China attaches high importance to CPEC projects: Foreign Minister Wang

ISLAMABAD: China attaches high importance to its corridor projects with Pakistan, said Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi at a press conference on eve of National Peoples Congress’s annual session.

According to the message received by Chinese embassy here in Islamabad on Tuesday, Wang said China-proposed Belt and Road initiative should not be seen as expansionism, but rather an open initiative. China-Pakistan Economic Corridor project is part of Belt and Road’s plan.

“The initiative is China’s idea, but the opportunities it has created belong to the world,” Wang added. The Belt and Road initiative refers to the Silk Road Economic Belt that links China with Europe through central and western Asia, and the 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road connecting China with southeast Asia, Africa and Europe.

The initiative is a response to the need for development and cooperation among Asian and European countries, and it shows that China is in a rapid transition from a mere participant in international system to a provider of public goods, Wang said.

In building the Belt and Road initiative, China follows the principles of wide consultation, joint contribution and shared benefit, Wang said, noting that it is “an open initiative, not some form of Monroe Doctrine or expansionism.”

Wang said notable progress has been made over the past years in the initiative, citing development in four areas. The major-country diplomacy with Chinese characteristics has been taking shape since Xi Jinping assumed China’s top leadership, Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on Tuesday.

Wang said China, on its good diplomatic tradition, has made active efforts and broken new grounds in its diplomacy under the leadership of Xi who has put forward a series of new thoughts, new ideas and new measures. “We are on the path to major-country diplomacy with Chinese characteristics,” Wang said.

The minister said China’s diplomatic efforts serve to help realise the Chinese dream of national rejuvenation and to build a community of shared destiny for all mankind, via the strategic choice of peaceful development.

“The basic principle is to have win-win cooperation and build a new type of international relations on that basis,” Wang said. “Its main pathway is to establish various types of partnerships and to choose partnership over alliance and dialogue over confrontation.”

“The value we insist on is to adopt a balanced approach to friendship and interest, to uphold justice in international affairs, and to put friendship before interest in state-to-state relations,” he said.

Wang went on to cite a New Year message delivered by Xi who asserted China’s indispensable role on the global stage.“The world is so big and faces so many problems, the international community wishes to hear China’s voices and see China’s solutions, and China cannot be absent,” Wang recited.

China, guided by Xi’s diplomatic thinking and the arrangements made by the central leadership, will play a more active role in contributing to world peace and stability as well as prosperity and progress of mankind, he added.