Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday urged China and Canada to speed up building a new strategic partnership with responsibility to history, people and the world. Xi made the remarks during a meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney in Beijing.
Xi recalled that their meeting last October in Gyeongju, Republic of Korea, opened a new stage in the positive development of Sino-Canadian relations. At that time, the two sides held in-depth discussions on resuming and re-establishing cooperation in various fields and achieved positive results.
He said the healthy and stable development of relations between China and Canada is in the common interest of both countries and contributes to world peace, stability, development and prosperity.
The two sides should promote Sino-Canadian relations on the path of healthy, stable and sustainable development to benefit the people of both countries more, Xi said.
Xi made four proposals on China-Canada relations. First, the two countries should be partners based on mutual respect. In the 55 years since the establishment of diplomatic relations, bilateral relations have gone through ups and downs, providing valuable historical experience and practical lessons.
Despite their different national circumstances, he said, both countries should respect each other's sovereignty and territorial integrity, respect the political systems and development paths they have chosen for themselves, and stick to the right way of coexistence.
Second, China and Canada should be partners in joint development. The essence of Sino-Canadian economic and trade relations is mutual benefit and win-win cooperation that benefits both sides. China's high-quality development and its high level of opening up to the world will continue to bring new opportunities and expand the scope for cooperation between the two countries.
Xi called on the two sides to step up efforts to promote cooperation and reduce the negative list, so as to strengthen the linking of common interests through deeper and broader cooperation.
Third, both countries should be partners of mutual trust. Xi stressed that people-to-people ties are the most fundamental, solid and enduring form of connectivity, and called on the two sides to promote exchanges and cooperation in education, culture, tourism, sports and at the regional level, to facilitate people-to-people exchanges and to strengthen social support.
Fourth, China and Canada should be cooperative partners. In his view, a divided world cannot face the common challenges of humanity. The solution is to promote and implement genuine multilateralism and to support the building of a community with a shared future for humanity.
China is ready to strengthen communication and coordination with Canada within the United Nations, the G20 and the Asia-Pacific Economic Community (APEC) to jointly face global challenges, Xi said.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, in turn, said that Canada and China have a long history of friendly contacts and strong economic complementarity, as a result of which they share extensive common interests and opportunities.
Canada wishes to build a new strategic cooperation with China that will be strong and long-lasting and will bring greater benefits to the people of both countries, he said.
The Canadian side reaffirmed the One China policy and expressed its commitment to work with China in a spirit of mutual respect and partnership to expand and strengthen cooperation in areas such as the economy and trade, energy, agriculture, finance, education and the fight against climate change.
Multilateralism is the foundation of global security and stability, Carney said, and President Xi's Global Governance Initiative makes sense. Canada stands ready to strengthen multilateral coordination with China to promote multilateralism, UN authority and international peace and stability.
After the meeting, the two sides issued a joint statement from the Sino-Canadian leaders' meeting.