Friends of Socialist China, Author at Friends of Socialist China

New phase of China-Pakistan Economic Corridor aims to bring new opportunities to local communities and every family

As part of the Beijing activities marking the 75th anniversary of the diplomatic relations between China and Pakistan, the China-Pakistan Political Parties Forum and the Meeting of the CPEC [China Pakistan Economic Corridor] Political Parties Joint Consultation Mechanism, hosted by the International Department of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee (IDCPC), was held on May 24 under the theme “Jointly Building a China-Pakistan Community with a Shared Future in the New Era: Political Parties in Action”.

IDCPC Minister Liu Haixing and Ishaq Dar, Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Pakistan, delivered keynote speeches. The event was attended by about 140 participants, including leaders of 12 major Pakistani political parties, along with representatives from Pakistani think tanks, media and social organisations, and representatives from Chinese ministries, commissions, enterprises, media and academic circles.

The CPC stands ready to work with all major Pakistani political parties to build political consensus, make full use of platforms such as the China-Pakistan Political Parties Forum, and conduct regular consultations on major issues in bilateral relations to continuously consolidate the political foundation for bilateral strategic cooperation. It is necessary to build development consensus, leverage the CPEC Political Parties Joint Consultation Mechanism to advance high-quality practical cooperation and ensure cooperation outcomes benefit all Pakistani people.

Pakistan Federal Minister for Planning, Development and Special Initiatives Ahsan Iqbal, who is also secretary-general of the Pakistan Muslim League – Nawaz (PML-N) said that CPEC, a flagship project of the Belt and Road Initiative, has helped reshape Pakistan’s economic landscape over the past decade and is now moving into a more demanding phase. Its focus is shifting beyond infrastructure-led growth and toward industrialisation, innovation, sustainability, agricultural modernisation, and people-centred development — areas that require stronger planning, policy continuity, and institutional coordination. China’s development offers useful references for that transition.

Syed Hussain Tariq, a senior leader of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), said CPEC 2.0 will require more than project-level cooperation, calling on Pakistani political parties to help build the policy understanding, social support, and political momentum needed for the corridor’s future development. He said that the delegation’s visit to Beijing has offered a closer look at China’s push to develop new quality productive forces and its emphasis on making artificial intelligence serve ordinary people, including farmers. Such exchanges, he said, have offered inspiration for Pakistan as it seeks to turn CPEC into broader gains for society.

Balochistan Governor Jaffar Khan Mandokhail said Pakistan-China cooperation should be measured not only by the projects completed, but also by whether ordinary people can see real changes in their daily lives. Stronger public trust depends on tangible benefits, especially for young people, he said, citing scholarships, support for public universities, and cooperation in digital connectivity, artificial intelligence, and green technology as ways to bring new opportunities to local communities.

Amir Chishti, a senior leader of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (Pakistan) (MQM-P), said CPEC’s future development should place greater emphasis on local empowerment and youth employment. Industrial projects and job creation, he said, can improve living standards, strengthen people’s sense of ownership, and make the corridor more socially sustainable. The second phase of CPEC is therefore not only an economic necessity, but also a social and strategic one, as its success will depend on whether local communities can share in the prosperity it brings.

The question of whether development can reach ordinary families also shaped Malik Ahmad Khan’s view of China’s poverty reduction record. The speaker of the Provincial Assembly of Punjab said China’s success in lifting nearly 800 million people out of poverty is one of the greatest achievements in human history. For Pakistan, cooperation with China should not only be about learning how to build, but also about ensuring that every family truly benefits from development.

On the same day, the Pakistan delegation also met with IDCPC vice-minister Sun Haiyan.

The Pakistan side spoke highly of the fruitful outcomes achieved over the 75 years since the establishment of China-Pakistan diplomatic relations, noting that developing friendly relations with China has long been the cross-party consensus in Pakistan. In recent years, the development of CPEC has given a strong boost to Pakistan’s economic and social development, including the development of Balochistan Province. All political parties in Pakistan hope to continue strengthening inter-party exchanges with the CPC and contribute the strength of political parties to the development of bilateral relations.

Sun also met with the delegation of the Punjab Provincial Assembly of Pakistan led by its speaker Malik Ahmad Khan.

Malik said, China is Pakistan’s most reliable all-weather strategic partner, and friendship with China is a cross-party consensus in Pakistan. CPEC has transformed the lives of the Pakistani people. Punjab hopes to take the opportunity of the Upgraded Version 2.0 of CPEC to deepen exchanges and cooperation with China in agriculture, artificial intelligence, youth and other fields, and ensure the enduring friendship between the two countries from generation to generation.

The following articles were originally published on the website of the IDCPC and by China Daily.

China-Pakistan Political Parties Forum and Meeting of CPEC Political Parties Joint Consultation Mechanism Held

Beijing, May 24th (IDCPC) — China-Pakistan Political Parties Forum and Meeting of CPEC Political Parties Joint Consultation Mechanism, hosted by the International Department of the CPC Central Committee (IDCPC), was held here today under the theme “Jointly Building a China-Pakistan Community with a Shared Future in the New Era: Political Parties in Action”. Liu Haixing, Minister of the IDCPC, and Ishaq Dar, Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Pakistan, attended and delivered keynote speeches. The event was attended by about 140 participants, including Ahsan Iqbal, Secretary-General of the PML-N and Federal Minister for Planning, Development and Special Initiatives, leaders of 12 major Pakistani political parties, as well as representatives from Pakistani think tanks, media and social organizations, and representatives from Chinese ministries, commissions, enterprises, media and academic circles.

Liu noted, over the 75 years since the establishment of diplomatic ties, China and Pakistan have always stood side by side through thick and thin, setting an example of political mutual trust, mutual benefit, win-win cooperation, friendship between the two peoples and multilateral coordination between countries with different ideologies and systems. Since the beginning of the new era, under the strategic guidance of President Xi Jinping and Pakistani leaders, the China-Pakistan all-weather strategic cooperative partnership has been continuously deepened, advancing steadily toward the goal of building a China-Pakistan community with a shared future. Both countries are currently at a crucial stage of development and rejuvenation. The two sides should implement the latest important consensus reached by the two countries’ leaders, seize the opportunities of the new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation, promote the upgrading of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), maintain close communication and coordination on major international and regional hotspot issues, and jointly build a China-Pakistan community with a shared future featuring stronger political mutual trust, closer economic ties, deeper security cooperation and a firmer public opinion foundation, contributing more to safeguarding world peace and stability.

Liu said, political parties should play an active role in providing ideological guidance and building consensus for the building of a China-Pakistan community with a shared future. The CPC stands ready to work with all major Pakistani political parties to build political consensus, make full use of platforms such as the China-Pakistan Political Parties Forum, and conduct regular consultations on major issues in bilateral relations to continuously consolidate the political foundation for bilateral strategic cooperation. We need to build development consensus, leverage the CPEC Political Parties Joint Consultation Mechanism to advance high-quality practical cooperation and ensure cooperation outcomes benefit all Pakistani people. We need to foster security consensus to support deeper cooperation in counter-terrorism, security and defense, and build social consensus to tell stories of China-Pakistan friendship well, expand exchanges on areas such as think tanks, youth, women, and culture, and launch “small and beautiful” livelihood projects to consolidate public support for China-Pakistan friendship.

Dar noted, Pakistan and China share a close, brotherly relationship. Inter-party exchanges are an important part of bilateral relations. Over the past 75 years since diplomatic ties were established, exchanges and cooperation between political parties of both countries have never been interrupted despite changes in the international landscape. Maintaining and developing the Pakistan-China all-weather strategic cooperative partnership is a cross-party consensus in Pakistan. The world today is undergoing profound changes unseen in a century, and China-Pakistan solidarity and cooperation serve as an important stabilizing force in the region. The two countries maintain high-level communication and coordination on international and regional issues. Pakistan highly appreciates the major global initiatives proposed by President Xi Jinping, which reflect his far-sighted vision. Pakistan will firmly support and actively participate in these initiatives. Pakistan stands ready to further consolidate strategic and political mutual trust with China, deepen practical cooperation across all fields, jointly build an upgraded version of the CPEC, promote exchanges at all levels including political parties, legislatures, media and youth, implement the action plan for building a China-Pakistan community with a shared future, and inject more stability and positive energy into the region and the world.

Foreign guests attending the meeting noted, the Pakistan-China friendship has stood the test of international changes and remains unbreakable. A firm policy of developing friendly relationship with China is the cornerstone of Pakistan’s foreign and development strategies. The China-Pakistan Political Parties Forum provides an important platform for both countries to implement the important consensus of the two countries’ leaders, enhance mutual trust and build consensus. The CPEC has provided significant support for improving Pakistan’s economic and social landscape and is a jewel in the Belt and Road Initiative. China’s 15th Five-Year Plan is highly aligned with URAAN Pakistan Program. Pakistan stands ready to strengthen inter-party exchanges and cooperation, promote the alignment of national development strategies through the political party channel, provide political support for the upgraded version of the CPEC, and strive for more outcomes in the Pakistan-China all-weather strategic cooperative partnership to better benefit the two peoples.

Participants also exchanged views on topics including consolidating high-level political mutual trust, deepening high-level cooperation, and promoting high-level people-to-people exchanges.

Sun Haiyan, Vice Minister of the IDCPC, chaired the meeting.

The meeting adopted the Joint Initiative of Chinese and Pakistani Political Parties to Join Hands to Build a China-Pakistan Community with a Shared Future in the New Era.

Party exchanges spur evolution of China-Pakistan cooperation

May 25 (China Daily) – Pakistani political leaders said party-to-party exchanges with China are gaining greater significance as the two countries mark the 75th anniversary of diplomatic ties and seek to advance the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor into a new phase focused on industry, technology, agriculture, and people’s livelihoods.

Speaking at the China-Pakistan Political Parties Forum and Meeting of CPEC Political Parties Joint Consultation Mechanism, they said cooperation with China now goes beyond infrastructure and trade to include lessons from China’s long-term planning, policy continuity, poverty reduction, and people-centered development.

The event, hosted by the International Department of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, was attended by about 140 people from China and Pakistan. Liu Haixing, head of the International Department of the CPC Central Committee, said the two countries’ political parties should deepen exchanges, strengthen strategic coordination, and build a consensus on development.

China would work with Pakistan to upgrade CPEC with high standards and bring more tangible benefits to the Pakistani people through practical cooperation, he said.

Pakistan’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar said party-to-party exchanges have been a key pillar of bilateral cooperation over the past 75 years, helping the relationship withstand changes in the international environment and domestic political cycles.

The all-weather strategic cooperative partnership enjoys cross-party support in Pakistan, he said, adding that both countries attach importance to the people, social development, and economic growth. China’s achievements, Dar said, have been underpinned by policy consistency, the hard work of its people, and zero tolerance for corruption.

Federal Minister for Planning, Development and Special Initiatives Ahsan Iqbal said CPEC, a flagship project of the Belt and Road Initiative, has helped reshape Pakistan’s economic landscape over the past decade and is now moving into a more demanding phase.

Its focus, he said, is shifting beyond infrastructure-led growth and toward industrialization, innovation, sustainability, agricultural modernization, and people-centered development — areas that require stronger planning, policy continuity, and institutional coordination.

China’s development offers useful references for that transition, Iqbal said, adding that Pakistani political parties, provincial governments, and public institutions can deepen exchanges with their Chinese counterparts under the CPEC framework on poverty alleviation, digital governance, urban planning, public services, and local development.

Syed Hussain Tariq, a senior leader of the Pakistan People’s Party, said CPEC 2.0 will require more than project-level cooperation, calling on Pakistani political parties to help build the policy understanding, social support, and political momentum needed for the corridor’s future development.

Tariq said that the delegation’s visits to Beijing have offered a closer look at China’s push to develop new quality productive forces and its emphasis on making artificial intelligence serve ordinary people, including farmers. Such exchanges, he said, have offered inspiration for Pakistan as it seeks to turn CPEC into broader gains for society.

Stronger public trust depends on tangible benefits, especially for young people, he said, citing scholarships, support for public universities, and cooperation in digital connectivity, artificial intelligence, and green technology as ways to bring new opportunities to local communities.

Amir Chishti, a senior leader of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan, said CPEC’s future development should place greater emphasis on local empowerment and youth employment. Industrial projects and job creation, he said, can improve living standards, strengthen people’s sense of ownership, and make the corridor more socially sustainable.

The second phase of CPEC is therefore not only an economic necessity, but also a social and strategic one, he said, as its success will depend on whether local communities can share in the prosperity it brings.

The question of whether development can reach ordinary families also shaped Malik Ahmad Khan’s view of China’s poverty reduction record. The speaker of the Provincial Assembly of Punjab said China’s success in lifting nearly 800 million people out of poverty is one of the greatest achievements in human history, achieved not through slogans, but through generations of persistent and practical effort.

Malik said his visit to Beigou village showed how a once underdeveloped community had achieved prosperity within a single generation. For Pakistan, cooperation with China should not only be about learning how to build, but also about ensuring that every family truly benefits from development, he said.

Ahmad Mujtaba Chaudhary, a member of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, said his first visit to China replaced a childhood image shaped by films with the reality of a country that had eliminated extreme poverty.

That achievement was not a cold statistic, but “a living testimony of a civilization”, he said, adding that China’s development showed what people can achieve when they work together toward a shared goal.

Sun Haiyan Meets with a Delegation of Political Parties of Pakistan

Beijing, May 24th (IDCPC) — Sun Haiyan, Vice-minister of the International Department of the CPC Central Committee, met here today on the morning with a delegation of political parties of Pakistan.

Sun said, since the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Pakistan 75 years ago, the two countries have withstood numerous trials in history and forged an ironclad friendship. In recent years, under the strategic guidance of General Secretary Xi Jinping and Pakistani leaders, the China-Pakistan all-weather strategic cooperative partnership has advanced steadily. China stands ready to take the 75th anniversary of diplomatic relations as an opportunity to work with all political parties in Pakistan to deliver on the important consensus reached by the two countries’ leaders, enhance exchanges and interactions, enable China-Pakistan cooperation to benefit more people, and promote the building of an even closer China-Pakistan community with a shared future in the new era.

The Pakistani side spoke highly of the fruitful outcomes achieved over the 75 years since the establishment of China-Pakistan diplomatic relations, noting that developing friendly relations with China has long been the cross-party consensus in Pakistan. In recent years, the development of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) has given a strong boost to Pakistan’s economic and social development, including the development of Balochistan Province. It is expected that the two countries will seize the opportunity of the 75th anniversary of diplomatic relations to further deepen exchanges and cooperation in infrastructure, new energy, digital economy, agriculture and fisheries, as well as education and youth affairs. All political parties in Pakistan hope to continue strengthening inter-party exchanges with the CPC and contribute the strength of political parties to the development of bilateral relations.

Sun Haiyan Meets with a Delegation of the Punjab Provincial Assembly of Pakistan

Beijing, May 24th (IDCPC) — Sun Haiyan, Vice-minister of the International Department of the CPC Central Committee, met here today with a delegation of the Punjab Provincial Assembly of Pakistan led by Malik Muhammad Ahmad Khan, Speaker of the Punjab Provincial Assembly.

Sun noted, over the 75 years since the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Pakistan, bilateral relations have maintained high-level development under the strategic guidance of the two countries’ leaders. The CPC stands ready to take the 75th anniversary of China-Pakistan diplomatic relations as an opportunity to work with Pakistan to implement the important consensus reached by the leaders of the two countries, and promote exchanges and cooperation between relevant Chinese provinces and Punjab in agriculture, artificial intelligence, youth and other fields. She also emphasized the CPC’s readiness to maintain close contacts with political parties in Pakistan including the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, deepen mutual learning, and contribute to building an even closer China-Pakistan community with a shared future in the new era.

Malik said, China is Pakistan’s most reliable all-weather strategic partner, and friendship with China is a cross-party consensus in Pakistan. Under the wise leadership of General Secretary Xi Jinping, China has maintained long-term political stability and lifted nearly 100 million rural people out of absolute poverty, creating a remarkable “China model”. The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) has transformed the lives of the Pakistani people. Punjab hopes to take the opportunity of the Upgraded Version 2.0 of the CPEC to deepen exchanges and cooperation with China in agriculture, artificial intelligence, youth and other fields, and ensure the enduring friendship between the two countries from generation to generation.

China and Serbia to jointly promote the four global initiatives

China and Serbia agreed two important joint statements and concluded a raft of cooperation agreements during President Aleksandar Vučić’s May 24-28 state visit.

The Joint Statement by the People’s Republic of China and the Republic of Serbia on Continuing to Advance the Building of a China-Serbia Community with a Shared Future in the New Era said that the two heads of state had agreed that building a community with a shared future for the new era is a strategic choice made by both sides based on each other’s development paths and the will of the people. Although China and Serbia differ in history, culture, and national conditions, they have always firmly defended national sovereignty and territorial integrity, always upheld fairness and justice, always stood on the right side of history, always upheld the spirit of openness and cooperation, are committed to people’s happiness and national prosperity, are committed to upholding the purposes and principles of the UN Charter, and to achieving the noble cause of peace and development for humanity and building a community with a shared future for humankind.

China highly appreciates Serbia’s achievements in economic and social development and improving people’s livelihoods, supports Serbia’s efforts to maintain national stability and social harmony, and is pleased to see Serbia smoothly advance the “Serbia 2030” development strategy, achieve its established goals on schedule, and promote Serbia’s development and people’s well-being.

China also welcomes Belgrade’s hosting of the 2027 World Expo and is willing to actively participate, contributing to the successful hosting of this important event and strengthening cooperation with Serbia in areas of mutual concern such as culture and economy.

Serbia, for its part, wishes the Chinese people the full success of building a modern socialist country under the leadership of the Communist Party of China and the smooth achievement of the second centenary goal. It supports China in comprehensively advancing the construction of a strong nation and the great cause of national rejuvenation through Chinese-style modernisation.

Among the other key points agreed are:

Both sides reaffirm their firm support for each other’s safeguarding of national sovereignty, territorial integrity, and national dignity, emphasise respect for the rights of their peoples to independently choose their own development paths and social systems, support each other on issues involving each other’s core interests and major concerns, and oppose external forces interfering in other countries’ internal affairs under any pretext.

Serbia reiterated that developing friendly relations with the People’s Republic of China is one of the main pillars of the country’s foreign policy and underlined its firm support for China on all its core issues of major concern.

China reiterated its opposition to imposing any proposals on the status of Kosovo and Metohija. Relevant parties should, within the framework of UN Security Council Resolution 1244, reach mutually acceptable solutions through dialogue and consultation. In this process, Serbia’s sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity must be fully respected. China supports the Republic of Serbia’s efforts to seek a peaceful compromise through dialogue with representatives of the Pristina Temporary Institution, calling for the implementation of the agreements reached in the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue to effectively safeguard the religious and cultural heritage security of Serbia’s southern provinces of Kosovo and Metohija.

China understands Serbia’s efforts to become a member of the European Union and welcomes Serbia’s policy of developing friendly relations with regional countries and promoting regional peace and cooperation.

Serbia supports China’s efforts to maintain peace and stability in the South China Sea and agrees that, in accordance with relevant bilateral agreements and the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea, the direct parties should peacefully resolve territorial disputes and maritime rights disputes through friendly consultation and negotiation.

Both sides agreed to deepen exchanges and cooperation in counterterrorism, prevention of “colour revolutions,” security for Belt and Road projects, and security for large-scale events, jointly combat various transnational crimes, continue joint police patrols and SWAT (tactical strength and endurance) joint exercises and training, and jointly improve law enforcement and security operation capabilities

They both highly appreciate the positive role of the Belt and Road Initiative in promoting the economic and social development of Serbia and China and are willing to continue deepening and expanding cooperation in trade, investment, transportation, energy, information, technology, and humanities within the framework of the initiative.

They also fully affirmed the importance of the China-Europe Railway Express between China and Serbia in promoting economic and trade cooperation between them and are willing to jointly take pragmatic measures to promote infrastructure connectivity, ensure the safety of China-Europe Railway Express transport corridors, and improve transportation quality and efficiency.

Both sides highly praised the achievements of their cooperation in technological innovation and will further strengthen pragmatic cooperation in space technology, artificial intelligence, embodied intelligence, digital economy, and new energy, jointly cultivating new quality productive forces.

Serbia places great importance on its membership in the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, a bank initiated by China that enables access to concessional loans and the implementation of priority projects.

Both sides are willing to continue deepening cooperation in exchanges among young scientists, joint research, and technology transfer, support research institutions and enterprises in jointly building joint laboratories, science parks, and incubators, promote the transformation of scientific and technological achievements, and strengthen the integration of innovation ecosystems.

Both sides are willing to strengthen technological exchanges in the aerospace field, explore cooperation projects, promote practical cooperation, encourage close exchanges between enterprises and research institutions from both sides, achieve complementary advantages and mutual benefit, and advance space technology to serve economic and social development.

Both sides are willing to strengthen financial cooperation, re-sign bilateral local currency swap agreements, encourage financial institutions of both countries to use RMB swap funds to support trade and investment activities between enterprises from both countries, promote the further expansion of bilateral local currency settlement by Serbia’s RMB clearing bank, and facilitate trade and investment between the two countries.

Both sides attach great importance to cooperation in the field of e-commerce, continuously advancing the implementation of the “China-Serbia E-commerce Cooperation Memorandum of Understanding” signed in 2024, and are willing to study and promote compatibility of e-commerce rules and standards, expanding cooperation in online and offline national pavilions. China welcomes Serbia to participate in the “Silk Road E-commerce Benefits the World” series of events.

Both sides highly praised China-Serbia achievements in education, sports, healthcare, tourism, and local exchanges, and expressed willingness to further deepen vocational education cooperation and strengthen digital education and AI-empowered educational cooperation; Strengthen exchanges and cooperation in the health sector on bilateral and multilateral platforms, and promote the building of a community of human health and wellness; Deepen tourism cooperation and continuously improve the convenience of personnel exchanges; Encourage more provinces and cities of both countries to engage in friendly exchanges and promote positive results in sister city relations between China and Serbia.

A separate Joint Statement by the People’s Republic of China and the Republic of Serbia on Jointly Promoting the Implementation of Four Major Global Initiatives emphasises the contemporary value and global significance of promoting the implementation of the Global Development Initiative, Global Security Initiative, Global Civilisation Initiative, and Global Governance Initiative.

Serbian President warmly received on first state visit to China

Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić paid a state visit to China from May 24-28.

On the afternoon of May 25, President Xi Jinping held talks with his Serbian counterpart at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.

President Xi noted that during his state visit to Serbia in 2024, the two sides jointly opened a new chapter of building a China-Serbia community with a shared future in the new era. Over the past two years, efforts to build this community have produced positive outcomes, which have not only brought benefits to the two peoples, but also set a fine example for state-to-state relations. The Chinese and Serbian nations have both experienced sufferings and glories and forged a persevering and tenacious character. Both nations are dedicated to pursuing independence and defending national dignity and understand the importance of promoting peaceful development and upholding fairness and justice. The two sides need to strengthen exchanges, consolidate mutual trust, deepen cooperation and extend mutual support, and work together to embark on a bright path toward a shared prosperous future, and bring China-Serbia comprehensive strategic partnership to new heights.

President Xi emphasised that the China-Serbia ironclad friendship is unique and underpinned by deep historical logic and a strong practical foundation. The two sides should continue giving each other firm support. China supports Serbia in following a development path that fits its national conditions and stands ready to strengthen experience sharing on governance with Serbia. The two sides need to strengthen the connection between their development strategies, work for the sound implementation of the mid-term action plan for Belt and Road cooperation, and further advance cooperation in areas such as transport and energy infrastructure. Facing a new wave of technological revolution and industrial transformation, the two sides need to expand cooperation in emerging areas such as artificial intelligence, digital economy, green energy and advanced manufacturing, and identify new areas of growth.

In a changing and turbulent world, China and Serbia need to continue stepping up coordination and collaboration in international affairs, practice true multilateralism, and make unremitting efforts to promote an equal and orderly multipolar world and a universally beneficial and inclusive economic globalisation and advance the building of a community with a shared future for humanity.

President Vučić extended congratulations on China’s success in formulating and launching its 15th Five-Year Plan for economic and social development and expressed his confidence that under the leadership of President Xi, China will make greater achievements in its development. Since Serbia and China established a comprehensive strategic partnership, relations between the two countries have made remarkable progress, and cooperation has deepened across the board. The Serbian and Chinese peoples enjoy an ironclad friendship. The Serbian people will never forget China’s support for Serbia in safeguarding its independence and sovereignty and in pursuing its own path of development.

Serbia looks forward to working with China to deepen high-quality Belt and Road cooperation, advance major projects, intensify people-to-people exchanges, and achieve more tangible results in Serbia-China relations. China, as a major country, has always treated smaller countries with equality and respect, and abided by international law, setting a good example for the world. Serbia supports the major global initiatives put forward by President Xi and stands ready to continue strengthening multilateral coordination with China to safeguard international peace, fairness and justice.

After the talks, the two presidents witnessed the signing of more than 20 cooperation documents in the areas of political relations, economy and trade, science and technology, education, legal affairs and culture.

The two sides issued a joint statement on continuously building a China-Serbia community with a shared future in the new era and a joint statement on advancing the implementation of the four global initiatives. We will report on these in a subsequent post.

In the evening of May 25, President Xi held a presentation ceremony to award the Friendship Medal to President Vučić at the Great Hall of the People.

Two railways, two systems: HS2 and the case for socialism

In the following article, originally published in the Morning Star, our co-editor Carlos Martinez uses the unfolding HS2 fiasco to illustrate the stark difference between the British and Chinese political economies, and to make the case for socialism.

On May 19, it was announced that Britain’s high-speed rail project will cost some £103 billion and will not carry passengers for at least another decade. Carlos sets these figures against China’s record: at roughly £736 million per mile, HS2 track is around 25 times more expensive than Chinese high-speed rail, and is being built at a fraction of the pace. China laid 31,000 miles of high-speed rail in 22 years; Britain may manage 140 miles in 19.

The explanation, Carlos argues, is not technical but political. Where China builds through vertically integrated state-owned enterprises under coordinated national planning, Britain’s project has been handed to a fragmented patchwork of private contractors, each adding its margin – the predictable result of four decades of privatisation and deindustrialisation.

The HS2 fiasco is not just a story about one botched railway project. It is a story, ultimately, about the fallacy of neoliberalism, about the consequences of four decades of deindustrialisation and privatisation, about the consequences of treating public infrastructure as an opportunity for private extraction rather than as a public good.

And it is a story about how, as Deng Xiaoping put it in 1984 (at the start of capitalism’s neoliberal era), “the superiority of the socialist system is demonstrated, in the final analysis, by faster and greater development of the productive forces than under the capitalist system.”

It was announced on May 19 that Britain’s ill-fated HS2 high-speed rail project is set to cost three times more than originally budgeted, and will not start running for at least another decade.

Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander stated that, following a review of the project, the estimated final cost will be £103 billion. What’s more, this only covers the first phase, between Old Oak Common (in west London) and Birmingham Curzon Street — a distance of 140 miles.

To put the figures in perspective: £103bn divided by 140 miles works out at around £736 million per mile. By comparison, the average cost of a mile of high-speed rail in China is in the region of £30m. HS2 track is therefore around 25 times more expensive than Chinese HSR.

The contrast in pace is if anything even more striking. Construction on HS2 began in 2017. If we see a train running in 2036, the pace of construction will have been a smidgen north of seven miles per year.

The rise of China and the imminent US exit: What must the Arabs do?

In the following article for the Palestine Chronicle, veteran Palestinian-American journalist Ramzy Baroud reflects on the deeper significance of Donald Trump’s recent state visit to China, and on what the accelerating decline of US hegemony means for the Arab world.

Baroud argues that Trump’s visit will be remembered as the moment Washington tacitly acknowledged Beijing’s ascendancy as a global superpower. Approaching Xi Jinping “not from a position of absolute global dictation, but through a lens of defensive pragmatism”, the US appeared less as an undisputed hegemon than as “a major power among equals”. He draws an instructive contrast with Nixon’s 1972 visit: where China was then a relatively isolated, largely agrarian society, today it is the world’s largest economy by purchasing power parity, a hub of global supply chains, and a leader in artificial intelligence and other frontier technologies.

Nowhere, Baroud writes, is American decline more visible than in the Middle East, where decades of disastrous military campaigns have eroded Washington’s credibility. He situates the US-Israeli war on Iran not as a return to regional dominance but as the “volatile spasms of a fading hegemony”, comparing it to the failed 1956 tripartite aggression against Egypt.

Meanwhile China, free of a colonial legacy and itself a survivor of Western imperialism, advances through economic integration and development
rather than military domination, and is fully committed to the principle of sovereign equality.

The challenge Baroud poses to the Arab world is one of political clarity, sovereignty and unity – and of action, above all, towards the freedom of Palestine.

US President Donald Trump’s state visit to China will go down in history as the day the United States finally acknowledged Beijing’s ascendancy as a global superpower. That acknowledgment does not need to be articulated in a formal statement; it can be clearly read in the subtext of diplomatic behavior, global perception, and shifting media coverage.

During the summit, Trump’s delegation—accompanied by prominent American corporate leaders—engaged with President Xi Jinping not from a position of absolute global dictation, but through a lens of defensive pragmatism. This transactional approach focused on securing bilateral trade commitments and preventing catastrophic economic friction.

The spectacle of the leader of the Western world navigating Beijing’s terms, while actively managing domestic economic anxieties, signals a profound shift. The traditional American posture of undisputed global hegemon has transformed into that of a major power among equals, seeking stable terms of co-existence with an unignorable rival.

The moment is comparable only to Richard Nixon’s historic 1972 visit to Beijing, though the circumstances are entirely different. Back then, the US’s aim was to exploit the Sino-Soviet split and gain leverage over the Soviet Union in exchange for the normalization of diplomatic ties.

China and Pakistan reaffirm rock solid friendship and common striving for peace

Pakistan Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif paid an official visit to China, May 23-26, at the invitation of his Chinese counterpart Li Qiang. The visit marked the 75^th anniversary of the two countries’ diplomatic relations. Pakistan was one of the first non-socialist countries to establish diplomatic ties with the People’s Republic of China.

On the afternoon of May 25, President Xi Jinping met with Prime Minister Sharif at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.

President Xi noted that over the past 75 years since the establishment of diplomatic relations, China and Pakistan have enjoyed mutual understanding, trust and support, and forged an unbreakable traditional friendship. Their strategic mutual trust and practical cooperation have strongly promoted the development of both nations. No matter how the international landscape may evolve, China will always place priority on the development of China-Pakistan relations in its diplomacy with neighbouring countries.

President Xi shared his pleasure in receiving a letter from Pakistani students studying at Tianjin University, in which they expressed their aspiration to become builders of cooperation, promoters of exchanges, and guardians of friendship between China and Pakistan. He said he was truly heartened to see that the cause of China-Pakistan friendship has dedicated young successors. The two sides should accelerate the development of an even closer China-Pakistan community with a shared future in the new era and deliver more outcomes from their all-weather cooperation to better benefit the two peoples, contribute to regional peace and stability, and set a fine example for building a community with a shared future with neighbouring countries.

The Chinese leader further stressed that China firmly supports Pakistan in safeguarding its independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity. The two sides should make solid progress in implementing the Action Plan to Foster an Even Closer China-Pakistan Community with a Shared Future in the New Era, advance both major signature projects and “small and beautiful” livelihood programs, and deepen all-round cooperation in areas such as agriculture, industry, artificial intelligence, and talent cultivation. China appreciates Pakistan for demonstrating a proactive spirit and mediating for peace to return to the Middle East. The two sides should maintain close communication and coordination, jointly oppose unilateralism and the Cold War mentality, and promote an equal and orderly multipolar world and an economic globalisation that is universally beneficial and inclusive.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said that President Xi is a great friend of the Pakistani people and also a great friend of all peace-loving humanity. Under President Xi’s strong leadership, China has achieved remarkable economic progress and provided strength for maintaining world peace and building a multipolar world. The ironclad friendship between Pakistan and China was forged personally by the elder generation of leaders. It is growing ever stronger and is next to none. Pakistan firmly upholds the one-China principle and stands resolutely with China on all issues concerning China’s core interests. Pakistan will always be China’s good friend and good partner.

He added that Pakistan appreciates China for supporting its mediation of the negotiations between the United States and Iran. The four propositions put forward by President Xi on the Middle East situation provide a guiding framework for peace in the region. Pakistan stands ready to coordinate closely with China to jointly contribute to world peace and stability.

Prime Minister Sharif also met with Premier Li Qiang on the same day.

Li said that China stands ready to further advance the construction of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and push forward major connectivity projects between the two countries. China, he added, always prioritises relations and cooperation with Pakistan in its neighbourhood diplomacy, and is willing to stand in even closer solidarity with Pakistan to carry forward traditional friendship, strengthen mutual support, continuously expand practical cooperation, and see the building of a China-Pakistan community with a shared future yield more fruitful outcomes.

Senior Chinese leader visits Slovakia and Albania

Li Hongzhong, a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and vice chairman of the National People’s Congress (NPC) Standing Committee, paid a visit to Slovakia from May 18-20.

During his visit, Li respectively met with President Peter Pellegrini, Prime Minister Robert Fico and National Council Speaker Richard Rasi. He also held talks with Deputy Speaker of the National Council Tibor Gaspar.

Li said that under the strategic guidance of Chinese President Xi Jinping and the Slovak leaders, the development of the China-Slovakia strategic partnership has entered a new stage. Both sides should continue to consolidate political mutual trust, deepen traditional friendship, and firmly support each other’s core interests and major concerns, building up the foundation of bilateral relations.

China is willing to strengthen strategic alignment with Slovakia, deepen and expand practical cooperation in trade and investment, new energy, digital economy and other fields, promote high-quality joint construction of Belt and Road projects and China-Central and Eastern European Countries cooperation, and enhance people-to-people and cultural exchanges, bringing more benefits to both peoples.

The Slovak side welcomed more Chinese enterprises to invest and do business in Slovakia and said the government will strengthen exchanges between both legislative bodies and promote the Slovakia-China strategic partnership to be more dynamic.

Li’s delegation then visited Albania from May 20-22 and met with Parliament Speaker Niko Peleshi and Deputy Prime Minister Albana Kociu, held talks with Deputy Parliament Speaker Klodiana Spahiu, and exchanged views with the Albanian-China Friendship Association.

Li said that China appreciates Albania’s important support for the restoration of China’s lawful seat in the United Nations and is willing to work with Albania to implement the important consensus reached by the leaders of both countries, consolidate the foundation of political mutual trust, explore potential for practical cooperation, enhance the friendship between the two peoples, strengthen exchanges between the legislative bodies of both countries, and continuously inject new vitality into China-Albania relations. (On October 25, 1971, the then Socialist Albania led 17 UN members in proposing General Assembly Resolution 2758 which expelled the representatives of the authorities on Taiwan and restored China’s rightful place in the world body.)

The Albanian side said that it values the traditional good relations between the two countries, firmly supports the one-China principle, and is willing to share the opportunities of China’s development.

In the 1960s and 1970s, China sent more than 6,000 experts and assisted in more than 140 projects in Albania, providing outstanding support for the country’s economic and social development. Some of the projects are still in operation today.

China takes important step towards hukou reform

On Friday 22 May, China’s State Council announced a significant reform to the country’s social insurance system: migrant workers will now be able to enrol in social insurance in the cities where they work, regardless of where their household is officially registered. It is the latest step in the gradual reform of the hukou household registration system – and it extends coverage to hundreds of millions of internal migrants, including the growing ranks of gig-economy workers.

The hukou system is widely misunderstood in the West, where it is typically presented as a simple instrument of repression. In the following article, our co-editor Carlos Martinez explains what the hukou system is, traces the decade-long process of reform of which the latest announcement is part, and explains the system’s historical function: combined with collective land ownership, it allowed China to urbanise on a staggering scale, moving over 600 million people from countryside to city, without producing the vast slums that have ringed the hypercities of the capitalist Global South.

Carlos then sets out why reform has now become both possible and necessary, and draws a pointed contrast with the West, where the gig-economy giants are fighting to strip their workers of basic protections even as China moves to extend them. The dismantling of hukou barriers, he argues, ultimately reflects a system oriented towards human welfare rather than private profit.

On Friday 22 May, China’s State Council announced a significant reform to the country’s social insurance system: migrant workers will now be able to enrol in social insurance programs in the cities where they are employed, regardless of where their household is officially registered.

The new measures also commit the authorities to refining the mechanisms for transferring and continuing social insurance entitlements as workers move between regions – a long-standing headache for one of the most mobile workforces on earth. According to census data released the same day, China’s migrant population has now surpassed 357 million.

For decades, the household registration (hukou) system tied access to public services to a person’s place of registration, restricting the provision of healthcare, schooling and social insurance in the cities where migrant workers resided. The new policy severs that link for social insurance, extending coverage to the hundreds of millions of internal migrants – including the ranks of gig-economy workers: ride-hailing drivers, delivery couriers, and other platform-based workers.

Part of a longer process

This is not a sudden break but the latest step in a process of gradual reform of the hukou system stretching back more than a decade.

In 2014, the Central Leading Group for Comprehensively Deepening Reform set a target of resettling 100 million rural migrants in urban areas by 2020. Since then, at least 18 provinces have relaxed their registration restrictions.

The National Development and Reform Commission has progressively removed hukou limits in cities with populations under three million, eased registration in cities of three to five million, and optimised the points-based systems that govern access in the megacities.

The current reform directly advances commitments made at the July 2024 third plenum of the 20th Central Committee, and a joint Party–State Council document last year explicitly called for the “full removal of hukou restrictions on participation in social insurance at the place of employment”. Friday’s announcement delivers on that promise.

What is the hukou system?

The household registration system in its modern form was introduced in 1958, albeit China has had some form of migration regulation in place for over two thousand years. Every citizen is assigned an urban or rural registration status, which historically determined their access to a bundle of social welfare provisions – subsidised housing, education, healthcare, pensions and unemployment insurance – in their place of registration.

Crucially, those entitlements did not travel with the worker. A rural-registered migrant working in Shanghai or Shenzhen could spend decades contributing to the urban economy while remaining formally entitled to services only in a home village hundreds of miles away.

How the hukou system prevented chaos and slums

It is impossible to understand the hukou system without understanding what it prevented. When Reform and Opening Up began in the late 1970s, 83 percent of China’s population lived in the countryside. Over the following four decades, more than 600 million people moved from rural areas to the cities, such that the urbanisation rate has now hit 68 percent.

In almost every other developing country, migration on this scale has produced vast slums: the hypercities of the Global South – Mumbai, Nairobi, Lagos, São Paulo, Dhaka, Cairo, Mexico City – are ringed by sprawling informal settlements, and across the Global South slum growth has consistently outpaced urbanisation since the 1970s.

China has managed to avoid this. Walk through Shanghai or Beijing – each with over 20 million inhabitants – and the pervasive slums and homelessness common to comparably-sized cities elsewhere are conspicuously absent. The hukou system was central to this achievement: by regulating the pace and direction of migration, it prevented a chaotic flood into a handful of megacities whose services and housing could not have coped.

Equally important was land reform. Because the socialist land system was never privatised – rural land remains collectively owned, with use rights allocated to households – rural migrants never lost their entitlement to land and housing in their home villages. This created an immensely important structural buffer. When the 2008 financial crisis cost some 30 million migrant workers their jobs practically overnight, they were not cast into urban destitution; they returned to their home villages where they had land and housing.

China today has a home-ownership rate exceeding 90 percent – a figure inconceivable in the slum-ringed cities of capitalist development.

Why reform is necessary

If the hukou system was well adapted to an era of scarcity and rapid industrialisation, the conditions that made it expedient are now changing, and a system that once aided China’s development risks becoming a brake on it.

First, there is the obvious question of equality and fairness. Nearly 70 percent of China’s population now lives in cities, but only some 45 percent hold urban hukou, representing a gap of over 100 million people. The system has reinforced a two-tier urban society and produced painful social costs, most visibly the millions of “left-behind children” raised by grandparents while their parents work in distant cities. For a socialist country committed to common prosperity, this has long been a contradiction that the government has been working to resolve.

Second, there is an important economic factor. Migrant workers denied access to urban services have held back on consumption, saving heavily against the risk of illness or unemployment. As China attempts to stimulate greater domestic consumption, freeing up that suppressed spending power is a strategic priority. Extending social insurance to where people actually work directly serves the goal of expanding the middle income group and boosting domestic demand.

Third, there are the demographic and developmental imperatives. China’s future depends on a highly educated workforce, which means universal access to quality schooling regardless of registration. And as the country confronts a falling birth rate, lifting the burdens of education and healthcare costs from young working families is one lever available to encourage them to have children.

Finally, the reform serves the construction of a unified national market – removing barriers to the free flow of labour and talent across the country.

The hukou system performed a real historical function: it allowed China to urbanise on an unprecedented scale without the slums, destitution and social breakdown that have accompanied capitalist development across the Global South. That it is now being progressively dismantled is not a repudiation of that achievement but a recognition that China has entered a new stage of development, one in which the equalisation of social provision, rather than the regulation of scarcity, is the order of the day.

Diverging paths

The contrast with the trajectory of the Western capitalism is stark. While China is moving to extend social insurance to – and improve pay and conditions for – its couriers, drivers and other platform workers, the dominant trend in the West runs in precisely the opposite direction.

In Britain and the US, the gig-economy giants have waged a sustained legal and political campaign to deny their workers the status of employees altogether – the better to avoid paying for sick leave, pensions, holiday pay or even the minimum wage.

Uber fought all the way to the UK Supreme Court in 2021 in an unsuccessful attempt to classify its drivers as self-employed; Deliveroo riders were denied collective bargaining rights by the same court in 2023; and in California, the gig companies spent over $200 million on a 2020 ballot measure, Proposition 22 – the most expensive in the state’s history – specifically to exempt themselves from treating their drivers as employees.

Where the logic of a socialist system, even amid the complexities of a vast developing economy, pushes over time towards the extension of social protection to all working people, the logic of capital pushes relentlessly in the other direction: towards the erosion of those protections in the name of profit.

The steady dismantling of hukou barriers is, in the final analysis, a reflection of a system oriented towards human welfare rather than private accumulation.

CPC delegation visits Egypt and Tanzania

As reported by the Xinhua News Agency, Liu Haixing, Minister of the International Department of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee (IDCPC), led a CPC delegation to visit Egypt and Tanzania from May 17 to 20.

On May 20, the Dialogue between the CPC and the six sister parties in Southern Africa was held at Tanzania’s Mwalimu Julius Nyerere Leadership School. Centered on the theme “strengthening solidarity and cooperation, advancing side by side on the path to modernisation”, it was attended by Liu Haixing and leaders of the six sister parties, including Asha-Rose Migiro, Secretary General of Tanzania’s Chama Cha Mapinduzi Party (CCM); Ludmila Maguni, Secretary for Foreign Relations of the Central Committee of the Mozambique Liberation Front (FRELIMO); Nomvula Mokonyane, First Deputy Secretary-General of the African National Congress (ANC) of South Africa; Sophia Shaningwa, Secretary General of the South West Africa People’s Organisation (SWAPO) Party of Namibia; Gonçalves Muandumba, Secretary of Organisation and Mobilisation of the Central Committee of the People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA); and Munyaradzi Machacha, National Political Commissar of the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF).

Liu noted that, over the years, the CPC and the six sister parties have forged an unbreakable brotherhood in the fight against imperialism and colonialism and blazed a distinctive path of cooperation in the journey of development and rejuvenation. Against a complex and grave international landscape, further deepening solidarity and cooperation between the CPC and the six sister parties meets the shared aspirations of the people of China and the six Southern African countries and aligns with the global trend of unity and self-strengthening among the Global South. The CPC stands ready to work with the six sister parties to implement the important consensus reached between General Secretary Xi Jinping and the top leaders of the six parties, draw wisdom and strength from their shared struggles, carry forward fine traditions, and remain good comrades for mutual learning, good partners for common development, good brothers for mutual support, and good friends for solidarity and coordination. No matter how the international situation evolves, the CPC will work with the six sister parties to practice true multilateralism, advance the implementation of the four major global initiatives, and jointly safeguard international fairness and justice and build a community with a shared future for humanity.

Leaders of the six sister parties in Southern Africa noted, over the 70 years since the establishment of diplomatic relations between African countries and China, China has been a staunch supporter and reliable cooperation partner of Africa. They spoke highly of the remarkable development achievements made by China under the CPC’s leadership, and commended China for firmly safeguarding the interests of developing countries on international and regional issues. Facing mounting internal and external pressures, many African political parties are thinking and exploring future development paths. They believed that political liberation without economic prosperity is incomplete and unsustainable. Africa is embracing a new wave of pursuit of economic independence. Africa’s modernisation drive shares core commonalities with China’s path to modernisation.

Global view of China grows more positive

The following brief article from China Daily discusses a recent report noting that China is viewed increasingly positively across much of the world. This tallies with multiple recent surveys, which indicate that even in the West, China is seen more favourably than it was previously.

The article includes comments from Friends of Socialist China co-editor Carlos Martinez:

China’s increasingly positive image is a reflection of its concrete achievements: lifting hundreds of millions of its own people out of poverty, building productive infrastructure throughout the Global South, leading the global green energy transition, and consistently advocating for peace, multipolarity, sovereignty and win-win cooperation. Young people in particular are increasingly positive about China, particularly its orientation toward peace and its commitment to green tech. This is feeding into a ‘Chinamaxxing’ phenomenon that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago.

As to why Europe has a more negative view of China than the Global South does, Carlos remarks that “this reflects the political crisis of a continent caught between its inherited Atlanticist commitments and a rapidly changing world. But even there, the US now scores far worse than China – a striking measure of how unilateralism in this era has unsettled even Washington’s closest allies”.

China is viewed positively across much of the world, a recent study has said, with experts attributing it to the country’s governance achievements.

China receives net positive ratings — measured as the percentage of positive views minus negative ones — across most regions surveyed, including the Americas, Asia-Pacific, the Middle East and North Africa, and sub-Saharan Africa, according to the report, commissioned by a Europe-based nonprofit organization in partnership with Nira Data, published earlier in May.

Global country perceptions, part of the report, are based on responses from a sample of 46,600 people across 85 countries and regions, conducted between March 19 and April 21.

Regionally, particularly favorable perceptions of China were found in the Middle East and North Africa, as well as sub-Saharan Africa.

“China’s increasingly positive image is a reflection of its concrete achievements: lifting hundreds of millions of its own people out of poverty, building productive infrastructure throughout the Global South, leading the global green energy transition, and consistently advocating for peace, multipolarity, sovereignty and win-win cooperation,” Carlos Martinez, cofounder of the Friends of Socialist China platform, told China Daily.

China and Russia agree joint statement on Further Strengthening Comprehensive Strategic Cooperation and Deepening Good-Neighbourliness and Friendly Cooperation

Among the 40 agreements concluded during Russian President Vladimir Putin’s May 19-20 successful state visit to China the most comprehensive was the joint statement on Further Strengthening Comprehensive Strategic Cooperation and Deepening Good-Neighbourliness and Friendly Cooperation.

At a little over 11,700 words, it covers a huge range of bilateral and international issues testifying to the close coordination, consensus and complementarity that has been painstakingly built between the world’s two main anti-hegemonic powers.

Some of the salient points in the joint statement are as follows:

This year marks the 30th anniversary of both sides’ declaration of their determination to develop a strategic partnership of cooperation for the 21st century based on equal trust and equality, and the 25th anniversary of the signing of the China-Russia Treaty of Good-neighbourliness, Friendship and Cooperation.

The Treaty of Good-Neighborliness, Friendship and Cooperation inherits and promotes the long-standing tradition of China-Russia exchanges, follows recognised principles and norms of international law, and lays a long-term legal foundation for the development of contemporary China-Russia relations. It not only fully demonstrates the long-standing good-neighbourly friendship and the willingness to develop intergenerational friendship between the peoples of both countries, but also concretely embodies the common values of peace, development, fairness, justice, democracy, and freedom for all humanity.

The basic principles of bilateral cooperation established in the China-Russia Treaty of Good-Neighbourliness, Friendship and Cooperation have stood the test of time and still hold significant practical significance today. The bilateral relationship is characterised by non-alignment, non-confrontation, and non-targeting of third countries.

Both sides agreed to extend the treaty in accordance with Article 25 of the Treaty of Good-Neighbourliness, Friendship and Cooperation, and will continue to abide by the principles and spirit of the treaty.

Both sides will continue to consolidate the traditional friendship between the two militaries, enhance mutual trust in the military field, improve cooperation mechanisms, expand joint exercises and joint sea and air patrols, strengthen coordination under bilateral and multilateral frameworks, jointly address various risks and challenges, and jointly safeguard global and regional security and stability.

Both sides emphasised the need to protect memorial facilities for martyrs who died in World War II within each other’s territories, and will continue cooperation in the protection and management of these facilities, jointly promoting the search and extraction of martyrs and missing remains, commemorating and honouring heroes, and improving the foundations of relevant laws and regulations.

Both sides highly appreciated the further deepening of coordination and cooperation under the tripartite mechanism involving Mongolia, as well as the prospects for the China-Mongolia-Russia Economic Corridor and will actively promote the implementation and cooperation of key joint projects under the framework of this corridor. Both sides agreed to assist Mongolia in joining the regional integration process, including the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation.

Both sides will further strengthen cooperation in the protection of wildlife such as the Amur tiger, Amur leopard, giant panda, golden snub-nosed monkey, and migratory birds, and enhance the exchange of management experiences in nature reserves.

Both sides agreed to strengthen close cooperation in environmental protection and water resources. Continue to deepen cooperation in cross-border water and hydrological flood reporting and flood control to ensure flood safety in border areas between the two countries. Continue to deepen practical cooperation in water quality protection across boundary water bodies, maintain cooperation on emergency liaison for sudden ecological environmental incidents, promote the construction of a network of transboundary nature reserves, protect biodiversity, strengthen cooperation in waste management, and continue to advance nature conservation cooperation under the framework of the G20, BRICS, Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, and the Northeast Asia subregional environmental protection cooperation program.

Both sides agreed to deepen pragmatic cooperation between China and the Eurasian Economic Union under the framework of the “Agreement on Economic and Trade Cooperation between China and the Eurasian Economic Union,” and to continuously advance the alignment of the Belt and Road Initiative and the Eurasian Economic Union development plan in areas such as transportation, logistics, transportation, digitalisation, e-commerce, policy coordination and elimination of trade barriers, food, and agricultural product trade. Both sides believe that this dialogue mechanism is crucial for promoting trade cooperation, facilitating deepening economic integration and connectivity in the Asia-Pacific and Eurasian regions, and advancing the joint development of the Belt and Road Initiative and the establishment of the Greater Eurasian Partnership. Both sides are willing to further upgrade and expand the institutional arrangements for economic and trade cooperation between China and the Eurasian Economic Union and its member states.

China and Russia issue joint statement on advocating global multipolarity and new types of international relations

One important outcome of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s May 19-20 state visit to China was the adoption of a Joint Statement on Advocating Global Multipolarity and New Types of International Relations.

Without criticising any country by name, it sets out a democratic program for a new world fundamentally at odds with the arbitrary and aggressive paradigm followed by the imperialist and hegemonist powers headed by the United States.

The statement begins by noting that: “Both the People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation have long histories and civilisations, are founding members of the United Nations and permanent members of the Security Council, and are important forces in a multipolar world, playing a constructive role in maintaining the global balance of power and improving the international relations system.”

Noting that since the end of World War II, the international landscape and balance of power have accelerated their evolution, it goes on:

“On one hand, the wave of decolonisation and the end of the Cold War have greatly increased the number of sovereign countries worldwide, making the international community more diverse and complex. The development level and international influence of countries in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, and the Caribbean have surged, and the number of regional and transregional organisations has surged, covering areas such as international politics, security, economy, and cultural cooperation, with their roles in global affairs continuously growing.”

However: “Some countries arbitrarily manipulate international affairs, impose their interests worldwide with colonial-era thinking, and restrict the development of other sovereign nations [but this has] completely failed.”

Rather: “The international relations system of the 21st century is undergoing profound transformation, gradually evolving toward multipolarity and new types of international relations.”

But: “The international situation is becoming increasingly complex, with unilateral coercion, hegemonism, bloc confrontation, and neo-colonialism surging against the currents. International law and basic norms of international relations are being continuously trampled, making it even harder for many global governance institutions to coordinate actions between states and mediate international disputes and to operate effectively. World peace and development face new risks and challenges, with the danger of fragmentation and regression to the law of the jungle within the international community.”

The statement then makes a number of calls:

Adhere to openness, inclusiveness, and mutually beneficial cooperation. We should respect the sovereignty, territorial integrity, and uniqueness of each country, and respect the development paths and models chosen independently by each sovereign nation. There is no universal development path in the world, nor is there any country or nation superior to others. In the complex international landscape, natural differences between countries should not become obstacles to developing equal, mutually beneficial, and mutually respectful interstate relations. Unilateral means to solve common problems, any form of hegemonic or coercive policies, are unacceptable.

Adhere to safety, equality, and indivisibility. Against the backdrop of growing risks and challenges facing humanity, building a more united international community means that one country’s security cannot come at the expense of another’s security. All sovereign states enjoy equal rights to ensure their own security. We should pay attention to the legitimate security concerns of all countries, strengthen coordination on security issues, resist bloc confrontation and ‘zero-sum games,’ oppose the expansion of military alliances, hybrid wars, and proxy wars, and advocate for the construction of a balanced, effective, and sustainable new global and regional security architecture.

Adhere to promoting the democratisation of international relations and improving the global governance system. All countries and national groups are free to choose partners and international cooperation models. Hegemonism is unacceptable and should be resisted. No country or group of countries may control international affairs, dominate the fate of other countries, or monopolise development advantages. Upholding multilateralism is the main approach to solving complex global problems, and its role should be strengthened to prevent the UN’s authority from being weakened. Reforms of the United Nations and other multilateral institutions should serve the interests of all humanity and continuously enhance the representation and voice of developing countries in the international system. Rules established by a few countries cannot replace universally accepted international laws. A major power should earnestly shoulder its special responsibilities and missions, strengthen self-restraint, and refrain from abusing its own strength.

Uphold world civilisation and value diversity. All human civilisations are equal and possess unique value, with no superiority or inferiority. No civilisation’s moral and spiritual system should be regarded as exclusive or superior to other civilisations.

Both sides agreed that they will continue to develop a shared vision for building a multipolar world and a more just new type of international relations.

China stands with Cuba against illegal indictment of Raúl Castro

On 20 May, the Trump administration unsealed a federal criminal indictment in Miami against 94-year-old Raúl Castro – former president of Cuba and one of the historic leaders of the Cuban Revolution – along with five other Cuban officials. The indictment, on charges including conspiracy to kill US nationals and the destruction of aircraft, was a calculated political provocation at a moment of maximum US pressure on the island.

China’s response, the following day, was unambiguous: a public rebuke calling on Washington to “stop wielding the big stick of sanctions and judicial measures against Cuba”, and a reaffirmation of Beijing’s firm support for Cuban sovereignty.

In the following article, our co-editor Carlos Martinez situates the indictment in the wider US regime-change campaign, examines China’s diplomatic and material solidarity with Cuba, and traces the six-decade partnership that gives it weight.

On Wednesday 20 May the Trump administration unsealed a federal criminal indictment in Miami against 94-year-old Raúl Castro, former President of Cuba and one of the key historic leaders of the Cuban Revolution, alongside five other Cuban officials. The charges include conspiracy to kill US nationals, four counts of murder, and two counts of destruction of aircraft.

The pretext given is the 1996 downing by Cuban air force MiGs of two aircraft operated by the Miami-based exile group “Brothers to the Rescue”.

The indictment is a transparent political provocation. As the Cuban government made clear in its statement on the subject, “Brothers to the Rescue” was not a humanitarian organisation but a counter-revolutionary terrorist operation founded by long-time CIA-linked Cuban exile José Basulto, which had violated Cuban airspace at least 25 times between 1994 and 1996, despite formal complaints filed by Cuba with the US State Department, the Federal Aviation Administration, and the International Civil Aviation Organisation.

The downing of this terrorist group’s aircraft was nothing more than the defence of Cuban sovereign airspace – an act of self-defence explicitly protected by the United Nations Charter, the 1944 Chicago Convention on International Civil Aviation, and the established principles of air sovereignty and proportionality.

Meanwhile, the hypocrisy is breathtaking. The same US government accusing Cuba of murder has, in recent months, killed nearly 200 people and destroyed 57 vessels in international waters of the Caribbean and the Pacific, on obviously false allegations of drug trafficking. These are, in the precise legal terms used by the Cuban government, “extrajudicial executions” under international law, and murders under US law itself. The accuser is the world’s most prolific extrajudicial killer.

The Castro indictment is not an isolated legal proceeding. It is the latest move in an open campaign of regime change. The Trump administration has tightened the six-decade economic blockade into a full-scale genocidal energy embargo, threatening tariffs against any country selling oil to Cuba and cutting fuel imports by an estimated 90 percent. Blackouts of up to 22 hours a day are the result, with all the disastrous impact on people’s lives that might be expected.

Trump himself has openly stated that the goal is to bring down the Cuban government “by the end of this year”, and asked at the press conference about the indictment whether he was considering a military kidnapping (as carried out against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and First Combatant Cilia Flores), replied only that he “didn’t want to say”. South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham, a highly influential (albeit utterly deranged) figure in the Trump camp, went on record after the start of the US-Israel war on Iran saying that “Cuba’s next”.

China’s response

On 21 May, asked by Cuba’s Prensa Latina news agency about the indictment, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun told reporters that Beijing “firmly opposes” illegal unilateral sanctions that lack any basis in international law or authorisation from the UN Security Council, and stands “against abusing judicial means and exerting pressure on Cuba under any pretext by external forces”.

The United States, he continued, “should stop wielding the big stick of sanctions and judicial measures against Cuba, and stop threatening Cuba with force at every turn”. China, he affirmed, “firmly supports Cuba in safeguarding its national sovereignty and national dignity, and opposes external interference”.

To condemn US aggression in such a direct and unequivocal way, in response to a question from a Cuban journalist, in front of the world’s press, is a significant diplomatic statement. It is a direct rebuke of the US government’s illegal and immoral campaign against Cuba, and a clear declaration of solidarity with Cuba’s Revolutionary Government.

This comes just a day after Presidents Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin called out “treacherous military strikes against other countries, the hypocritical use of negotiations as cover for preparing such strikes, the assassination of leaders of sovereign states, the destabilisation of the domestic political situation in these states and the provocation of regime change, and the brazen kidnapping of national leaders for trial”.

Such strident denunciations of the wars on Iran and Lebanon, the assassination of Sayyid Ali Khamenei, the kidnapping of Nicolás Maduro and Cilia Flores and the indictment of Raúl Castro represent a shift towards a more assertive tone, and send a clear signal that the US’s criminal and imperial conduct will not be tolerated.

A solidarity built over six decades

China-Cuba relations go back many decades. In September 1960, Cuba became the first country in the Western Hemisphere to establish diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic. Fidel Castro always identified strongly with the Chinese Revolution, describing China in 2004 as “the most promising hope and the best example for all Third World countries”.

Visiting China in 1994, Fidel famously said: “If you want to talk about socialism, let us not forget what socialism achieved in China. At one time it was the land of hunger, poverty, disasters. Today there is none of that. Today China can feed, dress, educate, and care for the health of 1.2 billion people. I think China is a socialist country, and Vietnam is a socialist nation as well. And they insist that they have introduced all the necessary reforms in order to motivate national development and to continue seeking the objectives of socialism.”

Xi Jinping has, in turn, called the China-Cuba relationship “an exemplary case of solidarity and cooperation between socialist countries”. Cuba joined the Belt and Road Initiative in 2018 and the Belt and Road Energy Partnership in 2021.

In recent years, that partnership has become a lifeline. China has committed to building 92 solar parks in Cuba by 2028 – with a combined capacity of roughly 2 gigawatts, equivalent to Cuba’s entire current fossil-fuel generation. More than half are already online. Cuba’s solar share of electricity generation has risen from 5.8 percent to over 20 percent in twelve months – in the words of energy analyst Dave Jones, “one of the most rapid solar revolutions” anywhere in the world.

In January 2026, Xi Jinping personally approved $80 million in emergency financial aid for electrical equipment, alongside a donation of 60,000 tons of rice. Beijing has also delivered 10,000 photovoltaic systems for isolated homes, maternity wards and clinics. Chinese Ambassador to Cuba Hua Xin summarises the relationship as one of “firm support under all circumstances”.

The Trump administration’s indictment of Raúl Castro is a calculated provocation, choreographed to threaten and humiliate at a moment of maximum US pressure. It will not succeed. Cuba’s Revolutionary Government has reaffirmed its “unwavering decision to defend the Homeland and its Socialist Revolution”.

China – the world’s largest economy by purchasing power, its largest manufacturer, and the most important member and partner of the Global South – continues to stand squarely behind Cuba and against hegemonism in all its forms.

Pakistan Prime Minister to visit China as the two countries celebrate 75 years of diplomatic ties

Chinese President Xi Jinping and his Pakistani counterpart Asif Ali Zardari exchanged congratulatory messages on May 21, marking the 75th anniversary of diplomatic ties between their two countries.

Xi said that China and Pakistan are good friends and all-weather strategic cooperative partners linked by mountains and rivers and sharing weal and woe. Since the establishment of diplomatic relations 75 years ago, no matter how the international situation has changed, the friendship between China and Pakistan has always remained rock-solid and unbreakable.

For his part, Zardari said the Pakistan-China all-weather strategic cooperative partnership has stood the test of time and become a steadfast pillar for regional peace, stability and development. Pakistan sincerely appreciates China’s steadfast support for Pakistan in safeguarding its sovereignty and territorial integrity and promoting its economic and social development, said Zardari, adding that his country will continue to support China on issues concerning its core interests and further elevate the Pakistan-China friendship to new levels.

On the same day, Chinese Premier Li Qiang and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif also exchanged congratulatory messages.

Also on May 21, the Chinese Foreign Ministry announced that at the invitation of Premier Li Qiang, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif will pay an official visit to China from May 23-26.

Spokesperson Guo Jiakun said at a regular press briefing that Sharif’s visit is an important high-level exchange between China and Pakistan on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of their diplomatic relations. During the visit, President Xi Jinping will meet with Sharif and Premier Li Qiang will hold talks with him.

Noting that China and Pakistan are good friends and all-weather strategic cooperative partners, Guo said that over the past 75 years, China-Pakistan relations have stood all tests and remained rock-solid, setting a fine example for state-to-state relations. He added that in recent years, under the strategic guidance of leaders of the two countries, the two sides have maintained close high-level exchanges and steadily advanced practical cooperation, yielding fruitful outcomes in the high-quality development of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).

Meanwhile, Cai Dafeng, vice chairman of the Standing Committee of China’s National People’s Congress (NPC), led a delegation to visit Pakistan from May 20-22 at the invitation of the National Assembly of Pakistan.

During his stay, Cai met with President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, National Assembly Speaker Sardar Ayaz Sadiq and Senate Chairman Yusuf Raza Gilani, and attended the commemorative activities marking the 75th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Pakistan together with the four Pakistani leaders.

The Trump-Xi summit: stalemate or stabilisation?

In the following article, which was originally published in the Morning Star, Jenny Clegg assesses the recent state visit to China by US President Donald Trump and argues that, “for all the ceremony and general bonhomie there seemed in the end to be little for Trump — who asked for the meeting in the first place — to show for it.”

Referring to Trump’s talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Jenny notes that: “Xi’s opening remarks were then apposite, warning in no uncertain terms about the dangers of war as he referenced the Thucydides Trap — the scenario when a rising power and a declining power go to war — the subject of much debate recently in US foreign policy circles.

“Xi then drew the red line on Taiwan, his eyes on Trump in an effort to impress upon him the importance of laying off the island. He, in effect, was telling Trump: don’t make a mess of relations with China like the mess you’ve made in the Middle East.”

Having reviewed the steadily mounting US hostility in the nine years since a US president – also Donald Trump – visited China, Jenny concludes:

“Meanwhile China’s popularity with the American people has grown even as Trump’s approval rating drops: 72 per cent of the US public now say they don’t see China as an enemy.”

Referring to the large number of top US capitalists who accompanied the president, she notes: “The fact that Trump, fielding the better part of the top echelons of the US ruling class, came away with so little is remarkable.

“More than anything he was looking for a big economic win to take back to the US electorate — but discussions about China’s purchase of Boeing aircraft and those millions of tons of soya beans are only ‘preliminary.’ Such was the disappointment that as the summit ended Boeing’s shares fell.”

China’s view that the Hormuz strait should reopen and Iran should not have nuclear weapons is nothing new and whilst Trump’s threats and wars may continue and even intensify elsewhere, greater stability in relations between the world’s two major powers may also create breathing space in other areas, easing pressure on countries to choose between the US and China. Jenny concludes that:

“As space for manoeuvre among Global South countries increases, their growing autonomy will keep driving the multipolar trend forward.”

The eyes of the world were on Beijing and the much-hyped Xi-Trump meeting last week, but for all the ceremony and general bonhomie there seemed in the end to be little for Trump — who asked for the meeting in the first place — to show for it.

It is of course a good thing that the leaders of the two largest economic powers met, and Trump’s invitation to Xi to visit the White House in September – which Xi accepted — indicates a certain degree of stability amid the international chaos he has wreaked elsewhere. So rather than pass by on the event as much ado about nothing, it is worth taking stock.

President Putin makes historic 25th visit to China

Testifying to the exceptionally close friendly relations between the People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation, Russian President Vladimir Putin paid a state visit to China, May 19-20, at the invitation of his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping. It was the Russian leader’s 25^th visit to China since he first assumed the presidency of his country.

President Putin arrived in Beijing at night on May 19 and was warmly welcomed at the airport by Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who is also a member of the political bureau of the central committee of the Communist Party of China. The substantive business of the visit was conducted throughout an intense May 20.

On the morning of May 20, President Xi Jinping held talks with President Putin at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. The talks were held consecutively in small and large group formats and the two presidents agreed to further extend the China-Russia Treaty of Good-Neighbourliness and Friendly Cooperation.

According to the report published by the Chinese Foreign Ministry, President Xi noted that this year marks the 30th anniversary of the China-Russia strategic partnership of coordination and the 25th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Good-Neighbourliness and Friendly Cooperation Between China and Russia. The signing of the treaty established by law the institutional foundation of long-term good-neighbourliness, friendship and comprehensive strategic coordination. Since then, the bilateral relationship has achieved leapfrog development. China-Russia relations have come this far step by step, “precisely because we have kept deepening political mutual trust and strategic coordination with unyielding tenacity, expanded all-round cooperation with a drive to always scale new heights, and defended international justice and fairness and advanced the building of a community with a shared future for humanity with unflappable resolve. Under the current international situation, as permanent members of the UN Security Council and important major countries in the world, China and Russia should take a strategic and long-term perspective, drive the development and revitalisation of our respective countries through comprehensive strategic coordination of even higher quality, and work to make the global governance system more just and equitable. The two sides should deepen multilateral coordination, further increase coordination and collaboration on multilateral platforms such as the UN, the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organisation), BRICS and APEC, unswervingly uphold the postwar international order and the authority of international law, unite the Global South, and steer the reform of the global governance system in the right direction.”

President Putin said that Russia-China cooperation is an important stabilising factor in the turbulent international environment. Russia is ready to continue to strengthen multilateral coordination with China, support China in hosting the APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting, jointly enhance the standing and influence of the SCO, strengthen BRICS unity and coordination, uphold the authority of the UN, advocate diversity of civilisations, and make the international order more just and equitable.

Following the talks, the two heads of state signed and issued the Joint Statement Between the People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation on Further Strengthening Comprehensive Strategic Coordination and Deepening Good-Neighbourliness and Friendly Cooperation and witnessed the signing of 20 cooperation documents in such areas as economy and trade, education, and science and technology.

Cuban commentary on the Xi Trump summit

In the following article, which is reproduced from Resumen Latinoamericano and the Global South, veteran Cuban journalist Luis Manuel Arce Issac writes that:

“Trump’s visit to China highlighted Xi Jinping’s rise and the United States’ global decline in the economy, technology, and international leadership.”

According to Arce: “There is a consensus that… in a year and a few months as president in his second term, the Republican leader set his country back on all fronts with his failed goal of weakening China… China’s strategy has extraordinarily outperformed the US strategy due to a degree of effectiveness that ideologues and political and economic leaders allied with Trump never foresaw or imagined: while they filled the world with wars of all kinds to achieve their goals through brute force, Xi Jinping did the opposite by prioritising peace and mutually beneficial collaboration, with surprisingly positive results.”

He concludes: “While Xi Jinping builds factors of balance and dialogue, Trump destroys what little the US had left and speaks on equal footing with only three countries: China, Russia, and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea—all of which are also nuclear powers.

“Outside that narrow framework, it treats even its European allies with contempt and points its guns and missiles at the heads of others or surrounds them with its destroyers and aircraft carriers.

“In short, the US is a power in decline, while China is on the rise.”

Luis Manuel Arce Issac is a Cuban journalist with more than six decades of uninterrupted professional experience. He served as a war correspondent in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and Nicaragua, and as a correspondent for the Prensa Latina news agency in countries such as Venezuela, Uruguay, Spain, and Mexico. He served as spokesperson for Commander Ernesto “Che” Guevara when Guevara was Cuba’s Minister of Industry and was part of the group of journalists who covered the overseas trips of the historic leader of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro. He has received awards and honours for his journalistic work in Cuba, Vietnam, Venezuela, and Mexico.

Communist youth see Chinese socialism in action

In the following article, which was originally published by People’s World, Cameron Harrison reflects on what he learned from his participation in the recent delegation to China of young cadres from communist parties in Europe and North America. Cameron represented the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) on the visit.

Noting that the delegation partially overlapped with the state visit of US President Donald Trump, he writes:

“Traveling as a delegate of the Communist Party USA alongside 20 other young communists from 18 countries across Europe and North America, I spent two weeks abroad in a youth delegation organised by the International Department of the Communist Party of China (IDCPC). With an average age of just 27, and unlike the billionaires in Washington, our delegation didn’t come to trade diplomatic pleasantries and attempt to secure zero-sum corporate market access. We came to witness what they call ‘socialism with Chinese characteristics,’ a living alternative to the decaying, financialised capitalism that currently grips the Western world… While the Trump administration enforces punishing tariff wars that squeeze workers in my city of Detroit with inflation and layoffs, China’s socialist project is demonstrating what becomes possible when a society is built around the needs of a multi-ethnic working class rather than the dictates of the billionaire class.”

He further illustrates this by reference to China’s achievements in poverty alleviation, putting AI in the service of the working class, and the revolution in green development:

“China is currently executing the most aggressive green transition in human history. Here, the planet is treated as a valuable and essential productive force with economic, social, and cultural value.”

Revolutionary history also formed an important part of the trip:

“Between rides on the country’s whisper-quiet autonomous metro systems and ultra-high-speed bullet trains, our delegation spent long hours tracing the historical roots of these contemporary accomplishments of the CPC. We walked the mountain pathways of Yan’an, the revolutionary city where Mao and the CPC Central Committee headquartered from 1937 to 1947 to organise the resistance against Japanese aggression.

“We stood in the dwellings of Liangjiahe Village, where a young Xi Jinping spent seven years doing hard manual labour alongside local peasants… It was here that the now General Secretary solidified his understanding of the ‘mass line’—the core communist practice of consulting the masses, distilling their practical needs, and translating those needs into state policy.”

Cameron also writes about coming across a statue depicting Mao alongside Edgar Snow—the courageous American journalist who braved the Kuomintang blockades in the 1930s to tell the true story of the Chinese Revolution to Western readers in his seminal book, Red Star Over China.

Ho Chi Minh’s birthday marked in China

May 19 was the 136^th birthday of the Vietnamese revolutionary leader Ho Chi Minh.

As part of its coverage of the anniversary, the newspaper Nhân Dân reported on an interview given by Chinese cultural and historical scholar Xie Chaode regarding Ho’s activities in the Chinese regions of Guangxi, Guangzhou and Yunnan during a crucial preparatory stage of the Vietnamese revolution. It writes that at a time when Vietnam’s revolutionary movement was still in its infancy, young patriot Nguyen Ai Quoc, later known as Ho Chi Minh, lived and operated under extreme hardships, constantly relocating to evade persecution while secretly mobilising and rallying revolutionary forces. These years of revolutionary activities in China were decisive in shaping both his political ideology and strategy for liberating Vietnam.

In particular, Guangxi then served as a gathering place for overseas Vietnamese and various Chinese revolutionary groups. There, Ho forged ties with patriotic organisations, absorbed revolutionary theory, and studied Chinese revolutionary experience before adapting those lessons to Vietnam’s struggle for independence.

Li Jie, a tour guide at Nanyang Hotel Memorial House in Liuzhou, Guangxi, said that during President Ho Chi Minh’s stay there, he produced a body of literary works and poems that reflected resilience, determination, and an unbroken will under hardships, all while operating in secrecy. He later relocated to Guangzhou where he ran political and military training courses and educated core personnel for Vietnam’s revolutionary cause.

Xie stressed that President Ho Chi Minh’s activities in China not only made critical contributions to Vietnam’s revolutionary struggle but also embodied the traditional friendship cultivated between the two peoples across multiple historical periods.

Nhân Dân also reported that on May 19, the Vietnamese Consulate General in Hong Kong organised a flower-offering ceremony in tribute to President Ho Chi Minh at the Tai Kwun heritage site, a historic place closely associated with his revolutionary activities, including the founding of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) and his detention in Hong Kong in the early 1930s.

Vietnamese Consul General in Hong Kong and Macao Le Duc Hanh said that every year on May 19, the Consulate General joins members of the Vietnamese community in in visiting Tai Kwun, formerly Victoria Prison, where President Ho Chi Minh was arrested and imprisoned during his revolutionary activities.

She said the annual activity recalls a pivotal chapter in Vietnam’s revolutionary history while reminding younger generations of the sacrifices, hardships and moral example set by the country’s early revolutionary leaders in the struggle for national independence and reunification.

In addition to Tai Kwun, Hong Kong is home to several other historic landmarks linked to President Ho Chi Minh’s revolutionary activities in the early 20th century, including Sung Wong Toi Park, where a stone from Sung Wong Toi Hill marks the site where he convened the conference leading to the establishment of the CPV. House No. 186 Tam Kung also served as one of his secret residences before his arrest. Hanh noted that the Tai Kwun heritage site has been restored and preserved by the Hong Kong authorities, with exhibitions documenting President Ho Chi Minh’s activities and locations associated with his revolutionary journey.

The following articles were originally published by Nhân Dân.

Chinese scholar reflects on President Ho Chi Minh’s footsteps in Guangxi

May 17 (Nhân Dân) – At a time when Viet Nam’s revolutionary movement was still in its infancy, young patriot Nguyen Ai Quoc, later known as Ho Chi Minh, lived and operated under extremely hardships, constantly relocating to evade persecution while secretly mobilising and rallying revolutionary forces.

President Ho Chi Minh’s years of revolutionary activities in China were decisive in shaping both his political ideology and strategy for liberating Viet Nam, Chinese cultural and historical scholar Xie Chaode told Viet Nam News Agency reporters in Beijing.

Xie said President Ho Chi Minh spent a long time conducting revolutionary activities in China, especially in Guangxi, Guangzhou and Yunnan, where he not only advanced revolutionary work but also focused on personnel training and laying the groundwork for Viet Nam’s national liberation movement.

Wang Yi elaborates on outcomes from Donald Trump China visit

Following the May 13-15 state visit to China by US President Donald J. Trump, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who is also a member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, gave a detailed briefing on the outcomes and on what China considers to be the common understandings reached between the two sides.

Some of the key points made by Wang Yi include:

China-US relations have reached a new starting point. This is the first face-to-face engagement between President Xi and President Trump since their Busan [Republic of Korea] meeting last October, and also the first visit to China by a US president in nine years. As transformation not seen in a century accelerates across the globe, the world has once again reached a crossroads. President Xi raised some important questions: Can China and the United States overcome the Thucydides Trap and create a new paradigm of major-country relations? Can we meet global challenges together and provide greater stability for the world? Can we build a bright future together for our bilateral relations in the interest of the well-being of the two peoples and the future of humanity? These questions are vital to history, to the world, and to the people. They are the questions of our times.

The most important political understanding they reached was the agreement to build “a constructive China-US relationship of strategic stability.” They also agreed for the two sides to pursue more exchanges on foreign policy, military-to-military relations, economy and trade, public health, agriculture, tourism, people-to-people ties, and law enforcement. This will provide a powerful boost to China-US interactions at all levels and in all fields.

President Xi and President Trump agreed on a new vision of building a constructive China-US relationship of strategic stability. This is how China understands it:

As the world’s top two economies, China and the United States share deep ties. Neither can cut the other out or prosper without the other. We both gain from cooperation and lose from confrontation. While a confrontational relationship will be disastrous for both countries and the world, China-US cooperation will get many great things done to the benefit of both and all.

It should be healthy stability where competition is kept within proper limits and is not turned into a zero-sum game. Major-country competition is nothing new, but China-US relations should not be defined by competition. When competition does happen, it must be a healthy one where we learn from each other, pursue excellence together, and compete fairly in compliance with rules.

It should be constant stability where differences are manageable, and the relationship should not be like a roller coaster. Both sides should maintain policy continuity and stability. It is very important for both sides to honour our words and move in the same direction.

It should be lasting stability where peace is expectable and conflicts and wars are not acceptable. Peaceful coexistence is the biggest common denominator of China and the United States. Conflict and confrontation between us will produce consequences no one can bear. To prevent this from happening, the bottom line is that both sides must abide by the three China-US joint communiqués, respect each other’s social systems and development paths, respect each other’s core interests and major concerns, and respect each other’s right to development.

In short, building a constructive China-US relationship of strategic stability is not a slogan. It should be a goal both sides uphold and entail concerted actions.

At the invitation of President Trump, President Xi will pay a state visit to the United States this fall.

The Beijing summit will reenergise exchanges between the two sides’ legislative bodies, subnational entities and business, academic and media communities, and add more dimensions to the constructive China-US relationship of strategic stability.

President Xi has pointed out that the hope of the China-US relationship lies in the people, its foundation is in grassroots connections, its future depends on the youth, and its vitality comes from subnational exchanges. During this summit, both presidents spoke about the importance of promoting people-to-people exchanges. President Xi specially cited the “Ping-Pong diplomacy” which took place 55 years ago. It opened up the China-US relations that had remained frozen for over two decades and marked a milestone in contemporary international relations. President Trump also reviewed historical interactions between the two nations, noting that Sino-US friendship goes all the way back to America’s founding and the American and Chinese people have shared a deep sense of appreciation and respect that ran in both directions.

During the visit, the two presidents toured the Temple of Heaven together. The tour provided insights into the Chinese appreciation of harmony among all beings and respect for the law of nature. This special program attested to the need for the two great countries to deepen mutual understanding and foster people-to-people friendship.

In the past year and more, legislative, subnational, and business delegations have visited each other more frequently. Many US business leaders accompanied President Trump to China on this trip, and he even invited them to the official talks. President Xi spoke to every one of them, encouraged them to strengthen cooperation with China, and stressed that China will open its door still wider. Premier Li Qiang also met with the US business leaders. They all said that they have a deep commitment to the Chinese market and want to grow their business here and strengthen cooperation with Chinese partners.

The Taiwan question was an important topic taken up at the summit. China’s position is very clear:

First, the Taiwan question is China’s internal affair. Realising complete reunification is an aspiration shared by all sons and daughters of the Chinese nation. It is also the unwavering, historic mission of the Communist Party of China. The mainland and Taiwan belong to one and the same China. This is a fact established since antiquity, the real status quo of the Taiwan Strait, and an important part of the postwar international order. We hope that the US side will strictly abide by the one-China principle and the three China-US joint communiqués and honour its international obligation.

Second, the Taiwan question is the most important issue between China and the US, one that affects the entire relationship. If it is handled properly, the overall relationship will be stable, and the two sides will be able to devote more energy to advancing mutually beneficial cooperation. Otherwise, the two countries will have clashes and even conflicts, and the entire relationship will be in great jeopardy. China hopes that the US side will take concrete actions to keep the relationship on an even keel and contribute to peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.

Third, China and the US both agree on the vital importance of safeguarding cross-Strait peace and stability. To ensure this is the case, one must never indulge or support “Taiwan independence,” because “Taiwan independence” and cross-Strait peace are as irreconcilable as fire and water. Our impression coming out of the summit is that the US side understands China’s position, takes China’s concerns seriously, and, like the rest of the international community, does not agree with or accept Taiwan’s moving toward independence.

President Xi emphasised that the economic and trade ties are mutually beneficial and win-win by nature. Where disagreements and frictions exist, equal-footed consultation is the only right approach. The two economic and trade teams produced generally balanced and positive outcomes, including continuing to implement all the consensus reached in prior consultations, establishing a board of trade and a board of investment, addressing each other’s concerns regarding market access for agricultural products, and expanding two-way trade within the framework of reciprocal tariff reduction.

On the Middle East situation, President Xi set forth China’s consistent position. He emphasised that the use of force cannot solve problems, and dialogue is the only right choice. Negotiation may not produce immediate results, but now that the door of dialogue has been opened, it should not be closed again. China encourages the US and Iran to continue settling their differences and disputes through negotiation, including on the nuclear issue. China calls for reopening the Strait of Hormuz as soon as possible on the basis of continued ceasefire and believes that the fundamental solution to the stalemate in the Strait lies in achieving a permanent and comprehensive ceasefire. China has been working to promote peace talks and will continue to play its role for an early end to the conflict and restoration of peace in the Middle East.

Some of the key points made by Wang Yi include:

China-US relations have reached a new starting point. This is the first face-to-face engagement between President Xi and President Trump since their Busan [Republic of Korea] meeting last October, and also the first visit to China by a US president in nine years. As transformation not seen in a century accelerates across the globe, the world has once again reached a crossroads. President Xi raised some important questions: Can China and the United States overcome the Thucydides Trap and create a new paradigm of major-country relations? Can we meet global challenges together and provide greater stability for the world? Can we build a bright future together for our bilateral relations in the interest of the well-being of the two peoples and the future of humanity? These questions are vital to history, to the world, and to the people. They are the questions of our times.

The most important political understanding they reached was the agreement to build “a constructive China-US relationship of strategic stability.” They also agreed for the two sides to pursue more exchanges on foreign policy, military-to-military relations, economy and trade, public health, agriculture, tourism, people-to-people ties, and law enforcement. This will provide a powerful boost to China-US interactions at all levels and in all fields.

President Xi and President Trump agreed on a new vision of building a constructive China-US relationship of strategic stability. This is how China understands it:

As the world’s top two economies, China and the United States share deep ties. Neither can cut the other out or prosper without the other. We both gain from cooperation and lose from confrontation. While a confrontational relationship will be disastrous for both countries and the world, China-US cooperation will get many great things done to the benefit of both and all.

It should be healthy stability where competition is kept within proper limits and is not turned into a zero-sum game. Major-country competition is nothing new, but China-US relations should not be defined by competition. When competition does happen, it must be a healthy one where we learn from each other, pursue excellence together, and compete fairly in compliance with rules.

It should be constant stability where differences are manageable, and the relationship should not be like a roller coaster. Both sides should maintain policy continuity and stability. It is very important for both sides to honour our words and move in the same direction.

It should be lasting stability where peace is expectable and conflicts and wars are not acceptable. Peaceful coexistence is the biggest common denominator of China and the United States. Conflict and confrontation between us will produce consequences no one can bear. To prevent this from happening, the bottom line is that both sides must abide by the three China-US joint communiqués, respect each other’s social systems and development paths, respect each other’s core interests and major concerns, and respect each other’s right to development.

In short, building a constructive China-US relationship of strategic stability is not a slogan. It should be a goal both sides uphold and entail concerted actions.

At the invitation of President Trump, President Xi will pay a state visit to the United States this fall.

The Beijing summit will reenergise exchanges between the two sides’ legislative bodies, subnational entities and business, academic and media communities, and add more dimensions to the constructive China-US relationship of strategic stability.

President Xi has pointed out that the hope of the China-US relationship lies in the people, its foundation is in grassroots connections, its future depends on the youth, and its vitality comes from subnational exchanges. During this summit, both presidents spoke about the importance of promoting people-to-people exchanges. President Xi specially cited the “Ping-Pong diplomacy” which took place 55 years ago. It opened up the China-US relations that had remained frozen for over two decades and marked a milestone in contemporary international relations. President Trump also reviewed historical interactions between the two nations, noting that Sino-US friendship goes all the way back to America’s founding and the American and Chinese people have shared a deep sense of appreciation and respect that ran in both directions.

During the visit, the two presidents toured the Temple of Heaven together. The tour provided insights into the Chinese appreciation of harmony among all beings and respect for the law of nature. This special program attested to the need for the two great countries to deepen mutual understanding and foster people-to-people friendship.

In the past year and more, legislative, subnational, and business delegations have visited each other more frequently. Many US business leaders accompanied President Trump to China on this trip, and he even invited them to the official talks. President Xi spoke to every one of them, encouraged them to strengthen cooperation with China, and stressed that China will open its door still wider. Premier Li Qiang also met with the US business leaders. They all said that they have a deep commitment to the Chinese market and want to grow their business here and strengthen cooperation with Chinese partners.

The Taiwan question was an important topic taken up at the summit. China’s position is very clear:

First, the Taiwan question is China’s internal affair. Realising complete reunification is an aspiration shared by all sons and daughters of the Chinese nation. It is also the unwavering, historic mission of the Communist Party of China. The mainland and Taiwan belong to one and the same China. This is a fact established since antiquity, the real status quo of the Taiwan Strait, and an important part of the postwar international order. We hope that the US side will strictly abide by the one-China principle and the three China-US joint communiqués and honour its international obligation.

Second, the Taiwan question is the most important issue between China and the US, one that affects the entire relationship. If it is handled properly, the overall relationship will be stable, and the two sides will be able to devote more energy to advancing mutually beneficial cooperation. Otherwise, the two countries will have clashes and even conflicts, and the entire relationship will be in great jeopardy. China hopes that the US side will take concrete actions to keep the relationship on an even keel and contribute to peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.

Third, China and the US both agree on the vital importance of safeguarding cross-Strait peace and stability. To ensure this is the case, one must never indulge or support “Taiwan independence,” because “Taiwan independence” and cross-Strait peace are as irreconcilable as fire and water. Our impression coming out of the summit is that the US side understands China’s position, takes China’s concerns seriously, and, like the rest of the international community, does not agree with or accept Taiwan’s moving toward independence.

President Xi emphasised that the economic and trade ties are mutually beneficial and win-win by nature. Where disagreements and frictions exist, equal-footed consultation is the only right approach. The two economic and trade teams produced generally balanced and positive outcomes, including continuing to implement all the consensus reached in prior consultations, establishing a board of trade and a board of investment, addressing each other’s concerns regarding market access for agricultural products, and expanding two-way trade within the framework of reciprocal tariff reduction.

On the Middle East situation, President Xi set forth China’s consistent position. He emphasised that the use of force cannot solve problems, and dialogue is the only right choice. Negotiation may not produce immediate results, but now that the door of dialogue has been opened, it should not be closed again. China encourages the US and Iran to continue settling their differences and disputes through negotiation, including on the nuclear issue. China calls for reopening the Strait of Hormuz as soon as possible on the basis of continued ceasefire and believes that the fundamental solution to the stalemate in the Strait lies in achieving a permanent and comprehensive ceasefire. China has been working to promote peace talks and will continue to play its role for an early end to the conflict and restoration of peace in the Middle East.