Pakistan to learn from Chinese model of poverty alleviation: Former Ambassador Khalid

ISLAMABAD – China’s experience of poverty alleviation worth learning for Pakistan and it can alleviate poverty by the approach adopted by the Chinese leadership, said Masood Khalid, former Pakistani Ambassador to China yesterday.

“If Pakistan has to learn from China, it is the Chinese miracle of elimination of absolute poverty, which is unprecedented in human history,” Masood Khalid told CEN.

He said that China has succeeded in addressing the problem of poverty that 800 million people literally have been out of poverty trap.

Besides, as he observed, China has been becoming a knowledge economy. “For knowledge economy, China is investing a lot in research and development, education, science, and technology.”

About the growing Sino-Pak relationship, he said, CPEC itself provides that platform or umbrella to further our cooperation.

“I visited China for the first time in 1981. From then on, whenever I travelled in China, I saw China’s development at full speed and positive changes of people’s lives,” he said. “It remains a mystery, particularly for western scholars, to understand as to how China has been able to achieve. They forget that China has a very rich history of 5,000 years old, and there has been continuity in terms of Chinese value system and culture and traditions.

They don’t fully appreciate how resilient, how hard-working, how diligent, how serious-minded, and how scientifically oriented Chinese people are.

There have been ups and downs in China’s last decades, but CPC decided that we have to change course at the critical moment and they have achieved targets at different stages.

Chinese people and CPC should be proud of their achievements,” said Masood Khalid. “Pakistan, as a friend of China, we not only admire their achievements, we feel very happy over their achievements.”