(Photo: People's Daily app)
Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi met the press Friday morning on the sidelines of the second session of the 13th National People's Congress.
Wang is expected to brief journalists from home and abroad on China's foreign policy and answer questions on a wide range of issues.
Here are the highlights:
- The establishment of Xi Jinping Thought on Diplomacy as the fundamental guideline for China's diplomatic work is an epoch-making milestone in the diplomatic theory of New China.
- China and the United States stand to gain from cooperation and lose from confrontation.
- China believes Europe will keep its fundamental long-term interests in mind and pursue a China policy that is independent, consistent and forward-leaning.
- When China and Russia stand together, the world will be a safer and more peaceful and stable place.
- The Belt and Road Initiative is not a "debt trap" that some countries may fall into but an "economic pie" that benefits local population.
- Regional countries must grasp the key to peace and stability in the South China Sea in their own hands.
- Decoupling from China means decoupling from opportunities and the future.
- China sees multilateralism as a cornerstone of the international system and will resolutely uphold a United Nations-centered international system.
- The rights of Latin American countries to develop normal relations with China must be respected.
- China-Africa cooperation has grown into a towering tree that no force can topple.
- There is no "vacuum" in Afghanistan that needs to be filled because that land belongs to the people of Afghanistan.
- China supports relevant company and individual in seeking legal redress to protect their interests and refusing to be "silent lambs".
- China and India should be each other's partner in pursuing their respective dreams and each other's important opportunity for growing respective economies.
- China-Japan relations have got back on track and show a positive momentum toward improved and stronger ties, which fully meets the common interests of the two peoples.
- China will work with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) to build a relationship for the new area.