• Source:JND
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A day after Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Chief of Army Staff General Asim Munir met US President Donald Trump at the White House, Defence Minister Khawaja Asif has dismissed speculation that China may be uneasy about Islamabad’s growing engagements with Washington.

In a wide-ranging interview with British-American journalist Mehdi Hasan, Asif underlined that the Pakistan-China partnership is “time-tested” and remains far more reliable than ties with the United States.

‘China is not worried about our flirtations’: Asif

Responding to a pointed question from Hasan on whether Pakistan’s recent cooperation with Washington including talks on minerals and digital trade could unsettle Beijing, Asif was categorical, “We are not worried about that, because it’s a time-tested relationship with China since the late 50s… I’ll just conclude it by saying that China is not worried about our flirtations or whatever you call it,” Asif said.

Hasan also cited Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) data, which shows that nearly 80 per cent of Pakistan’s defence imports in the last four years came from China.

When pressed further on whether Islamabad sees its long-term strategic future aligned with the United States or China, Asif was unequivocal. “In the past, even today, and in the future also, China has been a very reliable ally — a reliable provider of arms of all kinds to us. Our Air Force, submarines, and planes… almost a major portion of our arms are from China,” he explained.

The Defence Minister added that cooperation with Beijing has become “much more robust than before,” stressing that China’s proximity and dependability outweigh any transactional engagement with the US. “They are reliable and they are our neighbours. We share borders and we share the geography,” he said, drawing a clear distinction between the two partnerships.

Pakistan-US ties ‘transactional’

Asif described Islamabad’s dealings with Washington as historically “transactional”. “We have had a transactional or a flirtatious relationship with the United States for a very long time,” he remarked, while underscoring that despite meetings at the highest level, Pakistan considers China its closest and most trusted partner.

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His comments came just a day after Trump hosted Shehbaz Sharif and Asim Munir at the Oval Office in Washington, where they were joined by US Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

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In a separate development, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif used his address at the United Nations General Assembly to hail Trump as a “man of peace.” He even went as far as to nominate the US President for the Nobel Peace Prize, claiming Trump played a role in brokering a ceasefire with India. However, New Delhi has consistently maintained that the ceasefire was concluded directly between the Directors General of Military Operations (DGMOs) of the two countries, without the involvement of any third party.