By Ren Huanyu
Chinese President Xi Jinping’s state visit to Myanmar from Jan 17 to 18 has guided China-Myanmar relationship onto a new starting point.
The new blueprint of bilateral ties heralds a beautiful prospect of the China-Myanmar community with a shared future and responds to the earnest aspiration of the two peoples for a long-lasting fraternal relationship between the two countries.
A closer China-Myanmar relationship further reflects the two countries’ geographic proximity and close people-to-people bonds and cultural ties. President Xi has reiterated the “Paukphaw” friendship between the two countries in his signed article carried by Myanmar newspapers and during his meeting with Myanmar leaders.
The China-Myanmar “Paukphaw” friendship, with a history of more than 1,000 years, is the driving force and source of the development of bilateral relationship. The deep friendship between the two countries could be seen from the fact that the two countries understand each other and treat each other with sincerity, support each other through thick and thin, and respect each other and adhere to win-win cooperation.
China firmly supports the Myanmar government and people in taking a development path that is in line with their national conditions and continuously advancing the cause of national development. The country advocates that the people of the two countries will always be good neighbors, friends and partners. The Myanmar society highly agrees with this.
During President Xi’s visit, the voice for “Long live China-Myanmar friendship!” echoed over Naypyidaw, and the faith of promoting the friendship between the two countries and deepening bilateral relations became firmer.
To build a China-Myanmar community with a shared future allows China-Myanmar relations to keep up with innovation and forge ahead in the new era.
The comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership between China and Myanmar has a deep foundation. It is of extraordinary significance in the field of international relations that the two sides work together to set an example of promoting and practicing the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, and set an example of exchanges between countries.
The important political consensus reached by leaders of the two countries on the establishment of a community with a shared future between China and Myanmar has further explained the close relationship between the two countries, and injected new impetus and vitality into the development of bilateral relations. It also signified that the two countries will make new joint efforts to push for the construction of a community with a shared future for mankind.
China has always been a good friend to Myanmar and the two countries have been bound together, said Myanmar State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi, adding that Myanmar stands ready to keep sharing weal and woe and build a community with a shared future with China.
China and Myanmar will work hand in hand to build an even closer China-Myanmar community with a shared future and write a new chapter for the millennia-old pauk-phaw friendship, Myanmar newspaper The Global New Light of Myanmar said in a commentary.
To accelerate the integration of the Belt and Road Initiative with Myanmar’s development strategy brings bright prospects to China-Myanmar cooperation.
During his stay in Myanmar, President Xi conducted in-depth discussions on promoting high-quality co-construction of the BRI with Myanmar leaders. The two sides agreed to work hard to push forward the construction of the Kyaukpyu Special Economic Zone, the China-Myanmar Border Economic Cooperation Zone, the New Yangon City, as well as roads, railways and power and energy infrastructure projects.
It marks the transition of the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor (CMEC) from conceptual planning to substantive construction.
At present, a three-pillar giant cooperation pattern is being formed which starts in north from China’s Yunnan province, goes down south to the central Myanmar city of Mandalay, and further extends eastward to the new city of Yangon and westward to the Kyaukpyu special economic zone.
In the future, China-Myanmar mutually beneficial cooperation in various fields will bear more fruits and create more benefits for the people. Myanmar President U Win Myint said he believes that as the two countries’ cooperation deepens, Myanmar- China relations will witness greater development.
Deep are the feelings of Paukphaw, just as long is the flow of rivers of China and Myanmar. The Myanmar trip, paid days before China’s Spring Festival, was President Xi’s first overseas trip in 2020, a year that marks the 70th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Myanmar.
People
are glad to see the historical trend of China-Myanmar friendly exchanges and
cooperative development is leaping forward, and the path of building a
community with a shared future for China and Myanmar is getting wider and
wider.
