-Tells Macron, Merkel China hopes to expand cooperation with Europe
BEIJING: Chinese President Xi Jinping held a video conference with French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Monday night. Xi said he hoped that China and the EU could expand the consensus to tackle the global challenges.
Mutual respect and sincere cooperation are needed in today’s world, not a confrontational stance and zero-sum mentality, Xi told the two European leaders. Over the past 100 years, the Communist Party of China has united the Chinese people and led them to a path of development that conforms to China’s national conditions and is universally supported by the people, Xi said, noting that China and the EU should hold a correct understanding about each other, insisting on dealing with divergences with a rational attitude and finding a common ground for their strategic partnership.
China is willing to work to push forward the 23rd EU-China summit while holding high-level dialogues covering strategy, trade, people-to-people exchanges, digital and climate change, Xi said at the conference.
Given the epidemic control situation, China will also streamline channels for people exchanges and expanding the market’s opening-up, Xi said, and the EU is expected to provide Chinese companies with a fair, transparent and nondiscriminatory business environment in accordance with market principles.
Xi also urged upholding multilateralism and abiding by the international system and UN Convention as well as international relations norms. Countries should negotiate on different issues in a peaceful way, and China is willing to ensure that work on the biodiversity convention and climate change convention yields positive results, leading the WTO reform to the correct position, while supporting the Beijing Winter Olympics and Paris Summer Olympics.
Both French and German leaders echoed Xi’s pledge to expand the cooperation and consensus between China and the EU. France will continue pushing forward cooperation with China in a practical manner, and welcomes Chinese enterprises to invest in France, and is willing to maintain communication with China on a number of issues such as WTO reform, climate change and biodiversity, Macron said.
Merkel said that Germany is willing to strengthen cooperation on equal vaccine production and distribution as well as resumption of trade and people exchanges. There are many areas where China and the EU can work together, and the two sides should increase dialogues in order to reduce divergences, she said.
–The Daily Mail-Global Times news exchange item
