United Kingdom (UK)
On Tuesday, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang held a virtual dialogue with business leaders from the United Kingdom (UK). Officials of more than 30 multinational companies (MNCs), including Standard Life, Diageo, Jardine Matheson, AstraZeneca, Walgreens Boots Alliance, British Petroleum, Rio Tinto Group, Jaguar Land Rover, Clifford Chance, Schroders, University College London, and the 48 Group Club, attended the event.
The theme of the meeting was “enhancing mutual trust, expanding cooperation and seeking common development,” and covered topics including “China-UK relations and practical cooperation, the COVID-19 pandemic, tackling climate change, improving the business environment, deepening cooperation on trade in services, and promoting people-to-people exchanges.”
Li said, “A stable China-UK relationship is conducive to maintaining free and fair trade, promoting global economic recovery, responding to global challenges and enhancing the well-being of the two peoples.” He added, “China is willing to consolidate mutual trust with the UK... seek to expand common ground while shelving differences, deepen mutually beneficial cooperation for win-win results, build consensus and address divergences via equal dialogue and promote the healthy and stable development of bilateral ties.”
According to the press release by the Foreign Ministry of China, the British participants stated: “There is huge room for win-win cooperation between the two countries in finance, services, agriculture, healthcare, education, manufacturing and infrastructure.”
Meanwhile, on Wednesday, Chinese diplomats held meetings with officials from Pakistan, Czech Republic, and Greece.
Pakistan
At the opening session of the Conference on China-Pakistan at 70 held virtually, State Councilor and Foreign Minister (FM), Wang Yi, delivered a speech titled “Step up the Efforts to Build a Closer China-Pakistan Community with a Shared Future in the New Era.”
Wang said that the two countries must:
- Enhance strategic communication, and maintain high-level interactions and exchanges to provide timely strategic guidance for the development of the bilateral relationship.
- Join forces to defeat COVID-19 and oppose vaccine nationalism and political manipulation of international cooperation on COVID-19 origin-tracing.
- Steadily advance the development of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and prioritise cooperation in industry, agriculture, and people’s livelihood.
- Safeguard regional peace, support the parties in Afghanistan in seeking a political solution through dialogue and ensure overall stability in the region.
- Practice true multilateralism, and step up cooperation on international affairs.
Pakistan’s Foreign Minister, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, assured that his country is willing to work with China to deepen joint contributions to the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), advance the high-quality development of the CPEC, and strengthen cooperation in industrial parks, agriculture, and people’s livelihoods.
Czech Republic
In his phone conversation with Czech President Miloš Zeman, Chinese President Xi Jinping said, “China-Czech relations follows the trend of the times of peace, development, and win-win cooperation...The two sides should work on the BRI, deepen cooperation against COVID-19, promote the resumption of work and production and economic recovery, encourage two-way investment and trade, and strive to create more cooperation highlights.”
In response, Zeman said the two countries should intensify solidarity and cooperation against global challenges such as terrorism. He assured that the Czech Republic is willing to connect the European Union and China.
Greece
Xi also had a phone conversation with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, during which he noted that the next year marks the 50th anniversary of the two countries’ diplomatic ties. In light of this, Xi said that China is willing to work with Greece to strengthen exchanges on governance experience and deepen traditional friendship.
Mitsotakis responded that Greece hopes to expand cooperation in economy and trade, tourism, and green development on the occasion of the 15th anniversary of the establishment of the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership.