Makhdoom Babar
President & Editor-in-Chief
The Daily Mail

October 1 is a real landmark in the 5000-year-old civilization of the great Chinese nation as our all-weather and all -time tested Chinese friends would today be celebrating their 58th National Day with pride and honour. While Chinese are celebrating their 58th national Day, Pakistanis also take pride in celebrating the 56th year of establishment of formal diplomatic relations with China which was the seed of an exemplary friendship and has now become a lofty and towering tree. Some 58 years back, the first step was taken towards the rebuilding of this spectacular nation on the earth. Ever since the rebuilding process was initiated, the Chinese nation responded tremendously, without looking back. Mao's thought, Deng Xiaoping's economic vision, Jiang Zemin's theory of Three Represents and Hu Jiantao's new era of dynamic leadership has seen a peaceful development in China. The way the Chinese nation, under the able leaderships at Beijing, made progress, made every nation on the earth to learn a lot and to take inspiration. Unbelievable elevation of foreign exchange reserves and foreign trade volume and surprising increase of GDP growth and per capita income are the factors that not only dramatically lifted the living standards of the general public in China but also placed the Chinese nation amongst the world's most advanced, well-off and civilized societies. Maintaining of tremendous internal and foreign policies and the booming economy of China has undoubtedly indicated China's peaceful development into a Super Power.
Contrary to the style and policies of the existing Super Power, China has achieved this status with grace and dignity. China is becoming the super power due to extraordinary foreign and domestic policies of its government and tremendous hard work of its people. China is maintaining the policies of non-aggression, not poking nose in others' affairs, spreading peace and harmony in the region and across the world, solving disputes through dialogue instead of using force, strengthening and sustaining economy, elevating living standards of its people, introducing speedy justice system. This style of governance and such package of domestic and foreign policies, undoubtedly establish China as an unchallengeable and the most acceptable Super power of the world, which would be a symbol of peace and help for every nation across the globe.
Pakistani nation takes immense pride in enjoying exemplary friendly ties with People and government of China. Pakistan established diplomatic ties with China in 1951 but the two nations were tied up in a sacred bond of love and friendship far before this. There had been immense cooperation between the governments of Pakistan and China and a number of joint Sino-Pak ventures in the fields of Defence, economy and health are crystal clear examples of the depth of the strategic cooperation between Beijing and Islamabad. The creation of state-of-the-art fighter jet named JF-17 THUNDER that is being made jointly by Pakistan and China is the latest in this direction. Both Pakistan and China enjoy shared perceptions and maintain similar stance on all major global and regional issues and are jointly engaged in combating and suppressing global terrorism for world peace.
Apart from this official level contact and cooperation, there has been a rapid increase in people to people contact between the two nations. There was little development in the past in this direction and that was just because of the language barriers but ever since the Chinese people started learning English there is an unprecedented increase in people to people contact. The love amongst the Chinese people for Pakistan and of the Pakistanis for China can be gauged from one simple factor that the Urdu language classes at Peking University and at other similar institutions in China are almost house full through out the year. Similarly Pakistani markets are flooded with Urdu-Chinese and English-Chinese language guidebooks. Even a minor and unofficial delegation or group from China gets immense public response in Pakistan and people welcome them from their hearts without any official manoeuvring or 'arrangements'.
It is said that Pakistanis and Chinese people are locked in a bond of friendship. However to our opinion it is not like this. The feelings of the people of these two nations for each other are something much beyond friendship- they are actually tied in a bond of LOVE, pure and sincere love. Pakistanis have friendly relations and friendship with many nations but when it comes to China and Chinese, the feelings are totally different- it goes much, much beyond friendship. In the recent past there had been some highly tragic incidents in which some Chinese engineers, working in different development projects in Pakistan were killed by paid terrorists. However such incidents could not make any attempts on Pak-China relations as both the sides believe that those who were killed were Chinese but those who killed them were not Pakistanis as terrorists have no nationality, no religion and no identification other than just being terrorists. It is also believed that such incidents were part of a foreign conspiracy to dent Pak-China ties.
In the direction of media, journalists from both the countries also enjoy shared perceptions and there are almost similar editorial policies of Pakistani and Chinese newspaper. The press friendly and open media policies of Chinese government are again a crystal clear example of how much freedom of expression is available in China, contrary to the western propagandas. It was just this media friendly atmosphere in china and Chinese government's belief in freedom of press and freedom of expression that inspired The Daily Mail to establish its bureau offices in China so that joint media perception can be utilized more effectively. We very strongly believe that Pakistani and Chinese media can play the most important role not only in protection and promotion of Pak-China bilateral relations and interests but also in bringing the people of both countries even closer. Journalists of both Pakistan and China can be the real source to rebuild the nations and to open a new era of people to people contact between the two nations. It was this vision that prompted us to form Pak-China Media Friendship Association, a platform from where such joint efforts should be made on a fair pace. The Daily Mail has also signed landmark agreements with leading Chinese newspapers including People's Daily, China Daily and Beijing Review for professional cooperation and collaboration. We may mention here that The Daily Mail surely is the only and first Pakistani newspaper and perhaps the only newspaper of the world to sign such agreements with a Chinese media organization while in collaboration with All China Journalists Association; The Daily Mail is also initiating a programme of exchange of media delegations between the two countries. This is just the first step of our humble march in this direction. We believe that in the coming few years, The Daily Mail and Pak-China Media Friendship Association would emerge as real forces behind growing Pak-China people to people contact and the main source to protect and promote Pak-China ties.
In the end we would like to extend our heartiest and sincere greetings to the government of China, the journalists of China and to every single Chinese national on this auspicious occasion of their National Day. As the entire team of professionals at The Daily Mail joins me in extending these wishes, We salute the Chinese people to have make such a great progress in such a dramatic manner that is undoubtedly a real source of inspiration for any nation, striving for progress and development.

Long live China!
       Long Live Pak-China Friendship !
                           (WO MEM AI NE ZHONGGOU)