Across Mountains and Seas, Building a Shared Future
Tang Meng sheng
Professor of Peking University, China. Director of the Center for Pakistan Studies, Peking University Seventy-five years of sharing weal and woe, seventy-five years of friendship as strong as steel.
In 2026, as China and Pakistan mark the 75th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations, the peoples of both countries are immersed in the joy of friendship and cooperation. Since the two countries formally established diplomatic ties on May 21, 1951, this friendship, spanning the Himalayas and crossing the Arabian Sea, has remained rock-solid and ever-renewed amid changes in the international landscape. Together, we have traversed an extraordinary journey of three-quarters of a century, witnessing the construction of the Karakoram Highway and the transformation of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor from vision to reality; we have seen prompt action in disaster relief operations time and again, and firm mutual support in international affairs. Described as a relationship “higher than the mountains, deeper than the oceans, sweeter than honey, and stronger than steel”, this bilateral bond has gone far beyond ordinary state-to-state relations and stands as a model of enduring friendship, stable cooperation and mutual benefit between countries with different civilizations and social systems.
In agriculture, the two countries share technologies and experience to jointly safeguard food security. China’s hybrid rice technology, water-saving irrigation facilities and modern agricultural management models have taken root in Pakistan’s test fields, helping local farmers increase crop yields, disaster resilience and incomes. When Pakistan was threatened by natural disasters such as locust plagues, the Chinese expert teams, carrying technology and supplies, rushed to aid immediately and fought side by side with Pakistani counterparts in the fields. Such “teaching one to fish” approach to cooperation not only ensures food security but also ignites hope for rural development. In medical and health care, cooperation is equally fruitful. From building hospitals and donating medical equipment to sending long-term medical teams and carrying out short-term free clinics such as the “Brightness Journey”, Chinese medical workers have traveled thousands of miles to bring health and light to the Pakistani people. Especially during the difficult fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, China and Pakistan carried out the largest medical assistance and cooperation since the founding of the People’s Republic of China, providing key support for Pakistan to build an immune barrier，which is the best illustration of “a friend in need is a friend indeed”.
Heart-to-Heart People-to-People Exchanges: Consolidating Public Support for Everlasting Friendship
Educational and technological cooperation is fertile ground for nurturing the future of China-Pakistan relations and key to consolidating public support for everlasting friendship. In recent years, exchanges and cooperation in these two fields have become increasingly institutionalized and systematic, benefiting tens of thousands of students and researchers, and injecting a steady stream of innovative vitality and talent support into bilateral relations.
Student exchanges are the most dynamic part of this cooperation. By 2025, the number of Pakistani students studying in China reached 28,023. As China’s All-Weather Strategic Cooperative Partnership, Pakistan has seen the number of students in China surge from more than 10,000 in 2014 to 28,000 in 2025, an increase of 180%. This has been driven by government-led education cooperation programs.
After the implementation of the Education Action Plan for the Belt and Road Initiative in 2016, China and Pakistan launched an Education Cooperation Action Plan, under which China provides 2,000 government scholarships to Pakistan annually, accounting for 21.4% of total Pakistani students in China. Pakistan has become an important source country of international students for China. Every year, a large number of outstanding Pakistani youth, driven by a thirst for knowledge and friendship toward China, pursue further studies in universities across China. Their fields of study cover a wide range of areas, including engineering, information technology, medicine, economics, and language and culture. These young people are not only recipients of knowledge, but also firsthand experiencers and future disseminators of China-Pakistan friendship. When they return home after graduation, they become natural bridges connecting the two societies and promoting mutual understanding. Meanwhile, the two countries actively encourage Chinese students to study in Pakistan to gain an in-depth understanding of the history, culture and contemporary development of this friendly neighbor. This two-way youth exchange is reserving the most valuable human resources for the long-term development of bilateral relations.
Pakistan-China cooperation is moving beyond traditional exchanges and is becoming more closely aligned with the future needs. CPEC 2.0 reflects a deliberate shift of this emphasis from primarily infrastructure-led investment to sectors that directly support economic resilience, productivity and human capital development.
Agriculture has emerged as one of the most promising areas of Pakistan-China cooperation in the new phase of bilateral engagement. In recent years, both sides have placed greater emphasis on modern farming techniques, seed development, water-saving irrigation, mechanization, livestock improvement, agri-processing and other forms of technology-driven productivity enhancement. This focus has also been reinforced through targeted capacity-building initiatives. Under the Prime Minister of Pakistan’s initiative to train 1,000 young agricultural professionals in China, the first batch of 300 participants arrived in Xi’an in April 2025 for hands-on training in agro-technology, climate-resilient agriculture and modern agricultural practices. By January 2026, a first cohort of 100 agricultural professionals had completed training at Southwest University of Science and Technology, showing that the programme had moved from announcement to implementation.
Technical and vocational education and training (TVET) is also assuming greater importance in this broader framework of cooperation. The inaugural Pakistan-China TVET Forum in December 2024 was a major initiative for bilateral cooperation in education and human resource development The 2nd Pakistan-China TVET Forum held in Beijing in December 2025 further placed dedicated emphasis on skills and talent cultivation for Pakistan’s agriculture sector.
Pakistan-China educational and academic cooperation under the Pakistan Study, Pakistan Research and Urdu Language Departments at various Chinese Universities has assumed added significance under the reoriented framework of CPEC 2.0. The recent inauguration of Pakistan Study Centres at Shenzhen and Shandong Universities are prime examples of this trend.Sige by side, mutual understanding continues to flourish through traditional academic exchanges. Confucius Institutes and Classrooms in many parts of Pakistan are important platforms for language and cultural exchanges and people-to-people bonds. They are not only windows for Pakistani people to learn Chinese and understand Chinese culture, but also bridges for friendly people-to-people exchanges between the two countries.
Through colorful cultural activities, academic lectures and interactive experiences, more and more Pakistani friends have experienced the charm of Chinese culture at close range and deepened their understanding of China’s development path. Such in-depth exchanges based on language and culture have effectively removed barriers and misunderstandings, enabling the “iron brother” bond to take root and thrive among the people.
—To be continued
