{"id":2503,"date":"2016-03-04T01:15:56","date_gmt":"2016-03-04T01:15:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.iuhrdf.org\/en\/2016\/03\/04\/chinas-president-xi-jinping-was-named-statesman-year-pakistan\/"},"modified":"2016-03-04T01:15:56","modified_gmt":"2016-03-04T01:15:56","slug":"chinas-president-xi-jinping-was-named-statesman-year-pakistan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/chinas-president-xi-jinping-was-named-statesman-year-pakistan\/","title":{"rendered":"China\u2019s president Xi Jinping was named statesman of the year\u2014in Pakistan"},"content":{"rendered":"

Who was the world\u2019s most powerful leader in 2015? The answer is Chinese president Xi Jinping, according to, apparently, the people of Pakistan.<\/p>\n

WRITTEN BY  Zheping Huang
March 03, 2016<\/p>\n

Who was the world\u2019s most powerful leader in 2015? The answer is Chinese president Xi Jinping, according to, apparently, the people of Pakistan.<\/p>\n

This week, Chinese state media has widely reported<\/a> that Xi was declared the \u201cstatesman of the year\u201d for 2015, by the the Pakistan Observer<\/a>, a popular English-language newspaper. The newspaper sang Xi\u2019s praises in a 100-page, full color report, which explains on its front cover that Xi is the \u201cGeneral Secretary, Communist Party; President, People\u2019s Republic of China; Chairman, Central Military Commission\u2026and much more.\u201d<\/p>\n

The result was based on a nationwide survey, with 84% of respondents<\/a> voting for Xi, whom the report described as the \u201cworld\u2019s most powerful leader<\/a>.\u201d (The full text of the report is not available online.) It is unclear who the other candidates were. Xi is \u201cone of the towering leaders in the 5000 years old history of China,\u201d Pakistan Observer editor-in-chief Zahid Malik said<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cPresident Xi is an outstanding statesman with foresight and sagacity,\u201d said former Pakistani prime minister Shaukat Aziz at a press event<\/a> for the report. \u201cHe brings new concepts and ideas for the development of China and the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Xi\u2019s popularity in Pakistan is perhaps unsurprising given the significant cooperation between the two nations. Pakistan is the biggest buyer<\/a> of China\u2019s arms exports, thanks to their common rival India. And China plays a dominant role in Pakistan\u2019s economy. Last year Xisigned a $46 billion deal<\/a> in Islamabad to pave the way for Chinese companies to build much-needed infrastructure in the nation.<\/p>\n

That includes development along the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor<\/a>, which connects Pakistan\u2019s Gwadar port to China\u2019s far-west Xinjiang region and fits nicely into Xi\u2019s \u201cOne Belt, One Road<\/a>\u201d program\u2014a land-and-sea version of the fabled Silk Road trading route.<\/p>\n

The close ties between the two nations prompted a Pakistani province to launch Mandarin courses in its schools about five years ago. The first attempts appear to have failed<\/a> for unspecified technical reasons, but the province is determined to keep trying. As the province\u2019s education minister said, \u201cOur trade, educational, and other relations are growing with China every day.\u201d<\/p>\n

And so, apparently, is the high regard in which Pakistanis hold Xi.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Who was the world\u2019s most powerful leader in 2015? The answer is Chinese president Xi Jinping, according to, apparently, the people of Pakistan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2502,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"topic":[],"class_list":["post-2503","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2503","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2503"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2503\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2503"},{"taxonomy":"topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topic?post=2503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}