SCIO press conference on China's COVID-19 assistance and international development cooperation
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E-mail China.org.cn, November 2, 2021
Third, our work is in order to serve domestic economic development and deepen reform and opening-up. While helping recipient countries develop their economies and improve people's livelihoods, our foreign aid effectively drives China's high-quality products, advanced technologies and industry standards to "go global." Foreign aid also plays a very important role in stimulating trade and investment cooperation between China and recipient countries, deepening China's all-round exchanges with other countries, and creating a good external environment for China's economic and social development.
Fourth, our work is in order to give back to the international community for their good deeds. As the saying goes, favors should be returned many times more. We all know from studying the Party's history that the Communist International provided selfless aid in the founding, establishment and development of the CPC. Some important foreign friends such as Henk Sneevliet, Norman Bethune and Dwarkanath Kotnis came to China from afar. Both the construction of the PRC and its reform and opening-up have received great support from the international community. When the Wenchuan Earthquake occurred in 2008, I was the Chinese ambassador to Pakistan. Friends from the Pakistani military proposed sending a medical team to Wenchuan. I explained that the conditions for receiving people in that area were limited. They said that it didn't matter, they could even just drink water and eat vegetables and tree leaves, but they wanted to help their "Chinese brothers." As the saying goes, roses given, fragrance in hand. At the same time, China has provided aid to other countries without asking for anything in return — this has been recognized with high praise and help from the international community. At a session of the U.N. Human Rights Council this year, the West carried out unreasonable attacks on China about issues related to Xinjiang and Hong Kong, and more than 90 countries spoke out for us from a sense of justice. This is a vivid example.
Foreign aid needs to handle the dialectical relationship between "giving roses" and "leaving fragrance." It is seriously worth thinking about whether to give or not give, what to give, when to give, whether one is deliberately planting flowers to enjoy the fragrance, or planting them but then unintentionally enjoying the fragrance. When providing foreign aid, China has done what it can and has done its best. This has achieved multiple political, diplomatic, economic and social benefits, and has played an irreplaceable role in the process of the Chinese nation standing up, getting better-off and becoming stronger.
China's foreign aid and international development cooperation will continue to be guided by Xi Jinping Thought on Diplomacy, with the purpose of promoting the building of a community with a shared future for mankind, with the principle of upholding justice while pursuing shared interests, and the mission of serving China's overall diplomatic policy and jointly building the Belt and Road Initiative. It will continue to take into account both bilateral and multilateral relationships, combine soft and hard aid, coordinate grant assistance and concessional loan, focus on project implementation, supervision and evaluation, and continue to create new glories in the cause of foreign aid.
On the basis of traditional bilateral assistance, we have increased exchanges and cooperation with Western countries and international organizations such as the U.N., and actively explored multilateral and tripartite cooperation. While implementing complete projects, we have focused on teaching over giving, promoting personnel training and sharing of governance experience, and use a combination of grant assistance and concessional loans to reduce project financing costs. We have strengthened the supervision of the entire chain of projects, prevented corruption risks, improved project quality, and focused on post-project evaluation to ensure the sustainable development of foreign aid.
Thank you everyone. Next, my colleagues and I will answer your questions.
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