Chinese President Xi Jinping and visiting British Prime Minister Keir Starmer agreed on Thursday in Beijing that the two countries should develop a long-term, consistent comprehensive strategic partnership, Xinhua News Agency reported.
According to China Central Television, noting that the Year of the Horse is just around the corner, Xi said that he believes Starmer’s visit will be a success and the cooperation between the two countries will “Yi Ma Dang Xian,” which literally means “a horse charging ahead” or is commonly used to mean “taking the lead.”
Xi said as the world today is undergoing both changes and turbulence, China and Britain, as permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and major economies, should enhance dialogue and cooperation in order to maintain world peace and stability, while promoting the economy and people’s livelihoods in both countries.
Emphasizing the need to see history from a broader perspective, Xi called on the two countries to transcend differences and maintain mutual respect, so that they can translate the promising potential of cooperation into remarkable accomplishments, and open up new vistas for China-Britain relations and cooperation to better benefit both the two peoples and the world at large.
Stressing China’s commitment to peaceful development, Xi said that China has never initiated a war, nor occupied an inch of foreign land.
China will never pose a threat to other countries no matter how it grows and develops, he told Starmer, who arrived in Beijing on Wednesday for a four-day official visit, the first by a British prime minister in eight years.
Xi said mutual benefit and win-win results constitute the essence of economic and trade cooperation between China and Britain, thus the two countries should expand mutually beneficial cooperation in education, health, finance and the service industry.
He also called on the two sides to carry out joint research and industrial application in the fields of artificial intelligence, bioscience, new energy and low-carbon technologies, among others, to achieve shared development and prosperity.
“It is hoped that the British side will provide an equal, fair and non-discriminatory business environment for Chinese enterprises,” Xi said, adding that both sides should enhance people-to-people and cultural exchanges, and further facilitate travel.
He said members of the British government, parliament and various sectors of localities are welcome to visit China more frequently to foster a balanced, objective, and well-grounded perception of China.
China is actively considering granting a unilateral visa waiver to British people, Xi said.
Noting that the international order has for some time suffered serious disruption, Xi said international law can only be truly effective when all countries, major countries in particular, abide by it. Otherwise, the world would risk regressing to the law of the jungle, he said.
China and Britain, as supporters of multilateralism and free trade, should jointly advocate and practice true multilateralism, and facilitate the establishment of a more just and equitable global governance system, so as to build an equal and orderly multipolar world and realize universally beneficial and inclusive globalization, Xi said.
Starmer conveyed greetings from King Charles III to President Xi. He said he was pleased to be the first British prime minister to visit China in eight years, according to Xinhua.
The UK and China are major global economies and permanent members of the UN Security Council, and under the current turbulent and fragile international situation, it is crucial for the UK, in the spirit of mutual respect and mutual trust, to build a long-term, consistent comprehensive strategic partnership with China, said Starmer.
The UK’s long-standing policy on the Taiwan question has not changed and will not change, Starmer noted.
Chinese Premier Li Qiang also met with Starmer on Thursday in Beijing.
The Global Times has learned that during British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s visit to China, the two countries reached a series of significant outcomes aimed at restarting and deepening bilateral ties.
Key achievements included the resumption of the China-UK High-Level Security Dialogue, the convening of a new round of the China-UK Strategic Dialogue and Economic and Financial Dialogue, and the holding of a China-UK Entrepreneurs Committee meeting.
In addition, the two sides signed 12 inter-governmental cooperation documents covering fields such as economy and trade, agriculture and food security, culture, and market regulation.
Business cooperation
During the visit, Starmer described China as a “vital player on a global scale,” adding that he “looks forward to taking [both countries’] relationship further,”
Starmer is the latest western leader to engage in a flurry of diplomacy with China as nations hedge against unpredictability from the US under President Donald Trump, The Guardian reported. For the UK, the trip comes at a time of weak economic growth and an urgent need to attract overseas investment, the BBC noted.
Notably, China has hosted a number of Western leaders and officials recently, including French President Emmanuel Macron, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and British Prime Minister Starmer, while German Chancellor Friedrich Merz is also expected to visit China soon, which means leaders from four of the G7 countries visited or about to visit China.
