China may scale up defence cooperation with Pakistan

CHINA PLANS to scale up its defence cooperation with its “allweather” ally Pakistan to co-produce ballistic missiles, in an apparent retaliation to India developing the nuclear-capable Agni V missile that has a range of over 5,000 km covering China.

Declining to react to Chinese official media reports that Beijing plans to co-produce ballistic and cruise missiles with Pakistan, besides mass production of military aircraft, Chinese Foreign Ministry said Beijing stands for “strategic balance” in South Asia.

“On Pakistan army chief’s visit to China, the Pakistan military has released information about the meetings between the him and the Chinese counterpart,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying told media briefing here.

“From the news release, we did not see anything about the agreement about ballistic missiles,” she said while answering a question about a report in the state-run Global Times that China plans to step up its defence cooperation with Pakistan, including ballistic, cruise missiles.

On his first visit to China, Pakistan’s army chief Qamar Javed Bajwa held talks with Fang Fenghui, chief of the Joint Staff Department under the Central Military Commission of China.

Bajwa also called on Chinese Executive Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli, Vice Chairman of the Central Military Commission, Gen Fan Changlong and Commander of the People’s Liberation Army Gen Li Zhuocheng and discussed regional security, economy, defence cooperation and other issues of mutual interest.

Thisisthefirsttimetheofficial mediamentionedaboutthelikely cooperation between the two allweather allies on the co-productionofballisticandcruisemissiles. Pakistan is heavily reliant on its defence needs from China.

“What I can tell you is that China and Pakistan maintain normal defence exchanges and relevant cooperation,” Hua said.

The UNSC resolution passed in the backdrop of nuclear tests by India and Pakistan in 1998 called on both the countries to cease testing of ballistic missile capable of carrying nuclear warheads. PTI DEREK WALCOTT, a Nobel-prize winning poet known for capturing the essence of his native Caribbean, has died on the island of St Lucia. He was 87.

Walcott’s death in the eastern Caribbean nation was first confirmed early Friday by his son, Peter. “Derek Alton Walcott, poet, playwright, and painter died peacefully today, Friday 17th March, 2017, at his home in Cap Estate, Saint Lucia,’’ read a family statement released later in the morning. It said the funeral would be held in St Lucia.

The prolific and versatile poet received the Nobel Prize in literaturein1992afterbeingshortlisted for the honour for many years. In selecting Walcott, the academy cited the great luminosity’’ of his writings including the 1990 Omeros, a 64-chapter Caribbean epic it praised as “majestic.’’

“In him, West Indian culture has found its great poet,’’ said the Swedish academy in awarding the $1.2 million prize to Walcott.

Walcott, who was of African, Dutch and English ancestry, said his writing reflected the “very rich and complicated experience’’ of life in the Caribbean. His dazzling, painterly work earned him a reputation as one of the greatest writers of the second half of the 20th century.

With passions ranging from watercolour painting to teaching to theatre, Walcott’s work was widely praised for its depth and bold use of metaphor, and its mix of sensuousness and technical prowess.hecomparedhisfeeling forpoetrytoareligiousavocation.

Soviet exile poet Joseph Brodsky, who won the Nobel literature prize in 1987, once complained that some critics relegated Walcott to regional status because of “an unwillingness ... to admit that the great poet of the English language is a black man.”

Walcott himself proudly celebrated his role as a Caribbean writer. “I am primarily, absolutely a Caribbean writer,’’ he once said during a 1985 interview published in The Paris Review. “The English language is nobody’s special property. It is the property of the imagination.”

Although he was best known for his poetry, Walcott was also a prolific playwright, penning some 40 plays, including Dream on Monkey Mountain and The Last Carnival, and founding theatres such as the Boston Playwrights’ Theatre. AP

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