APA-Pretoria (South Africa) South Africa’s Deputy President Paul Mashatile met Chinese President Xi Jinping on Sunday to discuss deepening of bilateral ties between Pretoria and Beijing.
In a statement late Sunday, the Chinese foreign ministry said Xi noted that, as 2023 marked the 25th anniversary since the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and South Africa, bilateral ties had entered a “golden era”.
“China stands ready to work with South Africa to continuously enrich the China-South Africa comprehensive strategic partnership and take bilateral relations to a new level,” the ministry quoted Xi as saying.
The meeting followed Xi’s fourth state visit to South Africa in August during which he and President Cyril Ramaphosa agreed that the two countries should be strategic partners “with a high degree of mutual trust, development partners making progress together, friendly partners enjoying mutual understanding, and global partners upholding justice.”
According to Sunday’s statement, Xi pledged China’s readiness to further consolidate the foundation of political mutual trust and upgrade the level of mutually beneficial cooperation between the two countries.
The Chinese leader promised to work with South Africa and other African countries to implement China’s three initiatives to support the continent’s industrialization, agricultural modernisation and talent development.
The two sides should continue to cooperate closely within the BRICS mechanism, work for closer solidarity and cooperation among developing countries and promote the development of the global governance system in a direction conducive to developing countries, he said.
Mashatile said Xi’s recent state visit to South Africa further consolidated the traditional friendship between Pretoria and Beijing and injected strong impetus into the future development of bilateral relations.
He noted that the fact that Ramaphosa conferred South Africa’s highest honour on Xi demonstrated the high appreciation by South Africans of the Chinese leader’s “great contributions to South Africa-China friendship.”
He said South Africa hoped to strengthen the synergy between its own development strategy and China’s Belt and Road Initiative, and further deepen pragmatic cooperation with China in various fields.
South Africa highly appreciated China’s contributions in safeguarding the interests of developing countries and promoting world peace and hoped to continue to strengthen cooperation with China in multilateral mechanisms including BRICS, he said.
The meeting was held at the Great Hall of the People and was attended by Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi.
JN/APA