KARACHI:Consul General (CG) of China in Karachi Li Bijian on Monday said Pakistan and China had strong diplomatic relations and some forces were trying to sabotage these relations besides China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) .
He while addressing Photo Exhibition Celebrating the 70th Anniversary of the Establishment of Diplomatic Relations between China and Pakistan, and the eighth anniversary of the establishment of the Confucius Institute for the Chinese Language here at the University of Karachi.
The Confucius Institute for Chinese Language at the University of Karachi (CIUK) organized the event to celebrate the historic event.
“The world is experiencing changes that have not happened in a whole century. Now the world is moving towards international peace instead of conflict. We are at a critical juncture in human history,” he said.
However, some forces were working against Pak-China friendship,
wanted to sabotage China–Pakistan Economic Corridor, he added.
He said Pakistan and China believed that they would manage to foil such attempts with the help of each other and would take the Pak-China friendship to a new height by defeating all these forces.
On this occasion, he along with the KU Vice Chancellor Professor Dr Khalid Mahmood Iraqi and Pakistani and Chinese directors of CIUK officially launch the split two + two year BS Chinese degree program.
Li Bijian mentioned that initially, 20 students would take admission in this program, and later we would increase the number of seats for the students in the program.
He also distributed the scholarships among the students of the CIUK.
He said that despite the differences in the political and social systems of the two countries, we had an excellent relationship.
Earlier, the KU VC Professor Dr Khalid Iraqi said that Pakistan had an ideal relationship with China. The Chinese nation had made unforgettable progress in the field of economic, he said, adding Pakistan should learn lessons from China for economic development and growth.
He observed that our government could adopt Chinese economic policies as role models.
He said that in Pakistan, we believed that this relations was based on geo-economics and geo-politics.
Professor Dr Khalid Iraqi mentioned that relationships were always based on mutual needs.
He added that establishing peace in the world was the need of the hour, for which coordination in all countries was very important.
Meanwhile, the CEO of Bank of China in Karachi Wang Jie said that 70 years ago, the founding leaders of China and Pakistan decided to join hands and advance together. Over the years, China-Pakistan friendship had flourished like a tree growing tall and strong, he added.
He informed the audience that in Pakistan, people poetically described our relationship as “higher than a mountain, deeper than oceans and sweeter than honey” while in China, Pakistan, as a sincere and reliable friend, is often called “Iron Brother”.
He expressed that China and Pakistan had conducted mutually beneficial and fruitful cooperation in various fields.
To deliver more benefits to the people, the two countries currently were working closely together to advance the construction of CPEC, he added.
Wang Jie added that the Bank of China had conducted various kinds of cooperation with the Confucius Institute in Pakistan, including business training, offering academic suggestions, and internship opportunities.
“Our bank, as well as all the Chinese enterprises, is willing to continuously support the development of the Confucius Institute in Pakistan,” he added.
Chinese Director Professor Zhang Xiaoping said that the Pak-China friendship since 1951 was a great example of state-to-state friendly relations.
He shared that our goal is to develop CIUK into the training center of local teachers for Pakistan. To achieve this goal, we hired the largest number of local Chinese teachers, and last August we conducted the first in-service training for all Pakistan local teachers to improve their teaching ability, he added. In September, we set up Internship Center at the Bank of China in Karachi to provide training for our students, he added.
He said that we have now started the first split 2+2 BS Chinese program in Pakistan. This 2+2 BS Chinese program is hosted by the University of Karachi, Sichuan Normal University in China, and the Center for Language Education and Cooperation of the Chinese Education Ministry.
The objective of the program was to train quality language talents, especially Chinese Teachers for Pakistan, he added.
He mentioned that in this program, the students would study for two years at the University of Karachi and two years at Sichuan Normal University respectively.
They will get a scholarship during their study in China and obtain a joint BS degree from both universities.
The Pakistani Director CIUK Professor Dr Nasiruddin Khan said that this institute started its work in 2017 with small faculty and limited resources. But now after eight years, we were recognized as one of the major and one of the most vibrant Confucius Institute not only in the region but worldwide, he added.
He further said that we had the best teaching methodology and excellent infrastructure.
Many renowned public and private universities and commercial organizations are affiliated with CIUK for teaching the Chinese language and Chinese culture.
Professor Dr Nasir Khan shared that during the last eight years, the institute regularly celebrated many important events like the independence days of Pakistan and China, the Chinese spring festival, The Moon festival, Eid Festivals, and many others.
“This year we have also achieved a big milestone by offering (2+2) split BS Chinese degree program from the academic year 2022, with the collaboration of our partner SNU, China. In the year 2022, we are also going to announce our exclusive two years, Applied Associate Degree program in Business Chinese,” he added.
He informed the audience that during Covid-19, China’s supports for the fighting against pandemics was also unforgettable.
The vaccine and the equipment provided by China to contain the lethal disease played a crucial role in saving precious human lives in Pakistan, he added. The University of Karachi also received 7,000 face masks from its partner SNU at a very crucial timing when we needed them the most.