Vice President Han Zheng will attend the opening ceremony of the 11th World Peace Forum and deliver a keynote speech to the forum on July 2. The forum will be held at Tsinghua University with this year’s theme being “Stabilizing an Unstable World through Consensus and Cooperation.”

CCTV: China has announced that President Xi Jinping will attend the SCO summit. What does China think of the SCO’s growth and what’s China’s expectation for the upcoming summit? 

Mao Ning: Since its establishment, the SCO, guided by the Shanghai Spirit, has continuously consolidated good neighborliness and political mutual trust between member states, deepened cooperation in various sectors, and played an important and constructive role in international and regional affairs. In a world marked by change and disorder and fraught with increasing instability, uncertainties and unpredictable factors, regional countries as well as other members of the international community look to the SCO to play a bigger role in safeguarding regional security and promoting common development. As a founding member, China views the SCO as a priority in its foreign affairs. We stand ready to work with other members to act on the Global Development Initiative, the Global Security Initiative and the Global Civilization Initiative, build an even closer SCO community with a shared future, and usher in a brighter future for the Eurasian continent. 

President Xi Jinping will deliver important remarks at the meeting and, together with other participating leaders, chart the course for the future growth of the organization. With the concerted efforts of all sides, the SCO will achieve greater progress and boost development and prosperity in regional countries.

Xinhua News Agency: The 14th Annual Meeting of the New Champions closed in Tianjin yesterday. Premier Li Qiang’s remarks at the opening plenary of the meeting received warm response from various quarters, who expressed their optimism about China’s economic prospects and their expectation for new opportunities that China’s economy will create for the world. Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum Professor Klaus Schwab said the whole world benefits from China’s development. WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said that as an important economy in the world, China has been exemplary in safeguarding the global multilateral trading system. Do you have any comment?

Mao Ning: The 14th Annual Meeting of the New Champions has indeed received world attention. More than 1,500 political and business leaders as well as scholars from close to 100 countries and regions across the world attended the meeting. Premier Li Qiang addressed the opening plenary of the meeting. He stressed that China will firmly support economic globalization, firmly uphold the market economy, and firmly support free trade. It will continue to provide strong dynamism to the world economic recovery and growth, and provide opportunities of win-win cooperation to investors from all countries. Entrepreneurs attending the meeting said that China is the most dynamic market with huge growth potential.

From what we see this year, China’s economy shows a clear momentum of rebound and improvement: GDP grew by 4.5 percent in the first quarter year-on-year, and is expected to expand faster in the second quarter than in the first. We are on track to hit the growth target of around five percent set for the whole year. Some international organizations and institutions have revised up their growth forecasts for China this year, demonstrating their confidence in China’s development prospects. In the first five months of this year, a total of 18,532 new foreign-invested enterprises were established nationwide, up by 38.3 percent year-on-year.

China has become a major trading partner for over 140 countries and regions, providing huge markets for the world, especially emerging markets and developing economies. The State Council recently rolled out new steps to pilot high-standard international economic and trade rules in eligible pilot free trade zones, including Shanghai, Guangdong, Tianjin, Fujian and Beijing, and the Hainan Free Trade Port, in an effort to steadily boost institutional opening-up and explore pathways and accumulate experience for higher-standard opening-up. 

China’s modernization has made advances in the course of opening-up, and is bound to embrace a brighter future through opening-up. China will further open up, uphold a free, open and stable multilateral trading regime with concrete actions, inject more positive dynamism into the world economy and make sure that the new accomplishments in Chinese modernization will be new opportunities for global development.

Reuters: Two questions on New Zealand. Firstly, how would you characterize the China-New Zealand relationship? And second, New Zealand has on a number of occasions voiced its concerns about the treatment of Uyghurs in Xinjiang, democracy protests in Hong Kong and the situation in the Taiwan Strait. How do you feel about the country voicing those views?

Mao Ning: China and New Zealand are each other’s important cooperative partners. The sound and steady growth of bilateral relations serves the interests of both countries and is conducive to regional peace, stability, development and prosperity.

We stand ready to engage in dialogue and exchanges with all parties on the basis of equality and mutual respect, but we oppose interference in internal affairs under the pretext of relevant issues.

Yonhap News Agency: According to reports, the ROK, Japan, Australia and New Zealand are planning a meeting on the sidelines of the NATO summit to be held from July 11 to 12 in Lithuania’s capital Vilnius. It is reported that if leaders of the ROK, Japan, Australia and New Zealand are going to meet, they will discuss how to respond to China’s attempts to change the status quo in the South and East China Seas. What’s China’s response?

Mao Ning: China’s principled position on issues relating to the South China Sea and the East China Sea is consistent and clear. We are committed to defending China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and upholding our core interests and lawful rights and interests. The East China Sea and the South China Sea have been stable overall. We hope relevant countries will bear in mind what is right for the region and do more things that are conducive to maintaining peace and stability and enhancing mutual trust in the region.

The NATO summit needs to look at how it can work constructively for peace and stability in Europe and beyond, rather than make an issue about China.

Reuters: The governor of the central bank of Sri Lanka has asked foreign debt holders to accept a 30-percent cut on any loans they have extended as it seeks to restructure its debts. As Sri Lanka’s largest bilateral creditor, is China willing to accept this proposal?

Mao Ning: We have repeatedly made China’s position clear on Sri Lanka’s debt issue. We support Chinese financial institutions in actively working out the debt treatment with Sri Lanka. We are ready to work with relevant countries and international financial institutions to jointly play a positive role in helping Sri Lanka navigate the situation, ease its debt burden and achieve sustainable development. At the same time, we call on commercial and multilateral creditors to take part in Sri Lanka’s debt restructuring based on fair burden-sharing.

AFP: A Pentagon spokesperson said on Thursday that the Chinese balloon drifting over the US in February did not collect intelligence. What is China’s response?

Mao Ning: As China has stated on many occasions, the unmanned Chinese civilian airship drifting over the US was an entirely unexpected accident caused by force majeure. To call it a “spy balloon” that collected intelligence is nothing but a false accusation.

Reuters: The US and Dutch governments are planning to implement legislation further restricting the sale of chip manufacturing equipment to China. What is your comment on this?

Mao Ning: China opposes the US’s overstretching the national security concept, abusing export control tools, using all sorts of pretexts to cajole or coerce other countries into joining its technological blockade against China. These actions of interfering in normal trade between companies through administrative means seriously undermine market rules and the international trade order, disrupt global industrial and supply chains, and serve no one’s interest. We will closely monitor relevant developments and firmly defend our lawful rights and interests.

Reuters: The US State Department has approved the potential sale of ammunition and logistics supply support to Taiwan in two separate deals valued at up to USD 440 million, according to the Pentagon. Do you have any comment on this?

Mao Ning: China is firmly opposed to US’s military ties with and arms sales to Taiwan. This position is consistent and unequivocal. The US should abide by the one-China principle and the three China-US joint communiqués, stop selling arms to Taiwan, stop creating new factors that could lead to tensions in the Taiwan Strait and stop posing risks to peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.