THE visit of Solomon Islands Prime Minister, Manasseh Sogavare, to China has promoted practical cooperation in various fields between the two nations and taken the relationships to a new height, said China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, Wang Wenbin, at a press briefing in Beijing on Wednesday.
At the invitation of Chinese Premier Li Qiang, the Prime Minister of Solomon Islands, Manasseh Sogavare, is currently on an official visit to China from July 9 to 15, 2023. It is Prime Minister Sogavare’s second visit to China since the two countries established diplomatic ties in 2019.
The spokesman briefed the media that leaders of the two nations have reached extensive and important consensuses and signed a number of bilateral cooperation deals, covering various areas including trade, infrastructure construction, civil aviation, education, police, customs and meteorology.
“President Xi Jinping met with Prime Minister Sogavare and jointly announced the establishment of a comprehensive strategic partnership featuring mutual respect and common development for a new era. Premier Li Qiang held talks and other official events with Prime Minister Sogavare. Chairman [of the National People’s Congress (NPC) Standing Committee] Zhao Leji also met with the Prime Minister. The leaders had in-depth exchange of views on bilateral relations and regional and international issues of mutual interest, and reached broad and important consensus,” Wang said.
The two countries issued a joint statement formulating the major guiding principles and concrete cooperation initiatives for the development of relations between the two countries, where they agreed to jointly promote the high-quality development of the Belt and Road Initiative, join hands to implement the Global Development Initiative (GDI), the Global Security Initiative (GSI) and the Global Civilization Initiative (GCI), and commit themselves to building a community with a shared future for mankind, according to the spokesman.
Prime Minister Sogavare and his delegation will also visit east China’s Jiangsu Province and south China’s Guangdong Province, Wang said.
“Since the establishment of diplomatic relations in September 2019, China-Solomon Islands relations have shown robust momentum. It shows the strong dynamism in China’s ties with countries that newly established diplomatic relations with China. Prime Minister Sogavare’s visit is of special importance.
“ It elevated the China-Solomon Islands relations, broadened practical cooperation in a wide range of areas, deepened people-to-people friendship and took bilateral relations to a new height. “China stands ready to work with Solomon Islands to fully implement the important common understandings and outcomes reached by leaders of the two countries, sustain the sound growth of China-Solomon Islands comprehensive strategic partnership for a new era, and bring more benefits to the two peoples,” Wang said.
The spokesman stressed that China and the Pacific Island nations are developing countries, and that strengthening mutual assistance and deepening South-South cooperation between them is integral to the efforts to build a community with a shared future for mankind.
“When meeting with Prime Minister Sogavare, President Xi Jinping presented China’s ‘four full respects’ policy toward Pacific Island countries, namely China fully respects the sovereignty and independence of Pacific Island Countries, fully respects their will, fully respects their cultural traditions and fully respects their effort to seek strength through unity. “This policy embodies the fundamental guiding principles for China’s relations with Pacific Island countries. No matter how the international landscape may evolve, China will always remain a trustworthy friend and a reliable brother of the Pacific Island countries, and will always stay committed to building an even closer community with a shared future between China and Pacific Island countries,” he said.
