If Narendra Modi is strident, Xi is the strongest Chinese leader in decades India detonated its nuclear device in Pokhran in 1998. Pakistan matched its response at the Chagai Hills and both states became formally nuclear armed. Under a perverse but effective logic of mutually assured destruction (MAD), Pakistan’s security was considered assured. Also, a full-scale war between the two adversaries has been successfully held at bay since 1984, the time Pakistan’s nuclear weapons’ programme was made known. The Soviets invaded Afghanistan in 1979 and Afghan resistance to foreign occupation was, fatefully, converted into global jihad as a clandestine arrangement between the US, Pakistan and meddling Middle Eastern kingdoms. Money, arms and glory seeking volunteers started to pour in. Eventually the Afghans won and the Soviets retreated. So did the US in indecent haste. Coincidently, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan occurred a few years after the dismemberment of Pakistan. The festering notion in Pakistan to fall back on Islamic precepts of active resistance against aggression found a physical form in the Afghan jihad, and its success confirmed their belief in its effectiveness. It is reasonable to assume that radicalisation and militancy in Pakistan are the cumulative results of India’s momentous invasion of Pakistan in 1971, its needlessly Pakistan-centric military and nuclear build up and the US’ exploitation of the Afghan war riding over our leadership of the time’s quest for legitimacy and quixotic ambition. To obviate a future nuclear war in South Asia, a vigorous policy of positive persuasion and constructive engagement from a position of reasonable strength is still possible. Despite the storm clouds over the horizon, one sees a window of opportunity for just such a sensible strategy. An example is that of post WW II Japan, which is relevant particularly with reference to its nuclear weapons’ policy. Notwithstanding full technological and industrial potential,...

China plans to spend $46 billion in Pakistan on a range of projects that are shown below in different images.   Laborers load goods into a truck in Pakistan. China plans to spend $46 billion in Pakistan on an array of projects, including a 1,700-mile trade route to the Arabian Sea   Chinese engineers work on a bridge in the Karakorum mountain range in Pakistan. Some of the tunnels are inscribed with the phrase “Pak-China Friendship Tunnel.”   The Karakorum Highway, one of the world’s most dangerous thoroughfares, passes through a tunnel in the Karakorum mountain range. Chinese engineers are adding bridges, guardrails and concrete overhangs to funnel landslides and avalanches away from travel lanes.   Chinese engineers work on the Karakorum Highway near Attabad Lake. The lake was created in 2010 when a landslide damned the Hunza River, flooding the Karakorum Highway and surrounding villages.   A view of the Attabad Lake in the Karakorum mountain range. China has just built four large tunnels on the south end of the 13-mile lake to reopen the highway.   Construction work is seen in the Karakorum mountain range. Analysts say the Chinese investment represents a major opportunity to jump-start Pakistan’s economy, which is thought to be primed for growth.   Men travel on a boat with a van loaded with chickens while crossing the Attabad Lake. Pakistanis are eager to ship more medicinal herbs, textiles, gemstones and yak meat to China.   Shair Karim, 50, works in his field on the Karakorum Highway. China is promising Pakistan 18 new energy projects to mitigate the country’s pressing electricity shortage.   A herd of yak moves along the Karakorum Highway.   Shopkeeper Arman Amin, 40, works at his shop along the Karakorum Highway.   A flock of sheep moves along the Karakorum Highway.   The Chinese flag flies on the check post at the Khunjerab Pass on the border between Pakistan and China. Published on...

BEIJING (APP) – China’s anti-corruption watchdog said it would expand its inspections to major financial institutions including the central bank and regulatory authorities, which are already under pressure after a spectacular stock market meltdown. After a series of probes into large state-owned enterprises — in particular oil firms — the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, the Communist Party monitor, now plans to target the financial sector. The new round of inspections will cover the central People’s Bank of China, the China Banking Regulatory Commission, China Insurance Regulatory Commission and the watchdog China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC), according to a long list posted online Friday night. China Investment Corp (CIC), the world’s largest sovereign fund, commercial banks ICBC and the Bank of China and the country’s major insurance companies will also come under scrutiny. The anti-corruption watchdog will also examine stock exchange operators in Shanghai and Shenzhen, and the parent company of major brokerage Citic Securities. After soaring 150 percent in one year, the two bourses went into a tailspin in June that extended into August, tumbling nearly 40 percent despite massive intervention by the authorities at a cost of hundreds of billions of dollars. The frantic and clumsy state intervention was criticised, with a number of experts questioning the apparent contradiction with Beijing’s intention to give a greater role to the market and private sector. And the failure of government efforts to stabilise the stock markets reinforced growing doubts about the effectiveness of its economic policy while Chinese growth is experiencing a severe slowdown. The authorities also reacted to the stock market crash by launching high-profile police investigations into supposedly illegal transactions to reassure public opinion. Authorities in August detained a CSRC official and four senior executives from Citic Securities for “stock market...

Tim Craig, Simon Denyer - Up here on what is often referred to as the world’s highest paved border crossing, there still are not many signs that billions of dollars in investment - and goodwill - could soon flow across these peaks in the Karakorum Mountains. At an elevation of more than 15,000 feet, yaks far outnumber cargo trucks crossing over Pakistan’s border with China. And just one border agent stands guard on the Pakistan side, when he hasn’t ducked into a steel shelter to avoid wind-whipped snow. A few miles down the mountain into Pakistan, where the air is a bit thicker and the summer sun melts the snow, Mohammad Noor fulfils a generations-old family tradition: escorting more than 1,000 goats and sheep to summer pasture. This year, however, he keeps his footing by walking on a new section of Karakorum Highway, recently built by China. And with each step, Noor says, he feels as though he’s heading into the future. “The young people now are more educated and don’t want to look after sheep and goats,” said Noor, 44. “The future is Pakistan and China.” Noor was standing on China’s new gateway to the far-distant Arabian Sea, the spine of an ambitious project by Beijing in a country that has a history of frustrating the well-intentioned plans of others. Americans, disillusioned by decades of unfruitful involvement in Pakistan, are sceptical that China will have any more success here. But Chinese President Xi Jinping is intent on extending China’s influence in Asia, confident that his country can avoid the old pitfalls and achieve a new economic and political predominance in the region. Here, trucks carrying Chinese goods could soon begin a 1,700-mile descent through Pakistan, to a saltwater port where the freight will be put on ships bound for markets in Africa, the Middle East and Europe. The journey will embody China’s efforts to re-create the old Silk Route that for centuries linked Asia to the Middle East, and brought wealth to both. And along the way, China...

ISLAMABAD (Web Desk) – China has agreed to increase financing in Thar Coal project to raise the generation capacity from 660 megawatt to 1320 megawatt, reported Radio Pakistan. This decision was taken at a meeting held on video Conference between Secretary Ministry of Water and Power Mohammad Younus Dagha and Vice Administrator National Energy Administration China Zhang Yuqing. The meeting also took similar decision for a Coal fired Power Plant at Hub in Balochistan. Both sides also recognized the importance of a heavy transmission line from Matiari to Lahore. Published October 20, 2015 on http://en.dailypakistan.com.pk/