Qinjiang Emphasizes Cooperation in the Completion Ceremony for the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, which China built at a cost of 100 billion won
Amid intensifying strategic competition between the US and China, China’s new Foreign Minister Qin Gang has stepped up diplomacy to secure allies in Africa, his first business trip since taking office.
According to the website of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the 12th, Qin attended the completion ceremony of the African Center for Disease Control and Prevention (Center for Disease Control) headquarters building held the day before in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, and gave a greeting.
It is estimated that China spent about 80 million dollars (about 100 billion won) on the building.
After introducing the construction of the center as a flagship project of China-Africa cooperation announced at the 2018 Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, Qin said, “I believe it will write a brilliant new chapter in the history of China-Africa relations.”
“China wants to provide new opportunities for Africa through ‘Chinese modernization’ and support Africa in leading it to a development path that suits its national conditions,” he said. ·Maritime Silk Road) hoped to deepen related cooperation, etc.
“China takes the lead in supporting membership in the G20,” the statement said.
“I support the AU gaining greater representation and a voice in the UN Security Council and other international organizations,” Chin said, according to the Associated Press.
Prominent remarks in support of the G20 and the Security Council were similar to what US President Joe Biden said at a meeting held last month by calling African leaders to Washington, DC.
In addition, Director Chin said that he would provide more support for economic and social development in Africa, and emphasized that “China has never issued an empty check, and moreover, it does not force others to do what it does not want to do.”
“We will amicably hand over the African Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to our African friends, let the AU side exercise full powers in operation and management, and China will never interfere,” he said. and said he would help.
At a joint press conference held on the same day with AU Executive Director Musa Paki Mahamat, Chin said, as if conscious of the US-China strategic competition, “What Africa needs is not camp confrontation, but unity and cooperation. I have no right to force you to take sides.”
“Africa should be a big arena for international cooperation, not an arena for competition in the game of great powers,” he said.
Qin, who was appointed as the successor to former Foreign Minister Wang Yi (currently a member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China) at the end of last year, is on a tour of five African countries, including Ethiopia, Gabon, Angola, Benin and Egypt, from the 9th to the 16th. .
/yunhap news
