ISLAMABAD — Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif will fly to Beijing on May 23, 2026 for a four-day state visit accompanied by senior government and military officials. The trip follows the May 21, 2026 marking of 75 years of diplomatic ties between Pakistan and China.

Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar addressed a Chinese parliamentary delegation seated in the Senate's visitors' gallery. The Senate adopted a unanimous resolution titled "Re-affirming China-Pakistan Friendship and Brotherhood" to mark the anniversary.

Pakistan formally recognized the People's Republic of China in January 1950, becoming the first Muslim-majority country to do so. In March 1963, the two governments signed a boundary agreement under which Pakistan transferred control of the Shaksgam Valley to China. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, then Pakistan's foreign minister, led the negotiations and traveled to China that month to complete the transfer.

The Shaksgam Valley covers roughly 5,180 square kilometres in the Karakoram range. India considers the territory part of disputed Kashmir. China defeated India in their border war in 1962.

The Karakoram Highway, completed in the late 1970s, connects Pakistan with China at Khunjerab Pass, the highest-paved border in the world. The route serves as the backbone of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, which began in 2015.

Feroz Hassan Khan, a scholar at the Naval Postgraduate School, described the historical logic of the partnership. "The relationship with China was always the long game. Pakistan understood it could not afford strategic animosity with its neighbours. The West was distant, powerful and pragmatic, but not a neighbour," he said.

Maria Adele Carrai, an associate professor at the University of Oxford, described the basis of the ties in different terms. "What has actually held it together is structural complementarity, not affinity," she said.

Security analyst Muhammad Faisal pointed to the role of regional rivalry in shaping the alignment. "Without India as a shared threat, the Pakistan-China relationship would look very different," he said.