He studied at the Forman Christian College in Lahore, from where he received a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science. He holds a Master of Science in Foreign Service (MSFS) from the prestigious School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, Washington D.C. While studying in the United States, he was President of the Pakistan Students Association. He represented Georgetown University at the Student Conference on United States Affairs at the United States Military Academy at West Point, the Naval Academy Foreign Affairs Conference at Annapolis and the US State Department’s ‘Crossroads’ programme for foreign students.

He was also part of the international student group received by President Gerald Ford at the White House. He was awarded a Congressional Internship, rare then for a foreign student, to work in the United States Congress in the summary of 1974. After completion of studies in the United States, he returned to Pakistan and became the youngest member of the faculty at the country’s premier training institution for civil servants, the Pakistan Administrative Staff College. He then joined Pakistan’s oldest seat of learning, the Punjab University, as Lecturer on International Relations in the Political Science Department. He was among the four dissident teachers removed from the University in October 1979 on political grounds for their campus activism during martial law.

Mushahid Hussain has served in the Federal Cabinet as Minister of Information and Culture from 1997 to 1999. He was elected to the Senate of Pakistan three times. He was also elected the Secretary General of the Pakistan Muslim League, one of Pakistan’s major political parties. As Information Minister from 1997 to 1999, he was the country’s principal spokesman and appeared frequently on international television and radio channels to present Pakistan’s position on issues ranging from nuclear weapons to Islam and foreign policy. He was a member of Pakistan’s five-member delegation led by the Prime Minister, which was received by President Bill Clinton for parleys at the White House in December 1998. He was also chairman of the Prime Minister’s Task Force on Central Asia in 1992-93, which planned policy initiatives towards that region after the break-up of the Soviet Union. During the state visits of South African President Nelson Mandela, Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and Palestinian President Yasser Arafat to Pakistan, he was attached to them as Minister-in-Waiting.

He was also leader of Pakistan’s delegation to the UN Human Rights Commission at Geneva in 1993. After the October 12, 1999 military coup, he was held without any charges as a political prisoner for 440 days, including a period in solitary imprisonment. The world’s leading human rights organisation, Amnesty International, declared him a ‘Prisoner of Conscience’ making him the first Pakistani to be so honoured for the year 2000. Pursuant to an invitation, he wrote about his unique experiences in a special op-ed piece in ‘The New York Times’ titled ‘In the Cage, in Search of Grace’ on February 12, 2001. The Washington Post profiled him in detention on September 15, 2000, ‘Pakistan Keeps Gag on Former Spokesman'.

At age 29, he became the youngest editor of a major national English daily ‘The Muslim’ published from Islamabad, which was respected for its independent positions. As a journalist, he has a broad range of professional experiences including covering summits, interviewing leaders and reporting on conflicts like Palestine, the guerrilla war in Western Sahara and the Iran-Iraq war. During the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, he was one of the first journalists from the area to personally visit Kabul and interview leaders there.

As a specialist on international political and strategic issues, he has lectured widely and his articles have been published in various national and international publications including ‘The New York Times’, ‘The Washington Post’, ‘International Herald Tribune’, ‘Jane’s Defence Weekly’ and ‘Middle East International’. He was elected co-chairman of the NAM (Non-Aligned Movement) Media Conference of 100 countries, held in New Delhi in December 1983 and he is the first Pakistani journalist to have started a syndicated column in the Indian media, writing regularly in the ‘The Time of India’ and ‘The Hindustan Times’. Mushahid Hussain is the author of three books. He also founded in 1999 the Islamabad Policy Research Institute (IPRI), a leading think-tank in 1999. He was Pakistan’s Representative to the 15-member Commission of Eminent Persons formed to reform and restructure the Organisation of Islamic Conference. He is also the Secretary General of the Centrist Asian-Pacific Democrat International (CAPDI) and is Special Rappoteur of International Conference of Asian Political Parties (ICAPP). He served as Senator and Chairman of the Foreign Relations, Kashmir Affairs and Northern Areas Committee of the Senate. He has also been a member of the Parliamentary Committee on Kashmir, Joint Parliamentary Committee on Balochistan, Functional Committee on Government Assurances, Functional Committee on Human Rights and Parliamentary Committee on Electoral Reforms. He has been a guest lecturer at the State Department’s Foreign Service Institute, Harvard University, MIT, the Middle East Institute, the Stimson Centre, Oxford University and Georgetown University’s Centre for Christian-Muslim Understanding. Award and Honours:

 Awarded the Congressional Medal of Achievement by the House of Representation of the Republic of Philippines, January 2006.  Awarded Honorary Doctorate by the Royal Academy of Cambodia in Political Science, November 2010.  Awarded The Star of Achievement for Service to Humanity by the International Conference of Asian Political Parties (ICAPP), December 2010.  Received highest Cambodian award, Grand Order of the Kingdom of Cambodia, for contribution to Asian causes, May 2011.  Received 2013 Tsinghua University Award for ‘Outstanding Contribution to Public Diplomacy’ for his role in promoting Pakistan-China people-to-people relations, August 31, 2013.  President Xi Jinping personally conferred the prestigious ‘Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence Friendship Award’ at Islamabad on April 20, 2015.

Mushahid Hussain has played a pivotal role in promoting peace and understanding with Pakistan’s neighbours and the regional countries. In April 1984, as Editor of The Muslim, he organized the first Track-II Pakistan-India dialogue which was a landmark event in those days helping to defuse tensions between Pakistan and India since it brought in journalists, academia, former policy-makers both from the civil and military and diplomats together on one platform for the first time. He also organized the first Pakistan-Afghanistan dialogue in his capacity as Chairman, Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 2006 in Islamabad and a similar dialogue between Pakistan and Iran parliamentarians in 2012. He is also the architect of the first tripartite Think Tanks Dialogue between Pakistan, Afghanistan and China which was organized in Beijing in August 2013 with the Pakistan-China Institute spearheading the event together with a Chinese think-tank. The Pakistan-China Institute organized the 2nd Pakistan-Afghanistan-China Trilateral Dialogue in October 2014.

Mushahid Hussain contested for President of Pakistan in 2008 and although he lost the Presidential elections, he led in public opinion polls.

He is currently Chairman of the Pakistan Senate Defence Committee, Founder Chairman of Pakistan-China Institute, a think tank devoted to relations with China and the region, as well as Chairman of the Organizing Committee of the Asian Parliamentary Assembly.

One Belt, One Road: Asia’s Quest for a Better Tomorrow