Your Excellency Governor Wang Yubo,
Your Excellency Vice Governor Yang Bin,
Your Excellencies Ministers and Diplomatic Envoys of Participating Countries,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Friends,

Good afternoon!

It is my great pleasure to be here with you for the 3rd China-South Asia Cooperation Forum. This is the first CSACF held since the outbreak of COVID-19. The theme of this forum, Mutual Assistance for Regional Shared Development, expresses our shared aspiration. As the forum opens, on behalf of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China, I would like to extend my warm congratulations to the forum and a hearty welcome to all participating guests. I also want to express my gratitude to Yunnan Provincial Government for its hard work.

South Asia has a profound history. It is a land of hope and potential and bears importance in China’s neighborhood diplomacy. China and South Asian countries are friendly neighbors and partners. We are all members of a community with a shared future. In the course of striving for peace, stability and development, China and South Asian countries have always stood together, and helped each other in times of adversity, from natural disasters such as earthquakes and tsunamis to global challenges such as the financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic. In recent years, China and South Asian countries have kept expanding cooperation despite the pandemic.

We have worked together to fight the COVID-19. Immediately after the outbreak of the pandemic, China held a video conference on China-South Asia COVID-19 Control and Prevention to share experience with officials and experts from eight South Asian countries. We have launched action plans timely to support South Asia’s Covid-19 response, which included the delivery of more than 32 million doses of vaccines and urgently needed equipment such as ventilators and oxygen concentrators to South Asian countries to help strengthen them protect people’s lives against the virus. We have also encouraged sister provinces and cities, enterprises and private sectors to contribute to the efforts and support livelihood recovery in South Asian countries, composing an exciting new chapter in China-South Asia relations.

We have continued to strengthen economic ties. This year marks the 10th year of the China-South Asia Expo. The Expo has become an important platform for economic exchanges between China, South Asian countries and the world’s other countries and regions. Trade between China and South Asian countries has been boosted despite the headwind of the COVID-19. It amounted to US$187.54 billion in 2021, US$50 billion more than that of 2019 before the outbreak of the pandemic first struck, and almost doubled in last ten years. In the first nine months of this year, trade between China and India totaled US$103.6 billion, up by 14.6% from the same period last year.

We have made an effort to increase our connectivity with South Asian countries. The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) plays an important role in promoting all-round connectivity between China and Pakistan. Joint projects between China and Sri Lanka such as Colombo Port City and Hambantota Port are progressing smoothly. The 8th China-Bangladesh Friendship Bridge has been put into use in Bangladesh. The Pokhara International Airport in Nepal is about to open. The China-Maldives Friendship Bridge has helped achieve what local citizens had long wished for. The Air Corridor of Pine Nuts has established a logistics channel between China and Afghanistan. China will send experts to Nepal this year to conduct a feasibility study for the China-Nepal Cross-border Railway.

We have kept expanding people-to-people exchanges. Since 2020, we have overcome challenges brought by the pandemic and worked together with South Asian countries to launch online training and exchange activities covering all countries of the region in areas of economy and trade, public management, agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry and fisheries and other important sectors of concern. Yunnan Province alone has received nearly 2,000 international students from South Asian countries. Many colleges and universities in Yunnan have offered programs in South Asian languages. Yunnan has opened direct flights to almost all capitals and key tourist cities in South Asian countries.

Ladies and gentlemen, friends,

The 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) has just came to a successful conclusion. The most important outcome of the conference was the election of a new central leadership with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core, which will be the political foundation for the development of the CPC and China in the future. President Xi Jinping emphasized in his report to the 20th National Congress that China is committed to its foreign policy goals of upholding world peace and promoting common development, and to its fundamental national policy of opening to the outside world and pursues a mutually beneficial strategy of opening up. China adheres to the right course of economic globalization and strives to create new opportunities for the world with its own development, which has pointed out the direction of China’s diplomacy in the new era.

Current international and regional landscapes are extremely complex and the world is facing unprecedented challenges. Now, more than ever, we need to work together to build an Asian community with a shared future as well as a community with a shared future for mankind. We must unite as one to pull through the hard times and march towards a better future. China is willing to join hands with South Asian countries to advance the Global Security Initiative and the Global Development Initiative, promote a high quality Belt and Road cooperation, respond to energy, food, and public health crises, advance cooperation in the digital economy and green transformation, and work together to ensure smooth operation of the regional production and supply chains. In our modernization drive, we are willing to open Chinese market to all South Asian countries, transfer technology, share good practices and expand common interests and pragmatic cooperation with all South Asian countries. These efforts will drive inclusive development and growth in the region.

Yunnan is the forefront of the cooperation between China and South Asia, linking China and South Asian countries. The province has established ever closer ties with South Asian and other countries in the world, and is playing an increasingly important role in promoting China-South Asia cooperation. We expect that Yunnan will continue to make new strides in opening up on a larger scale and at a higher level, turn its regional advantages into the driving forces for development and cooperation, and play a bigger role in strengthening the friendly ties between China and South Asian countries.

Robust and stable relations between China and South Asian countries rely on support and participation of all of us. It is expected that we will fully exchange ideas at this forum, form more consensus, and offer insight and solutions to strengthen the continuous development between China and South Asia.

Thank you.