BEIJING, Nov 25 (APP): China on Monday rejected reservations of the US over the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project and said it would work together with Pakistan to develop the CPEC and advance the all-weather strategic cooperative partnership to bring more benefits to Pakistani people and deliver more benefits to the region and beyond.
“No matter what the US says or does or how it tries to spoil the CPEC development, we will work together with Pakistan to develop CPEC and advance our all-weather strategic cooperative partnership to bring more benefits to Pakistani people and deliver more benefits to the region and beyond,” Chinese Foreign Ministry’s Spokesperson Geng Shuang said while responding to the US State Department’s official Alice Wells’s allegations against the CPEC during his regular briefing held here.
The top US official for South Asia last week had criticized the CPEC, a flagship project of Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and accused it would only benefit China and increase the debt burden on Pakistan.
The spokesperson said that the Chinese Ambassador to Pakistan had already responded to that accusation. And Pakistani officials including, the ministers for foreign affairs and planning and development, speaker of the National Assembly as well as chairman of the Senate committee on foreign affairs refuted what the US official had said.
He observed that Ms. Wells’s remarks were nothing to add anything and added, “She just copied what certain people in the US said to smear the CPEC and BRI.”
Geng Shuang said that both China and Pakistan had refuted such comments and clarified the actual situation many times. But certain individuals in the US repeated their accusations.
“Now, since the US is so bent upon repeating their narrative, I will also try to repeat what we usually say,” he added.
The spokesperson remarked that China while building CPEC always followed the principle of wide consultations, joint contributions and shared benefits putting Pakistani people interest first. Over the five years, important and positive progress had been made in CPEC.
At least 22 projects had achieved early harvest significantly improving the local transportation infrastructure and the power supply as well as creating 10,000 job opportunities increasing Pakistan’s annual economic growth by 1 to 2 percentage points contributing to its national and social development as well as improving the people well being, he said and added, “I believe facts have given the best answer to whether the CPEC is good or not.”
He said, the US ignored the facts and continues to use the so-called debt issue to disrupt CPEC development and drive a wedge between China and Pakistan. “This is so malicious and ill-intentioned.”
Clarifying further, he said, in fact, the debts held by Pakistan, half of them came from multilateral financial institutions.
In CPEC projects, over 80 percent were directly formed by China and built with Chinese free aid and less than 20 percent used Chinese loans.
Referring to data from Pakistan, he said, the total debt for CPEC was US$ 4.9 billion which was less than one-tenth of total Pakistani debts.
“I am afraid, the problem is with certain people in the US with evil intentions,” he added.
He said, “If the US wants to help Pakistan in its national development, we hope the US will honour its commitments with tangible and concrete funding as well as aids instead of paying lip services alone.”
The spokesperson opined that the US did not allow others to do what it failed to do, adding, “I believe such mentality and practice are helpful.”.
