Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Russia’s Sergei Lavrov’s met in Guilin. Xinhua English reports that the two sides reached a “strategic consensus” after their talks. Here’s what Wang said:
“No matter how the international situation changes, the comprehensive strategic coordination between the two countries will only strengthen and expand, rather than weakening or shrinking.”
“The two sides should strengthen strategic coordination, firmly fight back against false information regarding China and Russia, beef up cooperation on information security, support each other in maintaining the security of their own governments and systems, and safeguard their legitimate rights and common interests, as well as maintaining stability in the areas around the two countries.”
Wang also proposed possible mutual health code recognition, deepening vaccine cooperation, and partnerships in “5G, big data, the green economy, the internet, climate change, environmental protection and the health industry, working towards the goal of 200 billion U.S. dollars in trade volume.”
They also signed a joint statement on global governance. This is a short but interesting document, which is available in People’s Daily. The document discusses human rights, democracy, international order and multilateralism, and calls for “an urgent need to hold a summit of permanent members of the U.N. Security Council.” Here are the other key points:
It starts with “the global governance system has further become unbalanced, the economic development process has been impacted, new global threats and challenges have emerged one after another, and the world has entered a period of turbulent change.”
The first point talks about human rights. It says that “sustainable development is the foundation” of people to enjoy human rights. It adds that countries should “protect and practice human rights” as per their “national conditions.”
It also calls on all countries to “oppose the politicization of human rights issues, abandon the use of human rights issues to interfere in other countries’ internal affairs and engage in double standards…”
Second point is on democracy, which it says is “one of the achievements of human development.” But adds that “there is no uniform standard for the democratic model. The legitimate right of sovereign countries to independently choose their development path should be respected.”
Point 3 is on international order. It says “Without exception, all countries should firmly maintain the international system with the United Nations as the core and the international order based on international law.”
Here’s more: “We call on the world’s major powers, especially the permanent members of the UN Security Council, to strengthen mutual trust and take the lead in safeguarding international law and the international order based on international law.”
Finally, it calls for countries to “adhere to the principles of open, equal, and non-ideological multilateralism.”