Chinese President Xi Jinping said on Friday that China is willing to work with Singapore to maintain the overall direction of their friendship and continue to move forward hand in hand on the path of modernization.
LIMA, Nov. 15 (Xinhua) — Chinese President Xi Jinping said Friday that China is willing to work with Singapore to maintain the overall direction of their friendship and continue to move forward hand in hand on the path of modernization.
Xi made the remarks during a meeting with Singapore Prime Minister Lawrence Wong on the sidelines of the 31st Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Economic Leaders’ Meeting.
Xi said China and Singapore are friendly neighbors and important cooperative partners. He added that under the careful guidance of successive generations of leaders of the two countries, bilateral relations have continued to develop, setting a good example of mutual benefit and common development.
Over the past year, bilateral relations have evolved into a high-quality, future-oriented comprehensive partnership, which has charted the course for the future development of China-Singapore relations, Xi said.
The two countries are currently at a critical stage of national development, Xi noted, recalling that next year will mark the 35th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Singapore.
China, he said, is willing to work with Singapore to intensify high-level exchanges, adhere to the principles of honesty and mutual trust and respect each other’s core interests, and is willing to open a new high-quality development chapter, he added.
According to the Chinese president, Singapore’s participation in China’s reform and opening-up started early and has yielded fruitful results in a wide range of areas. He added that Singapore is welcome to seize new opportunities brought by China’s development, continue to build cooperation projects such as the China-Singapore Suzhou Industrial Park, the China-Singapore Tianjin Eco-City , the China-Singapore Strategic Connectivity Demonstration Initiative (Chongqing) and the China-Singapore Guangzhou Knowledge City, to further foster new growth drivers of cooperation in the fields of digital economy, green development and artificial intelligence, and to expand cultural and people-to-people exchanges.
Facing transformations not seen in a century in the world, Xi said, China is willing to strengthen cooperation with Singapore in multilateral arenas such as the United Nations and APEC, and jointly uphold an equal multipolar world. and orderly as well as a universally beneficial and inclusive economic globalization.
For his part, Wong said the two countries have maintained close high-level exchanges and strong momentum in economic relations, recalling that the two sides celebrated the 30th anniversary of the Suzhou Industrial Park.
According to the Prime Minister, relations between Singapore and China are based on mutual respect and trust, and are characterized by mutual benefits. He added that his country fully understands the Chinese government’s position on the Taiwan issue, opposes any form of “Taiwan independence” and firmly upholds the one-China principle.
He noted that his country has always been fully confident in China’s economic development prospects and wishes to participate more in China’s modernization process.
Wong also said his country is ready to take the opportunity of the 35th anniversary celebrations of the establishment of diplomatic relations next year to open a new chapter of a high-quality, future-oriented comprehensive partnership. .
Singapore is willing to work closely with China in multilateral areas such as ASEAN and APEC, oppose protectionism, promote trade and investment facilitation and liberalization, and safeguard stability and the development of the region, he added.
