ince the end of March, a flurry of leaders from European, Asian and Latin American countries have made official visits to China to discuss cooperation and common concerns.
Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong kicked off the run of visits, attending the opening ceremony of the 2023 Boao Forum for Asia in Hainan Province on March 30. The next day he held talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing and signed a joint announcement to upgrade the bilateral relations to “an all-round high-quality future-oriented partnership” in which they would seek more cooperation on trade and investment, green and digital economies, food security, financial sector, aviation, and people-to-people exchange.
At almost the same time, Xi met with Malaysian President Anwar Ibrahim and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez. Both leaders told Xi that their countries hope to maintain communications and increase bilateral cooperation. Sánchez told Xi that Spain is willing to help enhance China’s relationship with the EU, the Xinhua News Agency reported.
On April 6, President Xi Jinping held a trilateral meeting of China, France and the European Union (EU) with French President Emmanuel Macron and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in Beijing. “Cooperation and common ground between the two sides [China and EU] outweigh competition and differences,” Xi said at the meeting. President von der Leyen noted that “Decoupling from China is neither in the EU’s interests nor the EU’s strategic choice,” according to a press release of China’s Foreign Ministry.
The same day, witnessed by the leaders of China and France, the two sides signed cooperative agreements covering agricultural food, technology, aviation and civil nuclear energy. Besides, deals worth billions of US dollars to buy Airbus planes and container ships from France were inked. And Airbus announced it will expand its production capacity in China.
On April 7, China and France released a joint statement which reaffirmed their support for a joint statement on preventing nuclear war and avoiding arms races issued by the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, China, France, Russia, Britain and the United States, in January 2022.
From April 12 to 15, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva paid a state visit to China and held talks with President Xi. After their talks, the two presidents witnessed the signing of various bilateral cooperation documents on trade and investment, digital economy, scientific and technological innovation, information and communications, poverty reduction, quarantine, space and other areas, according to China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. They also released a joint statement on deepening the bilateral comprehensive strategic partnership established in 2012. In their joint statement on combating climate change, they commit to “broadening, deepening and diversifying our bilateral cooperation on climate issues,” in various areas such as transition to a sustainable and low-carbon global economy.
Also on April 14, China’s State Councilor and Foreign Minister Qin Gang and German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock co-chaired the sixth round of the China-Germany Strategic Dialogue on Diplomacy and Security in Beijing. Both expressed opposition to “decoupling economies or severing supply chains.”
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