Joint fight against terrorism

Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani started a four-day official visit to China on Tuesday. The visit, two weeks after the US killing of Osama bin Laden on May 2, is drawing a great deal of media attention around the world.

The US operation on Pakistani soil was carried out with Islamabad apparently kept in the dark. Since then, the two sides have collided over questions such as whether the US operation infringed upon Pakistan's sovereignty and whether Islamabad had been shielding world's No 1 terrorist in recent years.

Given the all-weather friendship between Beijing and Islamabad, there has been some speculation that Gilani's visit to China is a move to seek support amid the growing tensions in US-Pakistani ties.