Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met with Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs Mélanie Joly on Friday, calling on both nations to return to their original intention of establishing a strategic partnership and promote the normalization of bilateral relations.
Wang Yi, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, acknowledged the recent difficulties and challenges in China-Canada relations. He emphasized that this is not the situation China wants to see and requires serious reflection from the Canadian side.
“There is no fundamental conflict of interests between China and Canada, and the peoples of our two countries have long engaged in friendly exchanges,” Wang said. “China-Canada relations have historically been at the forefront of China’s relations with Western countries.”
He noted that China and Canada, as two major countries with significant influence in the Asia-Pacific region, share extensive common interests and complementary advantages. “Maintaining and developing bilateral relations serves the fundamental interests of our countries and peoples,” Wang stated.
Wang urged both sides to view each other objectively and rationally, treat each other with mutual respect, handle differences by seeking common ground while shelving differences, and strengthen cooperation based on equality and mutual benefits.
Highlighting that next year marks the 20th anniversary of the establishment of the China-Canada strategic partnership, Wang called on both nations to return to their original intentions, draw lessons from history, honor their commitments to establishing diplomatic ties, and inject momentum into normalizing bilateral relations.
He added that China and Canada should continue to play important roles as engines of economic and trade cooperation and explore dialogue and collaboration in various fields.
Canadian Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly spoke of the longstanding friendship between the Canadian and Chinese peoples. She expressed Canada’s willingness to actively and pragmatically improve and develop relations with China and maintain contact and dialogue.
“Canada is ready to strengthen cooperation in areas such as economy and trade, tourism, drug control, climate change, environmental protection, and people-to-people exchanges to achieve mutually beneficial development,” Joly said.
She affirmed that Canada will continue to abide by the one-China policy.
Wang called on the Canadian side to take concrete actions to facilitate personnel exchanges between the two countries, maintain people-to-people exchanges, and enhance mutual support among the peoples. He emphasized that issues related to Taiwan, Xizang, Xinjiang, and Hong Kong are China’s internal affairs and should not be subject to external interference.
Reference(s):
Chinese foreign minister calls to normalize ties with Canada
cgtn.com
