Senior Chinese military official meets with New Zealand Navy chief

Zhao Keshi (5th L, front), member of China's Central Military Commission and director of the General Logistics Department (GLD) of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA), meets with Rear Adm. Jack Steer (4th L, front), chief of the Royal New Zealand Navy (RNZN), in Beijing on January 12, 2015. (Chinamil.com.cn/Zhang Xiaoqi)

Gen. Zhao Keshi, member of China's Central Military Commission and director of the General Logistics Department (GLD) of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA), met with the visiting chief of the Royal New Zealand Navy (RNZN) Rear Adm. Jack Steer, and his entourage in Beijing on Monday.

Gen. Zhao said the relations between the militaries of China and New Zealand has remained positive momentum of development in recent years, as evidenced by the frequent high level contacts, well-operated strategic dialogue mechanism as well as exchange and cooperation in such fields as education and training, international peacekeeping and humanitarian rescue, etc.

Taking building of China-New Zealand comprehensive strategic partnership as a start point, the Chinese military is willing to make joint efforts with the New Zealand military to lift the military-to-military relations between the two countries to a new high, Gen Zhao added.

He hoped that the two militaries could further strengthen the exchange and cooperation in the logistics field, so as to constantly enrich the contents of the bilateral military relations and deepen the friendship between the two militaries.

Rear Adm. Steer said that, in recent years, the relations between China and New Zealand have been developing smoothly on the basis of equality, mutual benefit and mutual respect and the military cooperation between the two countries has also reached fruitful results.

Steer expressed that the New Zealand military will as always firmly implement the consensus reached by the two sides in various fields and continue to push forward the pragmatic cooperation between the two militaries.

Zhou Songhe, deputy director of the GLD of the PLA, attended the meeting.