Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi held talks on Thursday in Tashkent with Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev and Uzbekistan's Acting Foreign Minister Vladimir Norov on deepening bilateral cooperation in various fields.

Wang told President Mirziyoyev that China will always be Uzbekistan's reliable friend and partner. 

"China and Uzbekistan are friendly neighbors and comprehensive strategic partners. The two countries are closely linked as lips and teeth and share weal and woe in security," Wang said.

"China firmly supports Uzbekistan in pursuing its goal of building 'a new Uzbekistan,' supports Uzbekistan in safeguarding national sovereignty and social stability, and opposes interference by any force in Uzbekistan's internal affairs."

Mirziyoyev expressed heartfelt gratitude to China for its valuable help to Uzbekistan in promoting reform and opening up, poverty reduction and fighting the epidemic, and its strong support for Uzbekistan in maintaining social stability. 

He said that Uzbekistan and China have upheld the principles of mutual trust and mutual assistance, mutual benefit and good-neighborly friendship, and have pushed bilateral relations to new levels. 

During his talks with Norov, Wang said that since the establishment of diplomatic ties 30 years ago, China-Uzbekistan relations have withstood the test of the changing international situation and grown stronger; their friendship has overcome challenges and become increasingly unbreakable; their cooperation has yielded fruitful results and gained more vitality. 

Wang attributed the success to the strategic guidance of the two heads of state and the joint efforts of the people of the two countries. 

China firmly supports Uzbekistan in safeguarding its national sovereignty, security and social stability as well as continuing to follow the path of development and revitalization in line with its national conditions, and opposes any external interference in its internal affairs, he said. 

Wang said that China stands ready to follow the important consensus reached by the two heads of state to push forward the leapfrog development of bilateral relations and open up the next three decades of greater friendship, higher level of mutual trust, common development and shared prosperity between China and Uzbekistan. 

Calling Uzbekistan and China good brothers and friends, Norov said over the past 30 years, the two countries have consistently respected each other, treated each other as equals, set an example of mutually beneficial cooperation and served as a stable anchor for regional peace and development.

Norov said that Uzbekistan welcomes and supports the important initiatives put forward by Chinese President Xi Jinping, including the Global Development Initiative and the Global Security Initiative.

Norov briefed Wang on Uzbekistan's preparations for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit to be held in autumn and thanked China for its strong support.

Consensuses reached

China and Uzbekistan also reached a series of consensuses on raising bilateral relations to a higher level during Wang's visit on Thursday. 

The two sides will take the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties as a new starting point to make joint efforts toward the vision and goal of building a China-Uzbekistan community with a shared future and injecting new strong impetus into their comprehensive strategic partnership, Wang told reporters. 

The two sides discussed the promotion of the Global Development Initiative and the Global Security Initiative, and Uzbekistan expressed readiness to support and participate in the two important initiatives, he said. 

Both parties spoke highly of the growth of bilateral trade despite an unfavorable environment and voiced confidence in the prospects of further cooperation, Wang noted.

China and Uzbekistan pledged to achieve an annual trade turnover of $10 billion as soon as possible and set new targets, and decided to jointly implement the five-year plan for economic, trade and investment cooperation, and draw up a list of priority cooperation projects for the future. 

Both sides believe that the time is becoming ripe to push forward the construction of the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway and are willing to speed up the feasibility study for the project, he told reporters. 

The two countries will deepen cooperation in poverty alleviation and set up a sub-committee on poverty reduction under the intergovernmental cooperation committee to advance the work. 

They will also strengthen medical and health cooperation and expand joint production of vaccines, while China will assist Uzbekistan in building a regional center of vaccine production and research and development. 

In addition, China will provide free cataract surgeries for another 500 Uzbek patients and set up a cooperation center for blindness prevention in the Central Asian country, Wang said. 

(With input from Xinhua)

(Cover: Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi (L) poses with Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev in Tashkent, Uzbeksitan, July 28, 2022. /Chinese Foreign Ministry)