Mushahid Hussain Sayed is the head of Pakistan's "Friends of Silk Road" club, chairman of the Pakistan-China Institute, chairman of the Pakistani Senate's Defense Committee, and winner of the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence Friendship Award.

Born in 1952 in Sialkot, Pakistan, Mushahid earned a Master's degree from the School of Foreign Service of Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., the United States. After graduation, he returned to Pakistan and taught political science and international relations at the Punjab University Lahore before leaving academia for the media in 1979. Since then, he wrote regularly on domestic and international affairs, focusing mainly on areas including media, politics of the Muslim world, Pakistan's foreign policy and regional security issues. He is author of three books on Pakistan's foreign policy and domestic politics. Mushahid, as a teenager, also founded the first ever 'Radio Peking Listeners Club' in 1968 in Lahore with 12 members.

Mushahid was elected to the Senate of Pakistan in March 1997. He served successively as minister for Information and Broadcasting, chairman of the Senate Committee on the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), head of the Senate’s Foreign Affairs Committee, and chairman of the Senate's Defense Committee.

At the age of 17, Mushahid visited China for the first time as the head of a Pakistan-China youth organization. Since then, he has made more than 100 trips to China. In different capacities over the years, he has devoted considerable efforts to China-Pakistan friendship. He has played a unique role in promoting the development of CPEC, a flagship project of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), and has set up organisations dedicated to promoting China-Pakistan friendship such as the Pakistan-China Institute and Pakistan's "Friends of Silk Road" club. Mushahid was awarded the"Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence Friendship Award" by Chinese President Xi Jinping during his visit to Pakistan in April 2015.

He has also served Chairman of the all-parties Parliamentary Committee on China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) from September 2015 to February 2018. In this capacity, he played a pivotal role in promoting consensus on CPEC amongst provinces and political parties of Pakistan. From the inception of CPEC, Senator Mushahid Hussain played a key role in ensuring that political parties of Pakistan, both in government and in opposition, take political ownership of CPEC, making CPEC/BRI in Pakistan through seminars, conferences, press and media engagements and articles and interviews.

On November 26, 2019, as Chairman of Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, Senator Mushahid Hussain, presided over a Committee meeting condemning US government for criticising CPEC stating "Pakistan will not tolerate any dictation from any country", terming Pakistan-China relations as "a pillar of Pakistan’s foreign policy".

On February 10, 2020, Senator Mushahid Hussain sponsored a resolution in the upper house of the Parliament of Pakistan, the Senate, which was unanimously passed, to express solidarity with China on the Coronavirus pandemic.

In October 2009, Mushahid Hussain established the first-ever think-tank, non-governmental organization dedicated exclusively to promoting Pakistan-China relations, the Pakistan-China Institute, of which he is the Chairman, promoting people-to-people understanding at all levels. Pakistan-China China Institute has emerged as a top leading think-tank on Sino-Pak relations and promoting understanding of China in Pakistan.

Telling true and vivid stories on the development of CPEC to the people in Pakistan and beyond through various media channels, Mushahid has made positive contribution to accurately communicating the message of mutually beneficial cooperation. In 2019 and 2020, Mushahid attended the two annual conferences of the CPEC Political Parties Joint Consultation Mechanism (JCM), highlighting the active part he took in promoting structured political party exchanges between China and Pakistan.

Mushahid has also been active in facilitating friendly exchanges and cooperation between Chinese and Pakistani political parties, think tanks, media outlets and civil society organisations. Since 2015, the Pakistan-China Institute has successfully held six CPEC Media Forums in cooperation with the Chinese Embassy in Pakistan. In 2019, he launched the "Friends of Silk Road" club, a civil society organisation aimed at building social consensus on the BRI in Pakistan. The club has since hosted a rich variety of thematic events to inform the public of the bright prospects for CPEC development.