Pathfinder Citadel’s President AVM Asad Ikram and Director Air Cdre Farhan Ahmed attended a seminar titled 105 Years of Communist Party of China: Achievements, Experiences, and the China-Pakistan Community of Shared Future, organised by the China-Pakistan Study Centre at the Institute of Strategic Studies Islamabad in collaboration with China Media Group. The seminar featured a keynote address by Ambassador Masood Khan, Pakistan’s Former Ambassador to China, alongside remarks from distinguished speakers and diplomats drawn from both countries’ diplomatic and strategic communities, making it one of the more substantive bilateral intellectual engagements on the Pakistan-China relationship held in Islamabad this year.
The Institute of Strategic Studies Islamabad has established itself as one of Pakistan’s most credible platforms for serious policy and diplomatic dialogue, and the choice of the 105th anniversary of the Communist Party of China as the occasion for a seminar co-organised with China Media Group reflects both the depth of the bilateral relationship and the interest on both sides in marking significant milestones in that relationship with structured intellectual exchange rather than purely ceremonial acknowledgement. Ambassador Masood Khan’s keynote address, drawing on his direct experience representing Pakistan in Beijing, gave the seminar a grounding in practitioner perspective that complemented the more analytical contributions of the academic and diplomatic speakers who joined him on the programme.
The attendance of Pathfinder Citadel’s leadership at an event of this nature speaks to the organisation’s understanding that the Pakistan-China relationship has dimensions that extend well beyond government-to-government engagement and into the startup, innovation, and entrepreneurship space where private sector actors on both sides have a growing stake in how the bilateral ecosystem develops. On the sidelines of the seminar, AVM Asad Ikram met with Mr. Shi Yuanqiang, Deputy Head of Mission at the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China, for a direct conversation about avenues for strengthening Pakistan-China collaboration specifically in the startup and innovation domain. This kind of sideline engagement at diplomatic and policy events is often where the most concrete ideas for bilateral cooperation in the private sector begin to take shape, as it brings together individuals with the authority and the networks to move from conversation to action in ways that formal programme structures sometimes cannot accommodate as quickly.
Pathfinder Citadel’s presence at the ISSI-CMG seminar reflects a deliberate approach to positioning the organisation at the intersection of Pakistan’s strategic and entrepreneurial communities, recognising that the future of Pakistan-China economic cooperation will increasingly be shaped by what happens in the startup and technology space rather than exclusively through the large infrastructure and energy projects that have historically defined the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor narrative. As both countries deepen their engagement on digital economy, artificial intelligence, and innovation-driven enterprise, the conversations that Pathfinder Citadel’s leadership initiated in Islamabad represent a contribution to building the connective tissue between the two ecosystems that more formal bilateral mechanisms will eventually formalise and scale.
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