Beijing, Moscow to broaden, deepen ties

China will work with Russia to enhance cooperation on larger scale, in broader field and at deeper level, and take lead in acting as responsible major countries to advocate equality, justice cooperation and law observance, State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on Tuesday.

Wang made the remark in a video speech at a forum involving Chinese and Russian think tanks. The forum discussed bilateral ties in new era and the 20th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Good-Neighborliness and Friendly Cooperation between China and Russia.

The two-day forum was jointly held by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and Russian International Affairs Council and attracted more than 150 guests, including officials, envoys and experts from both sides.

The treaty, signed in July 2001, established the idea of "ever-lasting friendship and never becoming enemies" in legal terms.

Wang said that 20 years of practice has shown that the principle of peace and new form of international relations determined in the treaty conform to the interests of the two peoples and has withstood the test of the changing international landscape.

China and Russia always regard mutual benefit and win-win results as the core principle of their cooperation, Wang said.

Bilateral trade has grown from $8 billion in 2000 to $107.77 billion in 2020. A series of major cooperation projects in the fields of energy, aviation, aerospace and interconnectivity have been implemented.

The two countries also regard the maintenance of peace as their responsibility, and advocate security cooperation, improving global governance and upholding multilateralism, he added.

In his video speech, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that the treaty has promoted bilateral cooperation in areas such as trade, energy, and people-to-people exchanges.

Lavrov emphasized that Russia-China relations have transcended military and political alliances, and the treaty has freed bilateral ties from traditional frameworks.

Noting some Western countries are trying to replace the international legal system with the United Nations Charters as its core with the so-called rule-based order, he said it is important for Russia and China to cooperate to promote establishing a more just, democratic, and stable multi-polar international order.

The treaty will further play an important role in deepening strategic cooperation between Russia and China, he said.

Russia's Ambassador to China Andrei Denisov said at the forum that despite the coronavirus, Russian-Chinese cooperation has remained stable and the two countries have mastered and have widely used new forms of contacts.

Amid growing world turbulence in 2021, the two countries have demonstrated the ability to timely and flexibly react to global changes guided by the spirit of the treaty, he said.