BEIJING, Jan 5 (NNN-XINHUA) – Chinese President, Xi Jinping, held talks with Philippine President, Ferdinand Romualdez Marcos Jr., at the Great Hall of the People, during the latter’s state visit to China yesterday.
Marcos is the first foreign leader hosted by China in 2023. This visit is his first visit to China as president, and his first official visit to a country outside ASEAN.
“This speaks volumes about the close ties between China and the Philippines and the important place that the two countries take in each other’s foreign policies,” Xi told Marcos.
China and the Philippines are close neighbours facing each other across the sea. In their exchanges over a millennium, good faith and mutual assistance have remained the defining feature of bilateral relations and a precious legacy cherished by the two peoples, Xi said.
Forty-eight years ago, the father of President Marcos Jr. and the Chinese leaders of the older generation, keenly grasped the changing situation at that time. They followed the trend of the times and made the historic decision of establishing diplomatic ties between the two countries. Over the past half-century since then, despite changes in the international landscape and the domestic politics of the Philippines, President Marcos Jr. and his family have stayed committed as ever, to promoting the China-Philippines friendship, Xi said.
Xi expressed his hope that this visit will be a journey to retrace history and, more importantly, a journey to plan for the future.
Marcos expressed his pleasure at making a visit that he has long looked forward to. He expressed his hope to prove to the world through this visit that, the Philippines-China relationship is in very good shape and is very important, and that both sides attach great importance to this relationship and are committed to taking it to a new height.
Xi emphasised, despite different national conditions and systems, China and the Philippines have similar goals and paths of development and enjoy vast potential for cooperation.
He said, the two sides need to strengthen exchanges and mutual learning between government agencies, between legislatures, and between political parties, to form greater synergy between their development strategies, seek more complementarity in each other’s modernisation drive, and better serve development and prosperity in both countries.
The two sides have identified agriculture, infrastructure, energy, and people-to-people exchanges as four priority areas of cooperation. They are the main pillars for the China-Philippines relationship of comprehensive strategic cooperation, and more efforts must be made to nurture new growth areas and highlights in these fields, according to Xi.
He called on the two countries to promote cooperation in infrastructure and connectivity, including good implementation of key cooperation projects in “hard” infrastructure, and broader cooperation in “soft” infrastructure, including telecommunication, big data and e-commerce, to boost the overall economic and social development of the Philippines.
The Chinese president said, China will continue to import more quality agricultural and fishery products from the Philippines and support Chinese business investments and cooperation in the Philippines. The two sides need to deepen people-to-people exchanges in all respects, expand cooperation on basic and vocational education, and explore innovation cooperation in such areas as meteorology and aerospace.
Marcos said, the Philippines is ready to work with China to unlock potentials, further enrich bilateral relation, and deepen cooperation in agriculture, infrastructure, energy, people-to-people exchanges, trade, investment, science and technology, and digital economy.
Marcos thanked China for providing valuable support to his country’s fight against COVID-19. He expressed his hope that when the pandemic is over, more Chinese tourists and students will go to the Philippines, and more people-to-people exchanges will take place, to lay a more solid foundation for the long-term development of bilateral relations. He expressed full confidence in the outlook of bilateral relations.
Xi stressed that China and the Philippines, two developing countries in Asia, have their development rooted in a friendly neighbourhood and in the big family of Asia featuring win-win cooperation.
After the talks, the two presidents jointly witnessed the signing of cooperation documents on Belt and Road cooperation, agriculture, fishery, infrastructure, finance, customs, e-commerce and tourism.– NNN-XINHUA
