Representatives from China and Pakistan sign cooperation documents during the ninth Joint Cooperation Committee (JCC) meeting of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) in Islamabad, Pakistan, Nov. 5, 2019. (Xinhua/Ahmad Kamal)

The US disregarded facts but kept raising the fabricated loan issue to obstruct the construction of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and provoke China-Pakistan relations, which shows its evil intentions, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said following a US official's comments claiming the CPEC is in a form of loans instead of aid to Pakistan. 

Half of the foreign debts held by Pakistan come from multilateral financial institutions. Only less than 20 percent of the current CPEC projects use Chinese loans and more than 80 percent of them are directly invested by  Chinese companies or come from Chinese aid, Geng Shuang, spokesperson of China's Foreign Ministry, said at a routine press conference on Monday. 

Geng's remarks came after US Acting Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs Alice Wells claimed that the CPEC is "almost always in the form of loans or other forms of financing," and is not about aid. 

Geng said that China has followed the principle of mutual cooperation, co-construction and sharing, and regards the interests of Pakistani people as the top priority in the process of promoting the construction of CPEC. 

The CPEC, with its 22 early harvest projects, has greatly improved the local infrastructure and electricity and created tens of thousands of jobs, Geng said. 

"The facts and data have given an answer to whether the CPEC is good," Geng said. 

Geng said that if the US wants to help Pakistan accelerate its national development, it should take concrete measures instead of just talking.

"You cannot do it yourself and don't even allow others to do it. Such mentality is very unhealthy," Geng said. 

He said China will unswervingly push forward the CPEC construction and let more Pakistani people benefit from it no matter how much the US alleges, obstructs or even damages it. 

Pakistan's foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said on Sunday that the CPEC is a project that was necessary for Pakistan's development, and is likely to further expand, dismissing US concerns. 

Global Times