Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Malaysian Foreign Minister Saifuddin Abdullah discussed bilateral ties and cooperation between the two countries in a phone conversation on Wednesday.

China and Malaysia are close and friendly neighbors, and the two countries are good partners jointly seeking development and good friends watching and helping each other, Wang said during the conversation.

China has been Malaysia's largest trading partner for 12 consecutive years and the country's largest investor in its manufacturing sector for five consecutive years, which show the enormous complementarity and cooperation potential in their economies, Wang said.

He suggested that the two sides maintain high-level exchanges and give full play to the role of the high-level committee on China-Malaysia cooperation, deepen high-quality cooperation on jointly building the Belt and Road, make the twin industrial parks – the China-Malaysia Qinzhou Industrial Park and the Malaysia-China Kuantan Industrial Park – stronger and more concrete and hold discussions on cooperation in emerging areas, including 5G, big data and cloud computing.

Noting that fighting the COVID-19 epidemic is an urgent task at present, Wang said China will continue to support Malaysia in fighting the epidemic, vigorously promote vaccine cooperation between the two sides and make joint efforts to tackle the challenges in the post-epidemic period.

China is willing to work with Malaysia to continue to hold high the banner of solidarity against the epidemic and stick to the just position against the stigmatization of the epidemic and politicization of origins tracing, Wang said.

Underlining the Global Development Initiative proposed by Chinese President Xi Jinping at the 76th UN General Assembly, Wang said the initiative adheres to the core concept that puts the people first, follows the guidelines featuring practical cooperation, and puts forward cooperation proposals on poverty alleviation, food security and other issues of common interest.

It is a major public good provided by China, Wang said.

Malaysia is welcome to actively participate in the initiative and work with China to build more global consensus and develop greater synergy to promote stronger, greener and healthier global development to accelerate the realization of the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Saifuddin extended warm congratulations on the 72nd anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China. He said Malaysia highly praises and thanks China for providing vaccines to Malaysia and carrying out cooperation in vaccine research and production, adding that Malaysia is willing to discuss cooperation with China on traditional Chinese medicine.

Malaysia is firmly committed to developing relations with China and looks forward to working together with the Chinese side to further tap the potential of cooperation to jointly build the Belt and Road and enhance the Malaysia-China relations further, he said.

The Global Development Initiative proposed by President Xi is timely, meets the urgent needs of today's world and shows China's moral responsibility to respond to global challenges, Saifuddin said.

The two sides agreed to take the opportunity of the 30th anniversary of the establishment of dialogue relations between China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to elevate the China-ASEAN strategic partnership to a new level.

The two sides also exchanged in-depth views on international and regional issues of common concern, such as the Afghanistan situation and nuclear non-proliferation.

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(Cover: Malaysia's booths at the 18th China-ASEAN Expo in Nanning, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, south China, September 10, 2021. /CFP)