New Delhi has accused Pakistan of having a hand in the bombing and vowed to punish Islamabad, which denies involvement.

Cash-strapped and in need of friends, Pakistan is welcoming the crown prince with open arms for a visit in which he is expected to sign investment agreements worth more than US$10 billion.

Analysts say the crown prince’s trip is being treated by Islamabad as the biggest state visit since President Xi Jinping in 2015, soon after Beijing announced plans to invest tens of billions of dollars on infrastructure in Pakistan as part of China’s global Belt and Road Initiative.

The visit marks a deepening in ties between allies whose relationship has in the past centred on oil-rich Saudi Arabia backing Pakistan’s economy during difficult periods, and in return Pakistan’s powerful army lending support to Saudi Arabia and its royal family.

As the guardians of most holy sites in the birthplace of Islam, the Saudi royal family carries vast religious clout in Pakistan, a staunchly conservative and mainly-Muslim nation of 208 million people.

Pakistan secures further US$2b in funding from China to ‘avoid economic crisis’

“What is happening in this relationship is a renewal of Pakistan’s commitment to help protect the royal family and the order as it exists in Saudi Arabia,” said Mosharraf Zaidi, senior fellow at Tabadlab, a Pakistani think tank focused on global and local public policy.

“On the flip side, there is reassurance that Saudi Arabia will not only continue to serve as a strategic friend who will help shore up Pakistan’s finances when needed, but it’s also going to become a participant in the wider investment in Pakistan.”

Pakistan was shutting down its airspace and stepped up security in Islamabad for the crown prince, who will be the first guest to stay at the prime minister’s house.

Pakistan’s premier Imran Khan has refused to use the residence in a bid to save taxpayers’ money.

Pakistani hopes for further investment opportunities from Saudi Arabia were dealt a blow on Saturday when the government announced the Pak-Saudi Business Conference had been “postponed”.

But the crown prince’s arrival followed a vow by India to isolate Pakistan internationally over the deadliest attack in Kashmir in decades.

New Delhi is demanding Islamabad act against the Jaish e-Mohammad (JeM) militant group, which it says has the backing of the Pakistani state, over the bombing.

Islamabad denies playing a role and has called for an investigation.

After Pakistan, Mohammed will travel to India, where he will meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan.

He is expected to finish the trip in China on Thursday and Friday.

The Asia trip comes five months after the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a fierce critic of the crown prince, at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul ignited a diplomatic crisis.

Riyadh initially denied the murder, then gave several conflicting accounts of Khashoggi’s death, and now claims he was killed in an unauthorised operation to forcibly return him to Saudi Arabia.

The Asia tour – the largest outing on the international scene for the crown prince since the G20 summit in Argentina in December – is a timely demonstration to the West that he still has friends in rising Asia.

He “wants to demonstrate that he is not an international pariah”, said James M. Dorsey, a researcher at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore.

It is a matter of proving he still has “international access and he can function … as the most senior representative of Saudi Arabia beyond the king”.

Reuters, Agence France-Presse