ADDING FRESH IMPETUS TO CHINA-CEE TIES
China and the CEE have developed a pattern of regional cooperation that is different from those led by the West. CEE countries have witnessed tangible benefits from their relations with China and showed growing interest in further boosting ties.
During his stay in Latvia, Li and CEE leaders agreed to increase people-to-people exchanges in a bid to strengthen ties.
Cooperation between China and the CEE countries, dubbed the "16+1 cooperation", has maintained sound growth over the past four years, becoming a new, important engine for China-Europe ties, said ambassador Yang Yanyi, head of the Chinese Mission to the European Union (EU).
She said the "16+1 cooperation", a platform jointly created in April 2012 by China and CEE countries to deepen ties, complements the China-EU comprehensive strategic partnership.
China, the world's second-largest economy, and the CEE countries, many of them emerging markets seeking foreign investment to upgrade local infrastructure, are highly complementary.
To find synergy between China's enterprises and investors wishing to "go global" and the CEE countries where demands for inbound investment are steadily rising, will provide new opportunities for the "16+1 cooperation", according to Yang.
The win-win cooperation between China and the 16 CEE countries over the past four years was the result of consultations to meet the interests of all, Yang said, noting that existing projects were mostly CEE-proposed.
The "16+1 cooperation" is increasingly maturing, advancing the China-CEE cooperation in various areas, Yang said, adding that the Medium-Term Agenda for Cooperation adopted during last year's China-CEE summit in Suzhou, has set the roadmap for future cooperation.
CONSTRUCTIVE ROLE IN PROMOTING REGIONAL COOPERATION
Besides the SCO and China-CEE, China is also playing a constructive role in many other international bodies, such as the Forum for Economic and Trade Cooperation between China and Portuguese-speaking Countries as well as the summit between China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
Last month in Macao, Premier Li put forward 18 new measures to boost relations with Portuguese-speaking countries (PSCs) in the next three years.
China will provide at least 4 billion yuan (almost 600 million U.S. dollars) in aid and preferential loans to PSCs in Asia and Africa, Li said.
At least half of the aid is intended to help develop agriculture, facilitate trade and investment, prevent and control malaria, and conduct research on traditional medicine in these countries. The other half in preferential loans is largely for infrastructure development.
China has also pledged more medical teams, training programs and government scholarships, as well as help in building marine meteorological facilities to respond to disasters and climate change.
As for cooperation between China and ASEAN, China has vowed to form tight-knit ties with Southeast Asian nations.
"If we say the past 25 years were a period of growth for the China-ASEAN relations, the upcoming 25 years will be a period of maturity, facing new opportunities as well as new challenges," Premier Li told the 19th China-ASEAN summit in September.
China established a dialogue relationship with ASEAN in 1991. It was the first country to ink the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia, to become ASEAN's strategic partner, to voice support for the protocol of the treaty of Southeast Asia nuclear weapon free zone, and to start free trade negotiations with ASEAN.
"With full consideration of the reality on the ground of all countries, China is striving to achieve mutual benefits with them, especially those smaller ones through those cooperation," said Sun.
