us-aid-pakistan-strategic-and-m...


The severity of these converging obstacles underscores the need for adequate U.S. aid to Pakistan. Unfortunately, these days Pakistan has few friends in Washington. Many U.S. observers have accused Pakistan of enabling the Afghan Taliban throughout the U.S. war in Afghanistan. In addition, advocates of the budding U.S.-India relationship worry that engagement with Pakistan might disrupt ties with the Modi administration. Concerns about corruption have also tarnished attempts to build support for more aid.

Despite these concerns, the United States should act to alleviate the crisis in Pakistan. On one hand, if the United States wants to honor its commitments to humanitarianism, aid to Pakistan should be a top moral priority. The Biden administration has pledged to “rally the world to meet our common challenges.” The destructive effects of climate change that Pakistan is suffering today is a common challenge. Furthermore, norms of environmental justice compel countries who built their riches on the degradation of the environment, like the United States, to help Pakistan, one of the world’s most climate-vulnerable nations and a negligible contributor to historical global emissions.

On the other hand, even American pragmatists should heed Pakistan’s need for aid. Catastrophe in Pakistan is not in the U.S. national interest. A destabilized Pakistan would spell disaster for regional security: a depleted Pakistani government would inevitably give regional militant groups like the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan more breathing room. In addition, a Pakistan in crisis would likely be less capable of performing its role at the center of the new U.S. “over-the-horizon” counter-terrorism strategy. Operations like the recent U.S. killing of Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri require Pakistani support, coordination, and airspace. Finally, as the United States seeks to counterbalance Chinese influence in South Asia, increased aid could capitalize on growing reservations in Pakistan about the tight-knit economic relationship with China.

So how should the United States assist Pakistan? For starters, the overall level of assistance should increase dramatically, as the $97 million pledged thus far will have a minimal impact on Pakistan’s predicament. The United States can help with the flood recovery in other ways: technical teams to support the construction of climate-resilient infrastructure and health supplies to address growing outbreaks of waterborne diseases, for example. The United States can also do more to address Pakistan’s financial health. The recent rollover of the suspension of payments on $132 million in debt was a good start, but the United States must continue to rally international debtors to suspend and restructure Pakistani debt, replenish foreign exchange reserves, and support crucial imports. The future of the South Asian nation, and U.S. regional interests, depend on it.

Comment by Riaz Haq on November 18, 2022 at 9:49am

RIAC :: Pakistan’s Role in Russia’s Greater Eurasian Partnershi

https://russiancouncil.ru/en/analytics-and-comments/analytics/pakis...

Connectivity is one of the key trends of the 21st century, which Russia is fully embracing with its Greater Eurasian Partnership (GEP) in order to counteract the chaotic processes unleashed throughout the course of the ongoing systemic transition from unipolarity to multipolarity. This outlook sets forth the grand strategic task of integrating with some of the former countries of the erstwhile Soviet Union through the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) and then further afield with the other regions of Eurasia in order to benefit from the growing cross-supercontinental trade between Europe and Asia. President Putin declared during the second Belt & Road Initiative (BRI) Forum in April 2019 that this Chinese-led project “rimes with Russia’s idea to establish a Greater Eurasian Partnership” and that “The five EAEU member states have unanimously supported the idea of pairing the EAEU development and the Chinese Silk Road Economic Belt project”. It naturally follows that the pairing of the EAEU with BRI would involve Russia improving its connectivity with the latter’s flagship project of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) in South Asia, thereby endowing Pakistan with an important role in the GEP. The rapidly improving relations between Moscow and Islamabad, as well as the peacemaking efforts undertaken by those two states and other stakeholders in Afghanistan across 2019, raise the prospect of a future trade corridor traversing through the countries between them and thus creating a new axis of Eurasian integration that would complete the first envisaged step of bringing the EAEU and BRI closer together. In pursuit of this multilaterally beneficial outcome, it’s important to explain the policymaking and academic bases behind it so as to prove the viability of this proposal.

Comment by Riaz Haq on November 27, 2022 at 7:23am

India Absent, 19 Countries Attend China Forum's Indian Ocean Region Meet
India was reportedly not invited, according to informed sources.

https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/china-holds-its-first-meeting-with-...


Beijing: China held a meeting this week with 19 countries from the Indian Ocean region in which India was conspicuously absent.
The China International Development Cooperation Agency (CIDCA), an organisation connected with the Chinese Foreign Ministry held a meeting of the China-Indian Ocean Region Forum on Development Cooperation on November 21, in which 19 countries took part, according to a press release issued by the organisation.

The meeting was held in a hybrid manner under the theme of "Shared Development: Theory and Practice from the Perspective of the Blue Economy" in Kunming, Yunnan Province, it said.

Representatives of 19 countries, including Indonesia, Pakistan, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Maldives, Nepal, Afghanistan, Iran, Oman, South Africa, Kenya, Mozambique, Tanzania, Seychelles, Madagascar, Mauritius, Djibouti, Australia and representatives of 3 international organisations were present, it said.

India was reportedly not invited, according to informed sources.

Last year, China held a meeting with some South Asian countries on COVID-19 vaccine cooperation without the participation of India.

CIDCA is headed by Luo Zhaohui, the former Vice Foreign Minister and Ambassador to India.

According to the official website of the organisation, he is the Secretary of the CPC (the ruling Communist Party of China) Leadership Group of CIDCA.

CIDCA's official website said the aims of the organisation is to formulate strategic guidelines, plans and policies for foreign aid, coordinate and offer advice on major foreign aid issues, advance the country's reforms in matters involving foreign aid, and identify major programmes, supervise and evaluate their implementation.

During his tour of Sri Lanka in January this year, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi proposed to establish a “forum on the development of Indian Ocean Island Countries.” When asked whether the CIDCA meeting is the same that is proposed by Wang, the Chinese Foreign Ministry here has clarified to the media that the November 21 meeting was not part of it.

At the November 21 meeting, China has proposed to establish a marine disaster prevention and mitigation cooperation mechanism between China and countries in the Indian Ocean region, the CIDCA press release said.

China is ready to provide necessary financial, material, and technical support to countries in need, it said.

China is vying for influence in the strategic Indian Ocean region with substantial investments in ports and infrastructure investments in several countries, including Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

While China has established a full-fledged naval base in Djibouti, its first outside the country, Beijing has acquired the Hambantota port in Sri Lanka on a 99-year lease besides building the port at Pakistan's Gwadar in the Arabian Sea opposite India's western coast besides infrastructure investments in the Maldives.

The Chinese forum apparently is aimed at countering India's strong influence in the Indian Ocean region where India-backed organisations like the Indian Ocean Rim Association, (IORA), which has a membership of 23 countries have taken strong roots.

China is a dialogue partner in the IORA formed in 1997.

IORA became an observer to the UN General Assembly and the African Union in 2015.

Besides the IORA, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has proposed “Security and Growth for All in the Region” (SAGAR) in 2015 for active cooperation among the littoral countries of the Indian Ocean region.

The Indian Navy-backed ‘Indian Ocean Naval Symposium' (IONS) seeks to increase maritime cooperation among navies of the region.

Since the June 2020 Galwan Valley clash between Chinese and Indian armies, bilateral ties have been severely hit.

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