From October 2 to 9, 2010, Premier Wen Jiabao, at invitation, officially visited Greece, Belgium, Italy and Turkey, attended the 8th Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) and the 13th EU-China Summit and met with Chancellor Angela Merkel in Germany. At the end of the visit, Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi who accompanied Wen during the activities introduced to the accompanying journalists the results of the visit.
Yang said that the global economy recovers slowly on a foundation which is not solid yet and the in-depth impact of the international financial crisis is still lingering. Europe and Asia face common challenges and shoulder common responsibilities. To increase mutual trust through dialogue and to promote common development through cooperation are the purpose of Premier Wen’s visit to Eurasia. During eight days, he visited 5 countries, attended two summits and participated in more than 70 activities. In addition to the official meetings and talks, he communicated with personnel from local culture and business communities, delivered speeches, met journalists together with leaders of the destination countries or issued joint communiqué. The visit can be said have diversified forms and rich connotation. The destination countries attached great importance to Premier Wen’s visit and received him with a high standard of hospitality. All parties concerned expressed high expectation for Premier Wen’s participation in the summits. From different angles, Premier Wen contacted all relevant parties in a targeted manner, vividly articulated China’s policy propositions, lifted up China’s bilateral relations with the destination countries, promoted the in-depth development of China-EU relations in the new historical period and demonstrated China’s positive attitude of pushing forward Asia-Europe cooperation. With fruitful results, the visit achieved full success.
I. Increasing Mutual Benefit and Mutual Trust and Promoting Long-term Development of China-EU relations
Yang noted that to promote the development of China-EU relations is the priority of Premier Wen’s visit. Premier Wen visited three European countries, attended the 13th EU-China Summit and met with Chancellor Merkel in Germany during his European tour.
China and Greece enjoy a long history of friendship and the bilateral all-round strategic partnership has developed continuously in recent years. Greece was hit by the sovereign debt crisis not long ago and stands at a critical moment of overcoming difficulties. Premier Wen’s visit displayed China’s friendship with Greece and served as a vote of confidence in the efforts of EU members including Greece to resist the financial crisis. Together with Greek leaders, he comprehensively reviewed the 38-year history of development of bilateral relations, planned the prospects of bilateral ties, exchanged deep opinions on jointly coping with the international financial crisis, pushing forward cooperation in the fields of trade and economy, culture and education and tourism and consolidating and developing China-EU relations and issued the China-Greece Joint Statement on Deepening the All-round Strategic Partnership. Premier Wen announced that China had bought and was considering actively continuing to hold and buy Greek treasury bonds and proposed the target of doubling the bilateral trade to US$8 billion within the next 5 years. He delivered a speech oriented at Greece and Europe to the Greek parliament and made important policy announcements on the traditional China-Greece friendship, China-EU pragmatic cooperation and China’s development path, which drew high attention from Europe and the international community. The Greek and European media made full and warm reports about the visit, expressed gratitude to China for its timely help and placed high hopes on the pragmatic cooperation with China in the areas of marine transport, trade and economy, construction and investment.
Belgium is located in the heart of Europe. It is the place where the EU headquarters is. Currently it holds the EU rotation presidency. In recent years, China and Belgium maintain close exchanges of high-level visit and pragmatic cooperation in a wide range of areas. Soon after Premier Wen’s visit will be the 40th anniversary of China-Belgium diplomatic ties, so the Belgian side attached great importance to the visit. Premier Wen met with Belgian King and held talks with Belgian Prime Minister. The two sides agreed to conduct sound communications on major issues and in multilateral mechanisms, keep the continuity of policy and raise the bilateral trade and economic cooperation to a higher level. Related parties of both sides signed cooperation documents on nuclear energy, telecommunications and quality inspection.
This year marks the 40th anniversary of China-Italy diplomatic ties as well as the 6th anniversary of China-Italy all-round strategic partnership. Premier Wen’s visit to Italy expanded the bilateral pragmatic cooperation in all fields, consolidated the foundation of bilateral relations and pushed the bilateral all-round strategic partnership to a new level. He contacted all sectors of the Italian society extensively, exchanged views with the Italian leaders comprehensively and cemented the traditional friendship and political mutual trust between the two countries. The two prime ministers met with both Chinese and Italian entrepreneurs jointly. The two sides signed 17 cooperation documents and agreements involving justice, culture, science and technology and environmental protection, released the China-Italy Three-Year Action Plan on Strengthening Economic Cooperation identifying the key areas and projects of bilateral pragmatic cooperation within the next three years and raised the target of doubling the bilateral trade volume within the next 5 years. He also attended the celebration on the 40th anniversary of China-Italy diplomatic ties and the Year of Chinese Culture together with Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, bringing a climax to the cultural exchanges between the two countries.
At invitation, Premier Wen met with Chancellor Merkel in Berlin. The two sides mainly exchanged opinions on China-EU and China-Germany relations. The German side expressed continuous active support for the EU in recognizing China’s full market economy status as soon as possible. The two prime ministers stressed once again to boost the stable recovery and sustained growth of economy and tackle the global financial crisis jointly; join hands to cope with climate change in the principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities”.
It is an important part of China’s foreign relations to constantly strengthen ties with the EU which, with a population of 500 million, has the most concentrated number of developed countries in the world and is a key partner of China. The EU attaches importance to the strategic significance of EU-China relations in the future world pattern and hopes to reinforce relations with China and make strategic plan and preparation for the EU-China Summit.
The 13th EU-China Summit is the first meeting of its kind after the Lisbon Treaty came into effect and plays a key political leading role of planning the future development direction of China-EU relations. During the talks with EU leaders, Premier Wen, focusing on the strategic, mutually beneficial and far-sighted nature of bilateral ties, fully recognized the development achievements of China-EU relations. In response to the doubts and misinformation about China’s development of the international community and within the EU, he listed detailed facts and data, showing the huge contributions of China’s development to the stable recovery and growth of global economy and effectively elaborating the position and proposition of the Chinese government on such issues as the RMB exchange rate, investment environment and raw material export, which proved to be very effective. He reiterated China’s determination of pursuing the road of reform and opening-up, stressed that the two sides should take care of and solve each other’s major concerns and deepen cooperation in various fields and conveyed a powerful signal of promoting the development of China-EU relations and making the EU-China Summit mechanism play a strategic leading role. Following the summit, the two sides issued a joint communiqué.
II. Advocating Asia-Europe Cooperation and Promoting Common Development
Yang said that ASEM is a critical platform of communication and dialogue between the two continents and is composed of the most important countries of Asia and Europe. With the theme of improving the quality of life: achieving greater well-being and more dignity for all citizens, the meeting was held at a critical moment of slow recovery of world economy. With the admission of Russia, Australia and New Zealand, the total number of ASEM members reached 48. Premier Wen exchanged in-depth views and reached important consensus with leaders of different countries on the global economic governance, sustainable development, international and regional issues and the process of Asia-Europe cooperation. ASEM adopted two outcome documents, i.e. ASEM8 - Chairman's Statement and Declaration on More Effective Global Economic Governance, demonstrating the aspiration of Asia and Europe of helping each other overcome difficulties and seeking common development.
As the host country of last ASEM, Premier Wen delivered a speech entitled Promoting the In-depth Development of Asia-Europe Cooperation at the opening ceremony and made remarks during the meeting on the global economic governance, sustainable development and global issues. He called on Asia and Europe to join hands to boost the balanced and sustained recovery of world economy and accelerate the reform of global economic governance and international financial system; advocated Asia and Europe to strengthen coordination on macro policy, prudently choose the strategic timing of exit, pursue the road of sustainable development, promote green growth and alleviate global challenges and security threats. Those opinions and propositions were agreed upon and echoed by many participating leaders. The Chinese side raised four specific initiatives on enhancing Asia-Europe cooperation on transport, water resource research, forest management and vocational education, which was supported warmly by all the participants and written in the outcome documents of the meeting.
During the meeting, Premier Wen, at request, met with French President Nicolas Sarkozy and South Korean President Lee Myung-bak and held brief talks with leaders of Ireland, Czech Republic, Lithuania, Australia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Finland, Britain and India to exchange views on deepening political mutual trust, developing bilateral ties, promoting Asia-Europe cooperation and jointly coping with global challenges including the international financial crisis. He talked with Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan, reiterating that Diaoyu Islands have been Chinese territory since ancient times and pointed out that to maintain and advance China-Japan strategic reciprocal relations serves the fundamental interest of the two peoples. The two sides agreed to step up the non-governmental exchanges and the inter-governmental communications and hold the high-level bilateral meeting at an appropriate time. Those activities effectively pushed forward the development of China’s ties with related countries.
III. Establishing China-Turkey Strategic Cooperative Relations and Making New Breakthrough of Bilateral Cooperation
Yang noted that China and Turkey enjoy a long history of friendly exchanges. Premier Wen’s visit to Turkey is a major event of bilateral relations. Attaching great importance to and placing high expectation for the visit, the Turkish side believes it is a landmark visit and will further consolidate the foundation of bilateral cooperation and turn on a new phase of bilateral relations.
Premier Wen held in-depth talks and reached wide consensus with Turkish leaders. The two sides agreed to establish the strategic cooperative relations and released a joint statement on comprehensively lifting up the bilateral friendly cooperation in various fields, which erected a new landmark in the history of bilateral relations. The visit achieved positive results in the following aspects: first, further deepening the collaboration and cooperation on fighting the “three forces” and jointly maintaining the national reunification and territorial integrity; second, stepping up the pragmatic cooperation. The two sides signed 8 cooperation documents to expand partnership in the fields of trade and economy, railway, power station, communications and infrastructure construction. China will encourage domestic enterprises to increase investment in turkey and is committed to realizing the connectivity of railways between the two countries, strengthening financial cooperation, promoting the sustained and balanced growth of bilateral trade and realizing mutual benefit and win-win outcome at a larger scale and higher level; third, further carrying out cultural and educational exchanges. Both China and Turkey are ancient civilizations. Cultural and educational exchanges help increase the mutual understanding and friendship between the two peoples. Premier Wen held talks with renowned personnel of the Turkish cultural community and met with well-known personnel of the Turkish business community, elaborating to them China’s position on respecting civilization diversity and commitment to building a harmonious world, introducing its ethnic and religious policies and indicating the will of encouraging more Chinese citizens to travel to Turkey. Those proposals and actions helped deepen the mutual respect and understanding between the two countries and their people and strengthen the foundation of public opinion of bilateral strategic cooperative relations; fourth, enhancing international cooperation. The two sides consented to reinforce coordination and cooperation in international affairs, jointly promote regional and world peace, stability and prosperity and make China-Turkey relations a model of cooperation between emerging countries in the new era.
Yang said finally that Premier Wen’s visit is a critical high-level diplomatic activity of China aiming at enhancing mutual trust, dispelling suspicions and expanding mutually beneficial cooperation under new circumstances. Reaching the scheduled goals, the visit will exert important and far-reaching influence on the healthy and stable development of China-EU and China-Turkey relations and China’s friendly cooperation with Eurasian countries.