On 30 September, 2021, the Nation and the Today, two largest-selling newspapers in Seychelles, published an article entitled Work Together to Deliver a Brighter Future for China and Seychelles----- The signed article of Chinese Ambassador H.E. Mrs. GUO Wei on the occasion of the 72nd anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China. The full text is as follows:
72 years ago on 1 October 1949, Chinese President Mao Zedong solemnly declared to the world that the People’s Republic of China was founded. This day marks that the Communist Party of China (CPC), leading the Chinese people, has achieved the victory of the new-democratic revolution, put an end to China’s history as a semi-colonial, semi-feudal society, achieved national independence and liberation, thus opened up bright prospects for the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. Since then, the CPC has made constant efforts to find a path of socialism suited to its own conditions. From a once impoverished country, China has become one of the most open economies in the world, the world’s second largest economy, largest industrial country, largest trader in goods, biggest destination for FDI and biggest holder of foreign exchange reserves. It has contributed an average of 30% annually to world economic growth for many years in a row as the powerhouse for global growth.
The year 2021 is of great significance to China. In 2021, the CPC celebrated its Centenary. At the ceremony marking the Centenary of the CPC, President Xi Jinping declared that through the continued efforts of the whole Party and the entire nation, China has realized the first centenary goal of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects. China has brought about a historic resolution to the problem of absolute poverty, and the Chinese people are now marching in confident strides toward the second centenary goal of building China into a great modern socialist country in all respects.
I. In 2021, China has made remarkable success in responding to Covid-19 and advancing economic and social development simultaneously.
Consolidating our gains in controlling Covid-19. In the spirit of putting people and life first, China has always made the coronavirus’ containment the top priority. By making well-timed adjustments and improving routine control mechanisms, China effectively suppressed several local outbreaks of the epidemic. With these actions, China protected the health and safety of the people to the greatest extent possible, and created the conditions for returning to normal life and work. Since vaccine is a powerful weapon to defeat the epidemic, China's COVID-19 vaccination work is progressing in an orderly manner with more than 2.2 billion doses delivered.
China’s economy witnessed the steady and sound growth momentum consolidated. Entering a new development stage, China continued to actively apply the new development philosophy of pursuing innovative, coordinated, green, open and shared development, and to foster a new development paradigm in the year 2021. Faced with the complicated and changing environment both at home and abroad, under the strong leadership of the CPC, China’s economy sustained a steady recovery with the production and demand picking up, employment and prices remaining stable, people’s well-being enhancing. The national economy witnessed the steady and sound growth momentum consolidated. In the first half of 2021, China’s GDP was 53.22 trillion yuan (8.22 trillion dollars) with a year-on-year increase of 12.7%, while the total imports and exports of goods expanded by 27.1% year-on-year to reach 18.07 trillion yuan(2.79 trillion dollars). China will continue to build a new system of open economy of higher standards and create a more attractive business environment.
Improving people’s wellbeing and striving for common prosperity. Over the past 70 years, the CPC has lifted almost 1.4 billion people out of poverty, bringing them subsistence and then a life of moderate prosperity. In 2021, China has secured a comprehensive victory in the fight against poverty by completing the arduous task of eradicating extreme poverty. The 98.99 million people in rural areas who were living below the current poverty threshold all shook off poverty. Under the leadership of the CPC, China has established the world's largest systems of education, social security, health care and grass-root democratic election. Under the socialist democratic system with Chinese characteristics, Chinese people enjoy more extensive and substantial rights and freedoms.
Promoting vigorously innovation in science and technology. China kept pursuing innovation-driven development, and boosting high-quality development of the real economy through innovation. We promoted the construction of Digital China. 5G, Internet of Things, big data and Artificial Intelligence have been well developed. We accelerated the construction of information infrastructure and implemented the Sci-Tech Innovation 2030 Agenda. This year, major scientific and technological achievements kept emerging, including the launching of Tianhe, core module of space station, the new world record set by the "Chinese artificial sun",etc. These have created a powerful driving force for innovation and development.
Persisting in promoting green development. Earth is the only home for humanity. China continued to enhance pollution prevention and control and ecological conservation. China fully implemented the sustainable development strategy, consolidated the gains in our endeavors to keep our skies blue, waters clear, and lands pollution-free, and promoted transition to eco-friendly production and ways of life. Attaching a great importance to addressing climate change, China made a major push to develop new energy sources and cultivated energy-saving and environmental protection industries to ensure the conservation and efficient use of resources. Now we are already taking strong nationwide actions toward carbon peak and will strive to peak carbon dioxide emissions before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality before 2060.
II. China has been promoting international cooperation on combating the virus with the vision of building a community with shared future for mankind.
China has been supporting and actively carrying out international cooperation against the virus. The year 2021 has seen repeated resurgence and frequent mutations of the coronavirus. The most serious pandemic in a century is still wreaking havoc. The pandemic is yet another reminder that we humanity rise and fall together with a shared future. Confronted by a pandemic like COVID-19, China upholds the vision of building a global community of health for all and supports international cooperation against the virus. China is committed to ensuring vaccine accessibility and affordability in developing countries. Since the outbreak of the coronavirus, China has sent medical supplies to more than 150 countries and 13 international organizations, providing more than 280 billion masks to the world. Notwithstanding the limited production capacity and enormous demand at home, China has provided more than 800 million doses of vaccines to more than 100 countries and international organizations. On August 5, 2021, Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi hosted the First Meeting of the International Forum on COVID-19 Vaccine Cooperation. President Xi Jinping sent a message to this meeting in which he announced that China will strive to provide two billion vaccine doses to the world throughout this year and offer 100 million dollars to the COVID-19 Vaccine Global Access (COVAX) facility. This is another major move for China to honor its commitment of making vaccines a global public good, and also allow it to make new contribution to the global cooperation against COVID-19.
China and Africa have always been good brothers and good partners sharing weal and woe, and a community with a shared future. With the severe challenges to Africa's peace and development posed by the once-in-a-century pandemic, China always cares about the wellbeing of our African brothers. To promote Post-Pandemic Recovery in Africa, China and Africa countries including Seychelles jointly launched the Initiative on Partnership for Africa’s Development. This initiative aims to build international consensus and synergy and invest resources in the areas most urgently needed by Africa, so as to inject new impetus for lasting peace and sustainable development in Africa.
China has been supporting science-based efforts on origins tracing. Acting on the principles of science, openness and transparency, we have twice invited WHO experts to China for origins tracing research. After the research, a Joint Report containing authoritative, professional and science-based conclusions was released. This is a good foundation for international cooperation on origins tracing. China would continue to support and participate in global origin-tracing cooperation in the spirit of openness, transparency, science and cooperation and contribute China's part to humanity's final victory over COVID-19. Meanwhile, China firmly opposes attempts to politicize the origin-tracing issue and opposes that some countries using the origin-tracing to smear China.
China continued to fulfill its global responsibility and uphold the vision of building a community with shared future for mankind. President Xi Jinping attended major diplomatic events including Leaders Summit on Climate, the Global Health Summit and the APEC Informal Economic Leaders' Retreat, and delivered important speeches, contributing the China wisdom and China solution to fight against the climate change, promote global anti-epidemic cooperation, accelerate world economic recovery, uphold multilateralism and advance global peace and development. Standing at a new historical starting point, China is committed to peaceful and open development and promotion of high-quality Belt and Road cooperation. It stands ready to work with other countries to uphold peace, development, equity, justice, democracy and freedom, which are values shared by all, and to build a community with a shared future for mankind.
III. China-Seychelles relations have maintained a good momentum of growth with fruitful cooperation in different areas
China and Seychelles are both peace-loving countries. Our leaders, governments and political parties have common goal which is making country prosperous and people happier. China always firmly supports Seychelles in taking a development path suited to its national conditions and in the governance efforts of the new Seychelles government. China and Seychelles have supported each other on issues concerning each other's core interests and major concerns on the basis of mutual respect for national sovereignty and maintained close coordination on major international and regional issues to uphold multilateralism, safeguard the developing countries interests and promote the shared human values of peace, development, fairness, justice, democracy, and freedom. This year, we solemnly celebrated the 45th anniversary of the establishment of China-Seychelles diplomatic relations. Our two foreign ministers exchanged congratulatory messages on this occasion. Over the past 45 years, the two countries have always treated each other as equals and the bilateral relations have enjoyed a sound momentum of growth, setting a good example of sincere friendship, solidarity, cooperation, mutual benefit and win-win outcomes between countries. Although the COVID-19 is still spreading around the world, China-Seychelles relations have maintained a good momentum of growth in 2021.
In January, Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi paid an official visit to Seychelles which injected new impetus into the development of bilateral relations and left him an excellent memory of Seychelles. The exchanges between our two governments, legislatures and political parties have also advanced steadily.
Bilateral economic and technical cooperation achieved new results with the signing of the new Agreement on Economic and Technical Cooperation; the realization of the low-carbon demonstration zone project was accelerated with the signing of the MoU on the construction and implementation of a low-carbon demonstration zone for South-South cooperation between the two sides; the China aid Criminal Investigation Laboratory project advanced steadily and the SBC House project is proceeding in an orderly manner.
At the beginning of the year, the 8th Seychelles-China Day and the happy Chinese spring festival activities have been successfully held by the Chinese embassy and the Seychelles side despite of the epidemic, among which, the special issue in Nation and Today and the Chinese Spring Festival documentary broadcast on SBC offered a good opportunity for the Seychellois to appreciate Chinese traditional culture. This year, another 7 Seychellois students got Chinese government Scholarship. The 18th Chinese medical team arrived in Seychelles and worked in their respective positions. The Confucius Institute continued to promote cultural exchanges between the two countries. The online Chinese Song Competition held by the Confucius Institute has attracted many Seychellois participants. For many years, the Chinese embassy was deeply concerned about the development of women, youth and children, actively responded to local demands and lent its support to the cultural activities and people’s well-being development of different districts and organizations.
The anti-epidemic cooperation between our two countries was further strengthened this year. China has provided vaccines and other anti-epidemic materials to Seychelles within its capacity. We noted that the vaccination campaign in Seychelles is progressing smoothly and the downward trend of the COVID-19 cases continues. With the reopening of the country, Seychelles has seen a gradual recovery in tourism and a rebound in the economy. China appreciates the measures taken by the Seychelles government to fight against the epidemic and revitalize its economy. We believe that under the leadership of President Ramkalawan, Seychelles economic and social development will make greater achievements.
The year 2021 is the 72nd anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, while China and Seychelles have traveled an extraordinary journey of 45 years. The Chinese side is ready to work with the Seychellois side to deepen exchange and cooperation, enhance people-to-people friendship, elevate this relationship to new heights, bring more benefits to our peoples, and deliver a bright future for both sides.