China rejects US statement on CPEC, says it will never push Pakistan to repay debt on time

By
Web Desk
|
Chinese Ambassador to Pakistan Yao Jing. Photo: File

Chinese envoy Yao Jing on Friday rejected US Acting Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia Alice Wells’ recent statement regarding the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), saying that Beijing will never force Islamabad to make timely payments of its debt, unlike the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

"If Pakistan is in need, China would never ask it to repay its loans in time," while on the other hand the International Monetary Fund, mainly governed by the West, is strict in its repayment system," said Jing, the Chinese ambassador to Pakistan, during his address to the 5th CPEC Media Forum in Islamabad. 

He asked where Washington was in 2013 when Pakistan faced a shortfall of energy, and why it did not invest in Pakistan’s power sector despite knowing the country’s dire need for electricity.

Jing said that it were the the Chinese companies that established power plants in Pakistan to meet the country's needs, while the US, he said, did nothing. 

The Chinese ambassador said that Pak-China relations are based on "win-win cooperation and are mutually beneficial".

He rejected US concerns that power plants established under the CPEC have high tariff rates.

Jing further said that China has always come forward to assist Pakistan in need without any political or government-level differences.