A diplomat's tale of 'ironclad brotherhood'

My earliest memories of Abbottabad, a small town surrounded by beautiful hills in northwestern Pakistan, include that of a Chinese shoe shop. The shoemakers were originally from China but had settled in Abbottabad. I remember my father telling us that the shoes they made were the best. They would map our feet and use the finest leather to make shoes which lasted a lifetime or until we grew out of them.

The China Boot House, a prominent landmark in the small city, was my introduction to China and the Chinese people. To the north of the Abbottabad hills are the mighty mountain ranges, beyond which, children like us were told, was a fairyland.

Little did I know then that the fairyland was China. No one in our family had actually been to China. But the stories we were told about China were fascinating. They were tales of friendship, of beauty, honesty and valor, of a glorious ancient civilization that had bonded with ours. China was then, as it is now, in our hearts and our minds.

Much later, the Karakoram Highway was built connecting Abbottabad with China across the highest mountain ranges in the world, giving a concrete shape to the everlasting bond between the Pakistani and Chinese peoples. Today, Abbottabad is the gateway to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, a road to a shared future of harmony, peace and prosperity.

The China Boot House is no longer there. Its place has been taken by countless Chinese businesses, not only in Abbottabad but also the rest of Pakistan.

Fast forward to 1980, when I was posted as a junior officer in the Pakistani mission at the UN Headquarters in Geneva at a time when the world was still in the grip of the Cold War. We worked and shared our world views with our Chinese friends, apart from enjoying the food at the Chinese mission at the UN.

In 2005, I was appointed Pakistan's ambassador to China — a high point in my career. Most of all my family was delighted to be in Beijing, and enjoyed every minute of their three-and-a-half-year stay there. We were enriched by the wisdom of China, and fascinated by its culture. Of particular interest to me was, and still is, traditional Chinese medicine. In my 40 years with the Pakistani Foreign Service, China was easily my best posting.

During my posting in China, construction cranes worked day and night across Beijing to prepare for the 2008 Summer Olympic Games, and I was fortunate to see, firsthand, the preparations for the Beijing 2008 Olympics. More than 100 heads of state and government attended the 2008 Olympic Opening Ceremony, with our Chinese friends giving a standing ovation to the Pakistani contingent when it entered the arena during the Parade of Nations.

Pakistan and China have stood together, solid as a rock. For example, when a massive earthquake hit Pakistan in 2005, claiming innumerable lives and causing widespread destruction, a Chinese government official called the Pakistani embassy in Beijing to say that Chinese rescue and medical teams were ready to fly to Pakistan the same evening.

I had the honor to see off the first Chinese rescue and relief team. Several wide-bodied aircraft flew twice a day for more than a month carrying relief materials from Beijing to Islamabad. When I invited the doctors and relief personnel on their return from Pakistan after two months to the embassy, they narrated moving stories of friendship.

One especially heartwarming story was that of a small Kashmiri girl who had lost her parents and other family members in the quake. On the cold winter nights, she would keep warm with the only goat she was left with. Our Chinese friends, tears flowing down their cheeks, said the little girl offered the goat to them as a gift to show her gratitude. They eventually agreed to accept as a souvenir a baked figure of the goat, reflecting the love and friendship between the two peoples.

In 2010, when vast stretches of Pakistan were inundated by floods, Chinese rescue and relief teams immediately flew to Pakistan to help the victims. Among the Chinese teams was a young nurse called Mei. We knew her because she worked at a hospital in Beijing and had treated some members of my family.

Mei called us in Islamabad from the flooded province of Sindh to enquire whether we were well. I was then Pakistan's foreign secretary and deeply touched by her kind gesture. We are still in touch, through WeChat, with her. For us Nurse Mei, Dr Gong Li and Dr Mu of the AFP Hospital are powerful symbols of Pakistani-Chinese friendship. They are like our own family, and their kindness and humanity reflect the ethos of China.

When the devastating Wenchuan earthquake stuck, I had moved to Islamabad but my wife and children were still living in Beijing. My wife reached out to Le Aimei, wife of then foreign minister Yang Jiechi, to not only console her but also say that Pakistan was ready to work with China in the rescue and relief operations.

During our stay in China, we travelled widely, enjoying Chinese culture and cuisine. From Kashgar to Dalian to Shanghai to Guangzhou and beyond to Hainan and the Macao and Hong Kong special administrative regions, we saw the achievements of China and met young Chinese artists who could sing Pakistani songs and play Pakistani musical instruments. Liang Hao sang better than many Pakistani ghazal singers, Hou Wei, a young girl, could sing songs in immaculate Urdu, and robust Punjabi. The Chinese show, My Dream, put together by the specially abled brought tears to our eyes.

We also visited markets in Beijing, especially the painter's quarters, to buy Chinese paintings. Our home in Islamabad is decorated with these souvenirs and mementos from China. Our granddaughter Alisha, who is only two months old, will hear the tales of China from her grandparents and her father (my son) Hamza, who studied at Peking University. And the tales of the fairyland beyond the Abbottabad mountains will continue to reverberate in Pakistan.

The author is Pakistan's former foreign secretary, and former ambassador to China. The views don't necessarily reflect those of China Daily.

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