Islamabad, Pakistan – Nations and empires have fought each other over territory for centuries. In March 1963, Pakistan did something rare: It offered land five times the size of Hong Kong to another country, China.Under a boundary agreement with Beijing, Pakistan transferred control of the Shaksgam Valley, roughly 5,180 square kilometres (2,000 square miles) in the Karakoram range, territory India considers part of disputed Kashmir.Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of listThere was a strategic logic to that deal. Pakistan did not possess uncontested sovereignty over the area, and the dispute remains unresolved today. But China had defeated India in their 1962 border war just three months earlier. Pakistan’s leadership concluded that Chinese control over the contested mountains made more sense than trying to fend off Indian claims itself.On May 21, as Pakistan and China celebrate 75 years of their diplomatic relationship, that episode more than six decades ago stands as an early pointer to the rare trust – glued together in good part by shared enmity with India – that has bound two unlikely partners: An avowedly communist and atheist nation, and a country born on the basis of religion.Earlier this week, Pakistani parliamentarians gathered as Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar addressed a Chinese parliamentary delegation seated in the Senate’s visitors’ gallery. Dar spoke of a “converging vision”, of symbols of friendship “spread across Pakistan’s geography”, and of a relationship that had grown “from strength to strength”. The Senate subsequently adopted a unanimous reso …
