ISLAMABAD: Pakistan said on Thursday its relations with key longtime ally China would remain “unaffected” by Donald Trump winning the US presidential election, as Islamabad walks a diplomatic tightrope between the two global powers.
Pakistan maintains a delicate balance in its relations with China and the US. While aligned with the US for military cooperation and counter-terrorism efforts, Pakistan has strengthened economic ties with Washington’s rival China through initiatives like the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).
Washington and Beijing’s ties remain strained as they compete for global influence, with the US seeking to maintain its dominance and China aiming to expand its reach. The two countries are often embroiled in disagreements over trade, Taiwan, the South China Sea and China’s Belt and Road Initiative.
This complex rivalry impacts Pakistan as it navigates its strategic partnerships with both world powers while grappling with a prolonged economic crisis.
“Pakistan’s relations with China are all-weather,” Foreign Office Spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch said during a weekly press briefing when asked if Trump’s victory will affect the country’s China policy.
“They are strategic and a source of stability in our foreign policy.” 
Baloch said Islamabad does not even need to consider the possibility that its relationship with China will be affected by any domestic development in another country.
She stressed that Pakistan’s relations with China have grown and expanded over the last several decades, emphasizing that the relationship remained immune to developments around the world.
Baloch dismissed claims that President-elect Trump could influence Pakistan’s politics as speculative, emphasizing that Pakistan and the US were “old friends” maintaining relations based on mutual respect, confidence, and non-interference.
In response to another question, the spokesperson said President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had already congratulated President-elect Trump on his presidential election win.
“Our relations with the United States are decades old, and we look forward to further strengthen and broaden Pakistan-US relationship in all fields,” she added. “As the Deputy Prime Minister said in a tweet yesterday, we look forward to fruitful and mutually beneficial cooperation between Pakistan and the United States.”
Pakistan and the US cultivated strong defense ties during the Cold War days yet their relationship was also tested by divergent priorities on various issues. 
However, tensions between the two countries escalated, particularly after 9/11, when US officials criticized Pakistan for not sufficiently supporting the American military efforts against the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Washington and Islamabad’s ties were further strained as the former suspected the latter of supporting the Taliban in its 2021 takeover of Kabul, allegations which Islamabad rejected. Tensions rose further in 2022 when former PM Imran Khan accused the Biden administration of orchestrating his ouster via a parliamentary vote, a charge the US denied. 
Pakistan, under Shehbaz Sharif’s two separate stints as prime minister in 2022 and 2024, has made attempts to improve its ties with the US.

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) closed above 92,000 points for the third time in a row on Thursday, with analysts attributing the bullish trend to market volatility triggered by reduced interest rates and investors selling their stocks for profit. 
Pakistan’s benchmark index settled at 92,304.32 points on Tuesday and 92,021.44 points on Wednesday. As per the stock market’s official website, the benchmark KSE-100 index increased by 499 points or 0.54 percent on Thursday to close at 92,520.48 points. 
The bullish trend has been observed in the market since Monday when Pakistan’s central bank cut its key policy rate by 250 basis points to 15 percent. This was the fourth straight reduction since June, as the country keeps up efforts to revive a sluggish economy with inflation easing.
“The market is responding to reducing interest rates and, importantly, is also picking up on the government’s razor-sharp focus on the economy evidenced by the push to increase tax-to-GDP, attract FDI, and restart privatizations,” Raza Jafri, chief executive officer of leading financial services corporation EFG Hermes Pakistan, told Arab News.
He highlighted how lower interest rates were helping in creating valuation multiples at the KSE-100 but their “positive impact on the real economy will come with a lag.”
Jafri said the rally this year was led by banks, fertilizers and pharmaceuticals, adding that a rotation toward the construction, auto and oil marketing sectors more aligned with economic recovery was witnessed.
“An analyst at Topline Securities said the market showed notable volatility, with the index reaching a peak of 92,967 and dipping to a low of 91,891 as investors capitalized on profit-taking in large-cap stocks,” Topline Securities said in a social media post.

The development comes as the South Asian nation’s economic indicators continue to improve after it secured a $7 billion, 37-month bailout package from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in September. 
Last year, Pakistan narrowly avoided a sovereign default when it clinched a last-gasp $3 billion IMF bailout program. The country has suffered a prolonged economic crisis that drained its foreign exchange reserves and saw its currency weaken amid double-digit inflation.