President Xi meets Estonian counterpart

Chinese President Xi Jinping met on Tuesday with his Estonian counterpart Kersti Kaljulaid in Beijing, who is in China to attend the Summer Davos Forum in the northern port city of Tianjin.

Chinese President Xi Jinping meets with his Estonian counterpart Kersti Kaljulaid in Beijing on September 18, 2018. [Photo: gov.cn]

China proposes building a community with a shared future for humanity, which means that China advocates mutual respect, equal treatment, harmony within diversity and win-win cooperation between different countries, Xi said.

"Each country, regardless of its size, has its own merits and is an equal member of the international community," said Xi, calling for abandoning the "law of the jungle."

Hailing Estonia as a country with a good geographical location, Xi said the ecological environment, green agriculture and digital economy of Estonia are unique, and the country actively participates in international affairs.

China hopes to work with Estonia to promote bilateral ties on the basis of mutual respect and equal treatment, Xi said.

"The two sides should build up political mutual trust, synergize the Belt and Road Initiative with Estonian national development strategies, enhance pragmatic cooperation and carry out more high-quality people-to-people exchange activities," said Xi.

He said China supports the European integration and is willing to work with the European side to maintain multilateralism, oppose unilateralism and build an open world economy.

He also said China is ready to strengthen cooperation with the Estonian side within the framework of Central and Eastern Europe and China cooperation.

Kaljulaid said Estonia highly appreciates that China treats small countries like Estonia equally. "We hope to reinforce cooperation with China in trade, e-commerce, logistics and other fields and expand people-to-people exchanges."

Estonia supports multilateralism and free trade, appreciates China's important role in global affairs, hopes to closely communicate and coordinate with China in multilateral affairs and jointly safeguard international rules and order, Kaljulaid said.