China to Host Cuban, Mongolian, Lao Leaders Consecutively

Attraction of development wisdom, international relations ideal evidenced in diplomatic whirlwind

By Zhang Han and Wan Hengyi

Nov 24, 2022 09:47 PM

Flags at the Tian'anmen Square and atop the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.(Photo: Xinhua)

In the third wave of diplomatic activities after China successfully concluded the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC), the country is scheduled to receive visiting Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel Bermudez this week and host Mongolian President Ukhnaa Khurelsukh and Lao President Thongloun Sisoulith in the coming week.

According to the Financial Times, European Council President Charles Michel will also visit China next week, while Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said on Thursday at a routine press conference that China will announce the relevant information in due course.

The previous two waves were Chinese President Xi Jinping's Southeast Asian tour from November 14 to19 for the G20 summit and the APEC meetings, where he also held a whirlwind series of face-to-face bilateral meetings with several other leaders, and the previous intensive visits by general secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam Central Committee Nguyen Phu Trong, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. 

The frequent visits by leaders from countries located in different continents, with different political systems and development paths, were perceived by observers as showing that China's growth not only benefits its own people, but also provides development wisdom and cooperation opportunities for other countries.

It is evidence that China is willing to seek joint prosperity with more countries, regardless of their geographic location, political system and development stage to collectively build a community of shared future for mankind.

Diaz-Canel, who is also first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba, will visit China until Saturday at the invitation of Xi. Diaz-Canel is the first head of state from the Latin America and Caribbean region to visit China after the 20th CPC National Congress.

Mao said at a routine press briefing on Monday it is believed that Diaz-Canel's visit will inject impetus into bilateral relations and advance the two countries' traditional friendship and cooperation, Mao said. 

China and Cuba are "good friends, good comrades and good brothers," standing together in fighting against hegemony, unilateralism and protectionism, and have been cooperating on trade, medical and cultural exchanges, Pan Deng, executive director of the Latin American and Caribbean Region Law Center of China University of Political Science and Law, told the Global Times.

Visits by neighbors  

After Diaz-Canel, Mongolian President Khurelsuh will visit China on November 27 and 28. Xi will hold formal talks with Khurelsuh and the two presidents will jointly witness the signing of cooperation documents, according to China's Foreign Ministry.

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and Li Zhanshu, Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress will also meet with Khurelsuh. 

The high-level exchanges are likely to cover international hot-button issues such as the Russia-Ukraine conflict, and the joint response to the complicated geopolitical situation, analysts said.

China's market, capital and technology are highly complementary to Mongolia's resource advantages and the two countries also have great potential to enhance cooperation under the framework of the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), analysts said, as Mongolia can be an important transit hub on the route. 

The visit by Lao President Thongloun, who is also general secretary of the Lao People's Revolutionary Party Central Committee, from November 29 to December 1,  was announced on Thursday by the International Department of the CPC Central Committee. 

The announcement of the visit by a CPC department underscored the unique inter-party relations and positive interactions between two socialist countries, observers said, adding that the two countries have high-level mutual political trust and joint projects, many of which are under the BRI, that have brought tangible benefits to the people. 

Xu Liping, director of the Center for Southeast Asian Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times on Thursday that China and Laos eye deepening their comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership. Laos is one of the earliest countries to build a bilateral community of shared future with China, and such a course for bilateral relations suggested the two countries share similar stance on strategic issues, have a high-level of mutual trust and share close views on many issues related to domestic growth, regional and global prosperity, experts noted.

The China-Laos Railway, a landmark project, forges greater synergy between China's BRI with the strategy of Laos to transform itself from a land-locked to a land-linked country, Lao Ambassador to China Khamphao Ernthavanh told the Global Times in an earlier exclusive interview.

China has always pursued a peaceful rise, and a crucial premise to realizing that goal is to develop stable and healthy diplomatic relations with its neighbors. This means China will spare no effort in maintaining regional security and advancing regional prosperity, Xu said. 

The expert hailed China's relations with Laos and Mongolia as exemplars of countries of different scales forging ties out of mutual respect, equality and win-win cooperation. 

Being the second largest economy in the world, China is striving to realize common development with others through the BRI, the Global Development Initiative and many other proposals, Xu said. 

Pan Deng, citing Cuba's decades-long struggle for development and better livelihoods for its people, outlined a stark contrast between China's approach and the US' "beggar-thy-neighbor" approach. 

When China makes effort to bring about joint prosperity and conduct cooperation regardless of partners' systems and ideologies, the US wages a war of values against what Washington deems as a rivalry, with Cuba being one of the victims, ties allies to the US chariot using the "ideology card" and in the latest example, causes the EU to bleed. It also hijacks its neighbors to gather bargaining chips in a US-dominated geopolitical game, sacrificing the development of the whole of Latin America, Pan elaborated. 

ASEAN's rather cold response toward the US' regional strategy and the resurgence of left-wing governments in Latin America have demonstrated that more and more countries are tired of US-led bloc confrontation, unilateralism and hegemonic coercion, as only cooperation can help the world overcome sluggish economic recovery and geopolitical turbulence, observers said. 

Not alone on the way

Vietnam, Cuba and Laos are all socialist countries. Amid the complicated and fast-changing international situation, where socialism should go and how we get there becomes a shared question for us all, Xu said. "China is exploring the answer based on its own experience, and has made innovations in theory at the just concluded 20th CPC National Congress." 

Facing unprecedented changes, it is important for socialist countries to enhance exchanges on socialist theories and practices, continue to improve governance capabilities, and join hands on the international stage for a collective socialist cause, Xu noted. 

China's modernization path, from a war-battered agricultural country in 1949 to a moderately prosperous society in all respects today at the centenary of the CPC, and the further goal of building China into a great modern socialist country in all respects and to advance the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation on all fronts, was charted clearly at the key congress. 

Analysts said China's wisdom of socialist modernization will hopefully inspire more comrades to figure out a development approach tailored to their own realities, and China's ideal of new type of international relations, as elaborated in its recent diplomatic flurry of activity, is being embraced by more countries of different national conditions, political systems and development phases.