Conveying Confidence and Hope of Peace, Friendship and Cooperation
—Yang Talks about Premier Wen Jiabao’s Visit to Four Asian Countries and Presence at China-Japan-South Korea Summit
From May 28 to June 3, 2010, Premier Wen Jiabao, at invitation, paid a formal visit to South Korea, Japan, Mongolia and Myanmar and attended the third China-Japan-South Korea Summit in Jeju Island, South Korea. On the way back to China, Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi who followed Wen during the tour introduced Wen’s visit to the accompanying journalists.
Yang said that the world today is experiencing major changes and major adjustments and world economy recovers slowly. Under new circumstances, it is especially necessary and urgent for China and the four countries to increase mutual trust and strengthen cooperation. The region still faces some complicated and sensitive issues which need to be handled appropriately. Against such background, Premier Wen paid the visit with the confidence and hope of peace, friendship and cooperation. He held straight-out and in-depth talks with leaders of the four countries, conducted dialogue sincerely with people from all walks of life, interacted cordially with the ordinary people, moving them with emotion, convincing them with truth, winning trust from them and touching them with actions, which have received warm responses and wide compliments. The visit achieved fruitful results.
I. Increasing political mutual trust
Premier Wen stressed repeatedly that mutual trust is the foundation of country-to-country relations and cooperation. Only with mutual trust can countries build mutual understanding, eradicate misunderstanding and deepen cooperation. He introduced in details China’s development, elaborated China’s policy and principle of peaceful development and good-neighborly friendship and vision of building a harmonious world, emphasized that China’s development constitutes no threat to any country and it will never seek hegemony. He pointed out that China and the four countries, as close neighbors, should deepen the good-neighborly mutual trust, strengthen mutually beneficial cooperation and be good neighbors and good partners from the perspective of their own long-term development and lasting prosperity and stability in the region.
Leaders of the four countries all said that they attach great importance to China’s status and role, China’s development is critical to peace and prosperity in the region and the world at large, to develop the friendly and cooperative relations with China is their diplomatic priority and they want to maintain high-level exchanges and strengthen communication and coordination with China on major issues.
Leaders of China and South Korea agreed that both China and South Korea are important countries in East Asia, enjoy common interest extensively, shoulder common responsibilities and should continue to push forward their strategic partnership. President Lee Myung-bak expressed willingness of working with China to maintain regional peace and stability, enhance cooperation within the framework of G20 and push the reform of international economic governance system in a just and reasonable direction.
Premier Wen pointed out that strategically China regards Japan as a partner instead of a rival or even an adversary. Both sides should look on each other and each other’s development in such a mindset and truly realize peaceful coexistence, friendship from generation to generation and common development. Agreeing with Premier Wen’s opinion, the Japanese side indicated willingness of strengthening mutual understanding and good-neighborly mutual trust with China and properly handling differences and sensitive issues. Leaders of both nations decided to reopen China-Japan prime minister hotline, officially launch negotiation on the exchange of letters between the two governments about implementing their principled common consensus on the East China Sea issue, set up the marine liaison system of defense departments and discuss the signing of marine search and rescue agreement.
Premier Wen stressed that to develop China-Mongolia good-neighborly mutual trust and partnership complies with the fundamental interest of the two peoples and is beneficial to peace, stability and common development in the region. The Mongolian side noted that Mongolia firmly pursues the one-China policy and resolutely supports China on issues related with Taiwan and Tibet. The two sides agreed to reinforce cooperation on anti-terrorism and security in order to maintain regional peace and tranquility.
Premier Wen said that China does not interfere in any other country’s internal affairs, respects sovereignty and territorial integrity of Myanmar and hopes Myanmar enjoys stability, solidarity and development. China is willing to make joint efforts with Myanmar to push forward the bilateral good-neighborly friendship and cooperative relations on the basis of the five principles of peaceful coexistence advocated jointly by the two countries. Myanmar expressed gratitude to China’s understanding and support and reiterated adherence to the one-China policy. It will continue to advance the bilateral friendly cooperation from a strategic height and maintain the friendship between the people from generation to generation. The two sides agreed to jointly maintain peace and stability along their borderline.
II. Boosting economic and trade cooperation
Premier Wen exchanged opinions with leaders of the four countries on the current world economy. He pointed out that China and the four countries, as important trade and investment partners, have a high degree of economic interdependence and should continue to carry forward the spirit of helping each other to realize mutually beneficial and win-win outcome and make explorations to deepen and expand economic and trade cooperation. He put forward a series of important suggestions and specific initiatives which received active responses from the four countries. China and the four countries signed about 30 bilateral cooperation agreements.
China reached consensus with South Korea and Japan on continuing with the macroeconomic policy coordination, jointly opposing trade protectionism and advancing reform of the international economic governance structure. While consolidating cooperation in the traditional areas, they will take the opportunity of changing their own economic growth mode and adjusting economic structure to develop emerging and strategic industries and especially cultivate new growth points of cooperation in the fields of energy efficiency and environmental protection, green and low-carbon economy, cycling economy and new and high-tech. China and South Korea agreed to push forward the bilateral free trade zone negotiation following the principle of tackling easy problems first and then difficult ones, seeking common ground while putting aside differences and making progress step by step. China and Japan agreed to take the opportunity of signing the bilateral framework agreement on food safety cooperation to step up cooperation on food production and trade.
Premier Wen also contacted the economic sectors of South Korea and Japan respectively, introduced China’s economic development and major tasks comprehensively and listened to their suggestions on bilateral economic and trade cooperation. He reiterated that the Chinese government firmly implements the strategy of mutually beneficial opening up, welcomes South Korean and Japanese companies to expand investment in China, supports cooperation between the businesses of both sides and will create a level play field for foreign companies operating in China. Entrepreneurs of both South Korea and Japan indicated confidence in China’s development and expectation of making new contributions to promoting the bilateral economic and trade cooperation.
China agreed with Mongolia and Myanmar to further take advantage of their geological linkage and economic complementarities to boost bilateral economic and trade cooperation. China and Mongolia will actively move forward their cooperation on mineral resource development, infrastructure construction and financial support and launch the feasibility study on the bilateral free trade zone as soon as possible. China and Myanmar will expand cooperation on energy and resources and implement the strategy of transport infrastructure “connectivity”. The governments of Mongolia and Myanmar both expressed welcome to Chinese companies to expand investment. Premier Wen hopes the two governments create sound conditions for the investment of Chinese companies and asks the Chinese companies to abide by local laws and actively return the local society.
III. Strengthening friendship
Premier Wen noted that culture serves as the bridge to communicate feeling and heart of different nations and different countries. Despite the tight schedule, he especially took time to contact the public of the four countries and conducted non-governmental and cultural diplomacy with great enthusiasm.
Premier Wen pointed out that the foundation of China-Japan friendship lies among the people and the heart and conscience of Chinese and Japanese people can communicate. Upon arrival in Japan, he immediately attended the awarding ceremony for non-governmental friendship groups and personnel of Japan and delivered an extemporaneous speech with “heart” to the welcome dinner hosted by Japan-China friendship groups. He stressed that adhering to taking history as a mirror to guide the future in no ways means to continue the hatred but to cherish the hard-won peace and avoid the repeat of historical tragedy. We must carry on and push forward China-Japan friendship. He held talks with well-known personnel from the cultural sectors of both countries to share views on strengthening bilateral cultural exchanges. He received the exclusive interview of NHK to send the message of mutual understanding and friendly cooperation to the Japanese people. He went to a park in the morning to run, play Taiji, did physical exercise and chattered with local residents, played baseball with young students and contacted extensively ordinary Japanese people. He also invited 1,000 Japanese youth to visit Shanghai World Expo and representatives of Japanese rescue and medical teams to visit the earthquake-hit regions of Wenchuan, Sichuan, announced the decision of establishing exchange mechanism of media and social science workers and hold the Film and TV Week and Cartoon Festival in turn next year between the countries. During the visit, he made two extempore Han Haikus to make friends and convey friendship. His words and behavior deeply moved the Japanese people and strengthened the friendship between the two peoples, which is fundamentally beneficial to the long-term development of China-Japan relations.
He emphasized that youth symbolizes the future of the two countries and their relations and great efforts should be made to promote exchanges between the Chinese youth and the youth of the four countries. He visited the Chinese culture centers in Seoul and Ulaanbaatar, discussed the Chamber of Red Dream with local youth, exchanged views with them on how to learn Chinese, calligraphy and Taiji, watched their performance using the Chinese language and expressed expectations on them as the successors of bilateral friendship. He invited 300 Mongolian youth to visit China, promised to provide 2,000 government scholarship quotas to Mongolia, participated in the celebrations of Mongolian children on the June 1 International Children’s Day and talked with students of Myanmar about the "paukphaw" friendship. All of those activities fully demonstrated the affinity and appeal of the Chinese leader and left a pleasant impression to the local people.
IV. Demonstrating determination of maintaining regional peace and stability
Premier Wen exchanged in-depth views with leaders of South Korea and Japan on the Korean Peninsula situation. He carried out exchanges carefully and patiently in the view of maintaining peace and stability on the Peninsula.
He held about 4 hours of in-depth talks with President Lee Myung-bak. He said that Tian An incident is a calamity. We understand the woe of the South Korean people, especially the families of the deceased. The Chinese side expressed grief to the deceased and condolence to the South Korean people and the families of the victims.
He stressed that China is a responsible country upholding just. When handling the issue, China neither has any self-interest nor favors any side. We attach importance to the joint investigation made by South Korea with other countries and the responses of different parties. China will make objective and fair judgment and choose the position on the merits. It always advocates and is committed to maintaining peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula and opposes and condemns any behavior damaging peace and stability on the Peninsula.
He appealed to all parties to stay calm, exercise restraint, prevent the escalation of tension, especially avoid any clash and jointly safeguard the hard-won peace and stability on the Peninsula.
He not only listened to the opinions of the South Korean and Japanese sides carefully but also clearly elaborated the principled stance of the Chinese government, demonstrating China’s responsible attitude and resolute determination of maintaining regional peace and stability. Leaders of South Korea and Japan made positive comments on China’s important role of maintaining regional peace and stability and expressed willingness of keeping close communications with the Chinese side to properly handle the issue. Leaders of three countries all agreed to realize denuclearization on the Peninsula continuously through the six-party talks.
V. Promoting China’s cooperation with South Korea and Japan
Premier Wen indicated that the world is experiencing profound and complex changes and the region faces many new challenges and difficulties. China, South Korea and Japan are both neighbors and major powers in the region. They should respect each other, treat each other equally, make mutually beneficial cooperation, strengthen communication and coordination, take care of each other’s major concerns, properly handle sensitive issues, increase political mutual trust and maintain peace and stability in Northeast Asia in view of the long-term and basic interest of the region. Since the recovery of world economy still faces many uncertainties, the three countries should maintain reasonable policy efforts and increase input to maintain the momentum of economic recovery or turnaround and at the same time create favorable conditions for the stable recovery and sustainable growth of their own economy and the regional economy and inject strong vigor into the building of East Asia Community.
He raise three proposals on strengthening the trilateral cooperation: first, build the cooperation mechanism and framework, promote the official, industrial and non-governmental joint studies on China-Japan-South Korea free trade zone, reach trilateral investment agreement as soon as possible, strengthen cooperation on standardization and set up the secretariat of trilateral cooperation; second, promote sustainable growth, develop green and cycling economy and advance technological innovation; third, boost social and cultural exchanges and expand cooperation in the fields of youth, culture, education, tourism and media.
His suggestions received support from leaders of South Korea and Japan. Leaders of all the three countries stressed that relentless efforts will be made to push forward the trilateral relations in the direction of good-neighborly mutual trust, all-round cooperation, mutual benefit, reciprocity and common development. The China-Japan-South Korea Summit issued the 2010 China-Japan-South Korea Cooperation Prospect, made it clear that the three countries will strengthen cooperation in the fields of system building, sustainable growth, environmental protection and cultural exchanges and on international and regional issues as well. Measures include to set up the secretariat of trilateral cooperation in South Korea in 2011, reinforce cooperation on standardization in order to eradicate technological barriers, try to complete the joint study on China-Japan-South Korea free trade zone before 2012, finish negotiations on the investment agreement among the three countries at the earliest date possible and broaden exchanges among the people, especially youth and university students.
The China-Japan-South Korea Summit set the direction of trilateral cooperation in the next ten years and planned the key areas of cooperation, which will further boost the trilateral cooperation and accelerate the integration process of East Asia.
Yang finally said that mutual trust, friendship and cooperation remain the foundation of China’s relations with neighboring countries no matter how the situation changes. The visit of Premier Wen has far-reaching significance, helps consolidate and strengthen the political, economic and people foundation of China’s bilateral relations with the four countries, fully demonstrates China’s responsible attitude and constructive role of firmly maintaining and promoting regional peace, stability and development and will effectively promote the long-term stable development of bilateral good-neighborly friendship and cooperation, push forward regional cooperation in the mutually beneficial and win-win direction, push forward regional situation in the direction of peace and stability and benefit people of all countries in the region.