China is willing to deepen cooperation with the United Nations (UN) to make greater contributions to world peace and development, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on Tuesday, during his meeting with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. 

The UN chief is in Beijing to attend the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation.

Noting that the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has become the world's largest platform for international cooperation, with the broadest coverage, Wang said China is willing to enhance cooperation with UN to provide more quality public goods to the international community, thus making greater contribution to world peace and development and jointly building a global community of shared future.

Guterres said that since taking office as UN secretary-general, he has always firmly supported multilateralism and advocated putting development at the center of the UN agenda.

Praising the initiatives proposed by China – such as the BRI and Global Development Initiative – as crucial for developing countries to better meet current challenges, Guterres said the UN is willing to work with China to support the strengthening of South-South cooperation and promote the improvement of global governance.

Guterres said the UN expects China to continue to play a leading role in major international agendas. 

The two sides also exchanged views on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Wang, who is also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, stressed that the "two-state solution" is the only way out of the conflict.

China supports the UN in playing a bigger role in cooling down the situation and achieving a ceasefire as soon as possible, returning to the track of negotiations and building broader international consensus on the implementation of the "two-state solution," Wang said.

(Cover: UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres addresses the Palestinian-Israeli conflict during a news briefing at the UN headquarters in New York, U.S., October 9, 2023. /CFP)