ISLAMABAD, June 30 — Pakistan and China are in advanced discussions to launch a new regional organization that could take the place of the long-dormant South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), according to diplomatic sources cited by The Express Tribune on Monday.
Officials familiar with the talks said both Islamabad and Beijing believe a fresh regional platform is needed to foster connectivity and cooperation in South Asia, where SAARC has largely ceased to function due to enduring political rifts.
“The idea is to move beyond paralysis and revive the spirit of regionalism through a pragmatic, forward-looking structure,” one source told the newspaper.
The envisioned grouping, while still in the works, would include South Asian countries—many of which are already SAARC members—such as Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Afghanistan, and potentially India. Sources said India would be formally invited to join, though its participation remains uncertain.
A recent trilateral meeting in Kunming, China, involving representatives from Pakistan, China, and Bangladesh, served as a platform to test regional waters. The diplomatic overture was seen as a step toward shaping the contours of the new alliance. However, Bangladesh played down the implications.
“We are not forming any alliance,” said M Touhid Hossain, adviser on foreign affairs to Bangladesh’s interim government. He clarified that the Kunming meeting was “not political.”
Still, insiders described the initiative as a strategic response to SAARC’s stagnation. Since its last summit in Kathmandu in 2014, the eight-nation bloc—which includes India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal, and Sri Lanka—has failed to convene another summit.
The 2016 summit, initially scheduled in Islamabad, collapsed following the terrorist attack on an Indian Army camp in Uri, Jammu and Kashmir. India withdrew citing the “prevailing circumstances,” and several other member states, including Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Bhutan, followed suit.
“The SAARC process has essentially been frozen for almost a decade,” a regional diplomat said. “What China and Pakistan are proposing is a structure not held hostage by bilateral tensions.”
The primary aim of the proposed body, sources added, is to deepen economic ties and build infrastructure that promotes cross-border trade, energy cooperation, and digital connectivity.
While official details remain limited, the plan marks one of the most significant attempts in recent years to reset the framework for regional engagement in South Asia—one that could realign old alliances and redraw the map of cooperation.
