CHINA & PAKISTAN sign Free Trade Agreement

[upi402]

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2006/11/25/2003337812

China and Pakistan sign FTA
`EVERGREEN' TIES: The two countries pledged to strengthen cooperation in defense, energy and the economy, boosting trade threefold within five years

AFP, ISLAMABAD
Saturday, Nov 25, 2006, Page 4

Chinese President Hu Jintao and his Pakistani counterpart Pervez Musharraf oversaw the signing of a landmark free trade deal yesterday and vowed to take the allies' "evergreen" relationship to new heights.

The two countries also agreed to cooperate on airborne early warning radar planes and inked a slew of other agreements to boost their ties in the spheres of defense, energy and the economy.

...

[Deja Q]

1. I wonder if India will like that...

:popcorn:

[upi402]

2. And Iran, Russia, and Venezuela are getting cozy

If they make an alliance, they will have energy, labor, and nukes. It would be a tricky alliance, but there are planks and framing members being hammered out in just one year.

With alliances come conflicts, as history reports. The Pakis are barely holding on to power and appeasing Islamic radicals. Their ISI funded the Al Q'aeda 9-11 terrorists, and the US government and their press is hiding that.
China is on idle as it bleeds US as pale as they can, but they want us to topple as a world power in due course so they will be the hegemon.

So I wonder what it is that China wants to trade freely for with the Pakis, actually?
(telecom, software, automotive, textiles, cement, fertilizer, steel, ship building, and more recently, aerospace. -Wikipedia)

[nealmhughes]

4. Beat me to it!

[OhioChick]

5. No, they won't. n/t

[oblivious]

6. Well he visited India just before Pakistan and had a pretty good trip.

He endorsed the US-India Nuclear deal, proposed a free trade area for China and India, signed a free-trade agreement with Pakistan, and offered nuclear cooperation to both India and Pakistan, and all to almost no criticism in either India or Pakistan.

And it gets no more than a handfull of comments here and very little coverage in the Western press as far as I could see.

Hu proposes free trade area for China-India
..."A China-India free trade area will lift the bilateral business relations to a higher level and promote regional economic integration in Asia," said Hu, who, upon his arrival in New Delhi, had issued a joint statement with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that efforts will be made to raise the bilateral trade from $18 billion to $40 billion in four years.
http://www.business-standard.com/common/storypage.php?autono=265873&leftnm=3&subLeft=0&chkFlg=

Pakistan editorial: China does good business in South Asia

...the US went ahead and signed a nuclear deal with India over the heads of many important critics in Washington but refuses to extend the same facility to Pakistan. In comes China, riding high on a bilateral trade figure of $20 billion with India — the balance being in favour of India — and offers nuclear cooperation to both countries.
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2006%5C11%5C25%5Cstory_25-11-2006_pg3_1

AFP: Hu eases through political minefield
26 November 2006

BEIJING - Chinese President Hu Jintao successfully negotiated the political minefield of back-to-back visits to India and Pakistan as all three nations focused on the benefits of closer trade ties, analysts said.

Hu was due back in Beijing on Sunday after a near blemish-free week on the subcontinent, where he sold the message to a slightly skeptical India of the riches that China offered and oversaw a free-trade pact with close ally Pakistan.

“If India and China take the necessary steps to strengthen trade and business, the 21st Century will be Asia’s,” Hu said in Mumbai as he urged the two nations to work harder towards a free-trade pact.

Earlier in the visit, the world’s two most populous nations agreed to double trade to 40 billion dollars by 2010 and push ahead with efforts to settle a long-festering border row that brought them to war in 1962.

In Islamabad, Hu and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf oversaw the signing of a free-trade agreement and committed their two nations to expanding their ties in other spheres such as the military.

Officials said the trade agreement could triple trade between China and Pakistan to 15 billion dollars within five years.

...“China is deepening its relations with India... but Pakistan is not losing as a result,” said Hasan Askari Rizvi, a political analyst and former professor of political science at Lahore’s Punjab University.

http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.asp?xfile=data/subcontinent/2006/November/subcontinent_November974.xml§ion=subcontinent

[xchrom]

3. i'm guessing that for now at any rate --

china isn't shipping it's jobs to go to pakistan along with it's electronics trade.

and i'm guessing pakistan isn't shipping off jobs to china along with it's textiles.