Wang stresses key role of trust, friendship, cooperation, partnership

Foreign Minister Wang Yi highlighted four keywords: trust, friendship, cooperation, and partnership, as he wrapped up his Eurasia tour on Monday in Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria.

He elaborated on his summary of the trip while jointly meeting the media with his Bulgarian counterpart, Velislava Petrova, after their talks. Over the past week, Wang attended the seventh Summit of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia in Baku, Azerbaijan, and made visits to Croatia, Montenegro and Bulgaria.

Wang highlighted that as a responsible major country, China has always worked for peace. During the CICA summit, he held separate talks with Israeli and Palestinian leaders, met with representatives of other Middle Eastern countries, and heard Balkan leaders' views on the Ukraine crisis and the regional situation.

He stressed that from the Ukraine crisis to the Middle East conflict, resolving conflicts requires trust, and building trust requires communication.

China will fulfill its responsibilities as a major country in bridging the trust deficit and resolving crises and conflicts, and play its due role, he added.

Emphasizing friendship as valuable assets for China and the countries he visited, Wang said that friendly exchanges across time and distance have not only carried forward the spirit of the ancient Silk Road, but have also become vivid practices of mutual learning among civilizations on the Eurasian continent.

He called for greater efforts to continuously carry such bonds forward.

All four countries are participants in and beneficiaries of Belt and Road cooperation, with prime examples including the Gobustan solar power plant in Azerbaijan, the Peljesac Bridge in Croatia, the Bar-Boljare highway in Montenegro and China-Bulgaria energy storage cooperation.

Wang said that China is ready to work with the four countries to consolidate cooperation in traditional areas such as economy and trade, investment and infrastructure, actively align the Belt and Road Initiative with the Middle Corridor, and strengthen cooperation in new quality productive forces such as artificial intelligence and green transition.

He expressed hope that such efforts will inject new impetus into the development and revitalization of each country.

The three Balkan countries he visited this time are all good friends and good partners of China, Wang said, adding that they all hope for the healthy and steady development of China-Europe relations and look forward to strengthening China-Central and Eastern European Countries cooperation.

China is willing to be an open, solid and trustworthy long-term strategic partner for Balkan countries, Wang added, while expressing readiness to work with the European side to adhere to the path of multilateralism, practice the concept of free trade, and jointly achieve win-win cooperation between China and Europe at a new and higher level.

China will take the opportunity of the 15th anniversary of the China-CEEC cooperation mechanism next year to work with countries in the region to advance the cooperation and upgrade its quality, he said.