Wed, April 25, 2012
BEIJING, April 25 (Xinhua) -- Chinese top political adviser Jia Qinglin's visit to New Zealand, Brunei and Thailand has deepened the friendship, promoted cooperation and enhanced mutual trust between China and the three nations, a Chinese official said Wednesday.
The visit, coming in the first year of China's 12th five-year plan for national economic and social development, was of great significance for deepening the friendship and mutual trust, promoting pragmatic cooperation and realizing mutually beneficial development between China and the three countries, said Wang Shenghong, vice secretary general of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC).
Jia, chairman of the CPPCC National Committee, had in-depth exchanges of views and reached broad consensus with government and parliament leaders of the three countries on issues related to bilateral ties and international and regional issues of common interest, said Wang, who accompanied Jia on the tour from April 13 to 25.
The 13-day visit, Wang said, yielded rich results.
STRENGTHENING POLITICAL MUTUAL TRUST AND CEMENTING TRADITIONAL FRIENDSHIP
During meetings and talks with leaders of the three countries, Jia spoke highly of the development of the traditional friendship and bilateral ties between China and the three countries.
China, Jia said, attached great importance to the relationship with New Zealand, Brunei and Thailand and was ready to build up political mutual trust, advance cooperation and conduct coordination and cooperation with the three nations in international and regional affairs more closely so as to push their friendly cooperation to a higher level.
In New Zealand, Jia said common interests between China and New Zealand had far outweighed their differences. Friendly cooperation for mutual benefit had always been the leitmotif of relations between the two countries, Jia said.
In Brunei, Jia said the friendship between the two countries went back a long way and their relations served as an outstanding example of mutual respect and equality between a big country and a small one.
While in Thailand, Jia spoke of China's commitment to friendship with Thailand and expressed hope that the China-Thailand relationship would continue to play a leading and demonstrative role in the Asian region.
The New Zealand government said it had benefited a lot from the sound development of relations with China and was determined to push forward their relationship from a strategic perspective.
Bruneian leaders said Jia's visit had injected fresh impetus to the bilateral relationship and they highly appreciated the peaceful and friendly policy adopted by China to all the countries, big or small.
Thailand's leaders thanked China for its long-term and precious support and expressed their willingness to strengthen strategic communication so as to jointly respond to challenges ahead.
PROMOTING PRAGMATIC COOPERATION FOR MUTUAL BENEFIT
Jia's visit was mainly designed to promote pragmatic cooperation between China and the three nations.
During his visit, Jia said China was the second largest trading partner of New Zealand and Thailand, and its trade with Brunei had enjoyed strong growth.
Noting that China and the three countries were highly complementary in their economies, Jia suggested they should seek common interests with a view to each other's national development strategy and strive to consolidate their traditional cooperation spheres.
Jia also briefed the hosting leaders on China's economic and social development, stressing China would unleash huge investment and consumption demand during the implementation of its 12th five-year development plan, bringing more business opportunities for enterprises of the three countries and the Asian-Pacific region at large.
Jia and his hosts also attended the signing ceremonies of cooperative documents covering the areas of investment and clean energy.
In New Zealand, Jia said the two sides should continue to make full use of their free trade agreement and currency swap deal and deepen practical cooperation on economy and trade, agriculture, clean energy and disaster prevention and reduction, in a bid to achieve the goal of reaching 20 billion New Zealand dollars (16.37 billion U.S. dollars) in bilateral trade by 2015 as soon as possible.
In Brunei, Jia showed his support for Brunei's strategy of economic diversification, saying the two sides should make the best use of the bilateral consultation mechanism of economy and trade and give full play to the free trade policy between China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), in order to promote fast growth in bilateral trade.
In Thailand, Jia said the two countries should fully implement the five-year plan for bilateral trade and economic cooperation, further enlarge trade and two-way investment and enhance cooperation in the key fields of high-speed rail, water conservation, clean energy and education.
Jia also attended a symposium held by representatives from Chinese-invested enterprises in Thailand, giving detailed opinions on trade and economic undertakings and encouraging Chinese-invested enterprises to expand cooperation abroad.
Leaders of the three countries expressed their willingness to work with the Chinese side to intensify practical cooperation, saying the rapid development of China offered great opportunities to regional countries.
They hoped China could expand investment in the three countries and welcomed the participation of Chinese enterprises in economic and social development programs of the three countries.
EXPANDING CULTURAL AND PEOPLE-TO-PEOPLE EXCHANGES
During Jia's stay in the three countries, he made extensive contacts with people from various walks of life.
During his visit in New Zealand, Jia visited New Zealand's third largest city, Christchurch, which was hit by a major earthquake last February. Jia visited the quake-hit areas and expressed condolences to the victims and their families on behalf of the Chinese government and people.
Jia said Christchurch was the hometown of Rewi Alley, an old friend of the Chinese people who had made positive contributions to mutual understanding and friendship.
Before he left Christchurch, the last stop of his New Zealand tour, Jia visited Synlait Milk Ltd., a China-New Zealand joint venture. He also visited Crowe's Pasture and talked with local dairy farmers.
In Thailand, Jia had talks with Buddhists while visiting the Ssangyong Temple in Chieng Mai and encouraged Buddhist exchange and cooperation between the two countries.
He also attended a luncheon hosted by the Brunei-China Friendship Association and a welcoming banquet held by overseas Chinese in Thailand. The overseas Chinese were greatly inspired by Jia's visit and vowed to promote friendly cooperation between China and the three countries.
STRENGTHENING POLICY ADVOCACY
Jia outlined China's peaceful, harmonious and cooperative development concept in the three countries, stressing that a stable and harmonious China would bring opportunities, not pose a threat, to the world.
During his visit to New Zealand, two local mainstream newspapers, the New Zealand Herald and the Dominion Post, published a joint written interview with Jia.
In a speech titled "Deepen All-round Cooperation and Usher in a Brighter Future" and delivered at Victoria University of Wellington, Jia introduced China's strategies, such as good-neighborly friendship, mutual benefits and win-win cooperation, and China's stand on bilateral relations with New Zealand.
He also communicated with students of Chinese and responded to questions regarding international concerns and doubts on China's development.
During his visits to Brunei and Thailand, Jia stressed China was still a developing country, though it had made great progress since it started the reform and opening-up drive in late 1970s.
China would continue to follow the road of peaceful development and adhere to its foreign policy of good-neighborliness while seeking common development and prosperity with other Asian countries and becoming their good neighbor, friend and partner, he said.
New Zealand welcomed the positive role China had played in the Asia-Pacific region, hoping to strengthen cooperation with China on issues related to Pacific island countries and promote South Pacific regional development.
Brunei spoke highly of the opportunities China had brought to the region and countries in other regions, and vowed to share opportunities and jointly meet challenges with China.
Thailand highly praised the vital role China had played in Asia and pledged to make greater contribution to the development of the friendly cooperative relationship between ASEAN and China.
Jia also exchanged views with leaders of Brunei and Thailand on issues concerning South China Sea, saying the disputes should be solved through peaceful negotiations by countries directly involved.
He called on countries in the region to work together to promote solidarity and cooperation in Asia, and maintain the hard-won stability and development in the region.
Brunei agreed that the disputes should be solved through peaceful negotiations by relevant claimant countries so as to maintain peace and stability in the region.
Thailand said it was ready to cooperate with China to promote and maintain solidarity, cooperation, peace and stability in Asia.
PROMOTING CHINA'S POLITICAL CONSULTATION SYSTEM
At meetings with leaders of the three nations, Jia gave a detailed explanation of China's multi-party cooperation and political consultation system under the leadership of the Communist Party of China.
He said the CPPCC was willing to strengthen exchanges and cooperation with governments and parliaments of the three countries to push forward bilateral relations and promote understanding and friendship between the peoples.
The leaders of the three countries said Jia's visit helped them better understand China's political system and China's rapid economic development.
They all expressed readiness to enhance friendly exchanges with the CPPCC to learn from each other's experiences in governing their respective countries.
Jia's trip was "a tour of peace, cooperation and friendship," Wang said.
The tour had strengthened the political, economic and people-to-people foundation of bilateral relations, and would have deep and lasting influence on enhancing friendly cooperative ties between China and the three countries and promoting development and common prosperity in China, its neighboring countries and the Asia-Pacific region, Wang said.
