Xi urges SCO to expand cooperation Inside
Meetings include senior diplomats, defense ministers
President Xi Jinping called on the Shanghai Cooperation Organization members on Monday to remain true to their original aspiration and push cooperation in all areas.
Xi made the remark while meeting with senior diplomats of the members of the SCO at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. After the meeting, Xi also met with defense ministers of those countries.
It was the first formal meeting of SCO foreign ministers since the organization accepted Pakistan and India as its new members last year.
Since its establishment 17 years ago, the SCO has stood the test of the time and developed into a comprehensive regional organization with wide influence, Xi said.
The SCO has set a model for a new type of international relations with the characteristics of mutual respect, justice and win-win cooperation, he added.
Saying the SCO summit to be held in Qingdao, Shandong province, in June will be the first of its kind since the increase in SCO members, Xi told the senior diplomats that he hopes all sides will cooperate for its success.
China has successfully hosted more than 120 activities of the SCO since it assumed the rotating presidency of the organization, Xi said.
The current global and regional situation is complex, he said, with unstable and uncertain factors, and SCO members should make real efforts to meet the expectations of all nations.
China would like to make joint efforts with all SCO members to continue to support each other and offer SCO wisdom and SCO solutions, safeguard regional security cooperation, deepen Belt and Road cooperation and expand people-to-people exchanges, Xi said.
During the meeting, the foreign ministers of Russia, Kyrgyzstan, India and Pakistan made speeches. They spoke positively of the efforts that China has made to prepare the SCO summit.
The SCO should enhance coordination and cooperation on international and regional affairs, the senior diplomats said.
President Xi Jinping has demanded nationwide efforts to emulate the transformation of East China’s Zhejiang province in building a beautiful countryside with a pleasant living environment to increase the sense of gain and happiness for all rural residents.
Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, said Zhejiang has made constant efforts during the past 15 years to improve the rural living environment, creating “tens of thousands of beautiful villages”.
“As I have said on many occasions, developed and underdeveloped areas should all get involved in improving the rural environment, though the standards may vary,” Xi said.
During the implementation of a three-year campaign to improve the rural living environment and the rural vitalization strategy, the country must popularize Zhejiang’s experience and practices, he said, adding that measures should be targeted and adjusted to local conditions.
Zhejiang, where Xi’s “Two Mountains” theory — in which clear waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets comparable to the gold and silver mountains of legend — was originated, has taken the lead in rural vitalization since 2003, when it implemented a project to overhaul the living environment of villages.
At the end of last year, 97 percent of villages in the province had been overhauled.
“Through implementing the rural vitalization strategy, the longtime imbalance in the development of China’s urban and rural areas and the insufficiency in China’s rural area development will be addressed,” said Huang Zuhui, dean of the China Academy for Rural Development at Zhejiang University.
He said the strategy must be pushed ahead under the framework of urban-rural composition and integration.
The Zhejiang CPC provincial committee and Zhejiang provincial government on Monday issued an action plan to fully implement its rural vitalization strategy to realize countryside modernization before 2022.
According to the plan, by 2020, Zhejiang will form basic systematic and policy frameworks to achieve “substantial progress” in rural vitalization, building up a well-off society in its rural areas.
By 2022, per capita rural disposal income in Zhejiang will rise by 10,000 yuan ($1,585) to reach over 35,000 yuan. It also will reconstruct and overhaul over 10,000 kilometers of rural roads during that period.
Long-term goals include realizing its rural vitalization goals on a whole by 2035, with farmers realizing common prosperity and modernization; and all goals for “common prosperity and modernization” will be realized “at high standards” by 2050.
A rural vitalization college was launched on Saturday in Xianju county. Pritzker Prize winner Wang Shu, dean of the architecture department at China Academy of Art in Hangzhou, accepted the appointment to head the college.
Xinhua contributed to this story.