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Pakistan calls China its "all-weather" friend - an ally that offers consistent, no-strings-attached support during turbulent times. However, the reality is a more complicated mix of economics, security and self-interest.

Those complexities will be on display during Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao's three day-visit to Pakistan that begins Friday. Islamabad has been grappling with an Islamist insurgency as well as political and economic turmoil in recent years, and Wen's trip - the first by a Chinese premier in five years - provides Pakistan with a rare occasion to play host to a foreign leader.

The visit will focus on investment and bilateral trade, but will also be used to showcase ties between the Asian neighbors that have endured and even flourished despite Beijing's drawing closer to Islamabad's archrival India.

China is Pakistan's closest friend in the region, giving Islamabad military aid and technical assistance, including nuclear technology. Crucially, it is perceived by many here as not distinguishing between Pakistan and India and - unlike Islamabad's so-called "fair-weather" friends in Washington - doesn't demand anything in return for assistance.

"There is the view that the U.S. is just here for a short period of time and that they do not have long-term interests," said Hamayoun Khan, a former researcher at the China Studies Center at the Institute of Strategic Studies in Islamabad. "Whereas China has a very long-term interest with Pakistan and they will always stay with Pakistan because they are your neighbor."

While China doesn't make the conditional demands the U.S. does in its relationship with Islamabad, Beijing is not left empty-handed from its ties with Pakistan. The country serves as China's gateway to the Muslim world, and is a close and cheap source of natural resources to fuel its growing economy.

"China sees Pakistan as a useful partner in a difficult and violent region, as a potential buffer against more extreme elements in the Muslim world, and - looking to a more distant future - a useful geographic outlet to the Arabian Sea for China's western provinces," said Daniel Markey, an analyst on South Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington.

In recent years, Pakistan's strategic importance to the United States has soared because of its role in fighting militants along the border with Afghanistan. Pakistan's rugged tribal regions are also where Osama bin Laden and other senior al-Qaida leaders are believed to be hiding.

While Washington has showered Islamabad with aid, attention and occasional threats, China has been forging stronger relations with India, a fellow rising Asian power.

But China's improved ties with India are unlikely to have much influence on relations between Islamabad and Beijing, analysts said.

"Pakistan understands that China's relationship with India is also necessary and is good in a way because it can have a stabilizing effect on the region," said Talat Masood, an analyst and former Pakistani general. "I think Pakistan is quite realistic about it."

India looms large in both countries' calculations. Pakistan sees China as an ally that will take its side in any dispute with India, with which Islamabad has fought three wars since 1948. China sees New Delhi's preoccupation with Pakistan as a hedge against a growing economic competitor.

Pakistan is desperate for foreign investment to help create jobs for its 175 million people, and Pakistan's Foreign Ministry spokesman Abdul Basit said a push for greater business links will be a big part of Wen's visit.

"Lately we have been trying to expand the scope of this relationship because our economic and trade relations do not really depict or portray the strength of our political relationship," he said. "Our bilateral trade is close to $7 billion, which is nothing."

While that number is up from $1 billion in 2000, much of the new trade consists of cheap Chinese imports into Pakistan. Islamabad will be looking for ways to balance that.

Pakistan believes China can help with a pressing need: providing electricity for its people.

Islamabad has agreed in principle to a controversial deal to purchase two nuclear reactors from China, and the two countries are working out the financial details. Beijing sees Pakistan as a future energy corridor due to its proximity to natural gas-rich Central Asian states, as well as a link to the Arabian Sea, analysts said.

As with any discussions involving Pakistan, security issues will also be on the agenda. The threat posed by Taliban and al-Qaida fighters in Pakistan is a growing concern for China given the countries' proximity, the presence of many hundreds of Chinese workers in Pakistan and China's own Muslim separatist movement in its western Xinjiang region.

The courts may not get the last word after all on President Barack Obama's historic health care overhaul.

A Virginia federal judge ruled this week that the law's key requirement for individuals to carry health insurance is unconstitutional. But even if the Supreme Court ultimately agrees, Obama has a readily available Plan B.

The administration could borrow a strategy that Medicare has used successfully for decades.

Medicare's coverage for doctor visits is totally voluntary and carries a separate premium, yet more than nine in 10 seniors sign up. The reason is simple: those who opt out when they first become eligible face a lifelong penalty that escalates the longer they wait.

The same kind of penalty could be incorporated into the health care overhaul in place of the current mandate that all Americans who can afford a policy must carry one. That would be a stiff nudge to get healthy people into the insurance pool, keeping premiums in check after the law takes away the ability of insurers to deny coverage to those in poor health.

Even if it doesn't work as well as for Medicare, it could still provide a strong incentive.

"It wouldn't be a nirvana solution," said health policy consultant Chris Jennings, but "it's better than nothing." A Democrat, Jennings served as a senior health care adviser to Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham Clinton in the 1990s when the president and first lady unsuccessfully pushed for coverage for all.

Jennings believes the law as written would cover more people for a lower cost, but says "it would be irresponsible not to try an alternative" if the courts reject it.

Other prominent experts say Medicare's way could be more effective.

That's because the fines that back up the health care law are relatively low. When the individual coverage requirement takes effect in 2014 many people might still come out ahead by ignoring it. The fines they'd face could be lower than the premiums they would have to pay.

It's a "mandate lite," said economist Gail Wilensky, who ran Medicare for President George H.W. Bush. "A modification of what is done with seniors on Medicare would be a much more powerful tool. You don't have to buy insurance. But if you don't, the first time you come in, we're going to add a penalty that you'll have to pay for the next four or five years."

The White House says the law will ultimately be vindicated and there's no need for a fallback plan.

Nonetheless, the ruling by U.S. District Judge Henry E. Hudson, a Republican appointee in Richmond, Va., was the first successful challenge to the new law. Hudson ruled that Congress exceeded its constitutional authority to regulate interstate commerce by requiring individuals to obtain health insurance, whether through an employer, a government program or by purchasing their own policy.

Hudson denied the Virginia attorney general's request to strike down the law in its entirety or block it from being implemented while the Obama administration appeals. It could take a couple of years for the case to reach the Supreme Court and be decided.

Democrats were late to come around to the idea of an individual health insurance requirement. Most liberals still favor a government-run plan modeled on Medicare.

Requiring individual responsibility was the GOP alternative during the 1990s health care debate. Most Republicans have now abandoned it as big government intrusion, but Wilensky says she has no problems with the concept.

"As a society, we have made a commitment not to let people die in the street because of lack of medical care," she said, noting that hospital emergency rooms have to accept the uninsured. "It's not unreasonable to say that people be required to carry some sort of coverage."

The individual requirement got a boost when Massachusetts enacted it in 2006, after a bipartisan compromise between Republican Gov. Mitt Romney and Democratic state legislators. The idea rests on basic economics: insurance works best when everybody contributes to the pool. You can't get fire insurance after your house has burned down.

As a presidential candidate, Obama opposed the individual requirement as too costly for the average household. He embraced it after it became the only approach that could pass both the House and Senate. The legislation also provides tax credits to make premiums more affordable for millions.

If Obama has to switch to Medicare's approach, there's one caveat: It may not work as well with younger people.

"Sixty-five-year-olds are more risk averse than younger people," said Jennings. "If you are 65, you are not going to take the risk of being uninsured for a year. Someone who is 24, 28, or 32, would be more likely to take that risk."

Following the completion of a new evaluation of the war in Afghanistan, President Obama today said the United States has made "significant progress" there since he laid out a new strategy for the war last year.

"This continues to be a very difficult endeavor," Mr. Obama said. "Thanks to the extraordinary service of our troops and civilians on the ground, we are on track to meet our goals."

Those goals, Mr. Obama reiterated, are to disrupt, dismantle and ultimately defeat al Qaeda. The mission, the president said, is "not to defeat every last threat to the security of Afghanistan. Ultimately, it's not nation building."

A five-page summary of the new, classified evaluation, released by the White House Wednesday, shows the evaluation effectively ensures Mr. Obama will stick to his plan to keep U.S. forces engaged in war in Afghanistan through 2014. U.S. troops are still expected to begin leaving the country in July 2011, but it's unclear how significant the withdrawal will be.

"In terms of when the troops come out, the president has made clear it will be conditions based," said Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who addressed the evaluation today, along with Mr. Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Joint Chiefs of Staff vice-chair General Cartwright. "In terms of what that looks like beyond 2011, we don't know."

Still, Gates echoed the president's assertion that there has been significant progress. The military progress made in just the past three to four months "has exceeded my expectations," he said. On a recent visit with the troops there, Gates said the "sense of progress among those closest to the fight is palpable."

Led by Mr. Obama's national security staff, with input from government agencies and war zone commanders, the evaluation concluded Mr. Obama's expansion of the war has left the senior leadership of al Qaeda in Pakistan at its weakest since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

"It's harder for them to recruit, it's harder for them to travel... it's harder for them to plot and launch attacks," Mr. Obama said.

The Taliban has also been weakened over the last 12 months, the report concludes, although it calls those gains "fragile and reversible."

The evaluation makes no direct mention of the corruption problems in Afghanistan's government or the Obama administration's sometimes rocky relationship with Afghan President Hamid Karzai. It does, however, say Pakistan must do more to help eliminate terrorists from within its borders.

A bleaker assessment of the war, representing the view of 16 domestic intelligence agencies, was leaked to the New York Times Wednesday, asserting that there's little chance for success in Afghanistan without more cooperation from Pakistan.

Gates and Clinton said the latest assessment in no way paints an unrealistic view of the situation on the ground. Furthermore, they said the United States' relationship and cooperation with Pakistan has improved. Terrorist groups do not have a "free pass" at the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, Gates said, noting there are 140,000 Pakistani troops there.

"Eighteen months ago, I would've thought that 140,000 troops on the border was an impossibility," he said. "There is increasing cooperation on both sides of the border in coordinating their operations. We expect to see more of that."

Clinton added that the improved relations with Pakistan can also be improved to the United States' stepped up civilian presence in Pakistan. While there were fewer than 320 civilian workers there two years ago, there are now more than 1,000.

The troops on the ground in Afghanistan now number about 100,000.

The administration's evaluation suggests much of the success they've had in disrupting al Qaeda has been the result of counterterrorism efforts, but Clinton said that was no reason to discount the significance of having troops on the ground.

"Certainly, from our perspective, what you call 'counterterrorism' successes are part of the overall effort and cannot be separated out," she said. This was one of the vigorous debates the administration had during its 2009 review of the war strategy, she said.

"It's hard to separate out what's necessary on the ground in order to support counterterrorism efforts and say you can do one without the other," Clinton said.

General Cartwright said the "integrated strategy" of boots on the ground combined with counterterrorism efforts should also work in Pakistan, as well as Afghanistan.

"We have the advantage in Afghanistan of having boots on the ground, so we can defeat and not just disrupt" al Qaeda, he said. "We have to look at that capability in Pakistan... that doesn't mean American boots on the ground."

Since the war in Afghanistan started, more than 2,100 American troops have died. At least 480 American troops have been killed in 2010, making it the deadliest year for U.S. forces in the war since it began.

A CBS News poll from September showed that most Americans - 55 percent - think it is going badly, including majorities of Republicans, Democrats and independents.

Clinton called that view point "understandable" and said she respects the feelings of the American people. However, she said the administration "will not make decisions that are matters of life and death and the future security of our nation based on polling."

The current administration is trying to build upon a foundation in Afghanistan that's based on decades of mistakes made by previous administrations, she said.

"The question I would ask is, how do you feel about a continuing American commitment that is aimed at protecting you and your family?" she said.