In early November, Premier Li Keqiang started visiting Asian and European countries for meetings with foreign leaders.

The regular meetings serve not only as platforms for high-level exchanges but also channels to promote economic and trade cooperation, which provides an institutional guarantee for China’s Belt and Road Initiative.

Premier Li’s agenda this time includes the 15th prime ministers’ meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in Kyrgyzstan, the third regular meeting between Chinese and Kazakh prime ministers in Kazakhstan, the fifth leaders’ meeting of China and Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries in Latvia, and the 21st regular meeting between Chinese and Russian prime ministers in Russia.

Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Russia are major countries along the Silk Road Economic Belt, while Latvia is an important Central and Eastern European country along the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road.

As all these countries are significant in promoting China’s Belt and Road Initiative, Premier Li’s visits to these countries and his attendance to the regular meetings contributes to the endeavor.

During the regular meetings with foreign leaders, agreements will be signed in sectors regarding capacity cooperation and economic and trade development and cooperative measures will be discussed in areas such as finance, interconnectivity, technology innovation, and people-to-people exchanges.

Despite the fact tough external economic environment among central Asian countries will bring challenges to China’s Belt and Road Initiative, the mechanism of regular meetings between Premier Li and foreign leaders will help strengthen high-level exchanges and strategic mutual trust, which will finally boost the development of the Silk Road Economic Belt.

The mechanism of regular meetings is China’s diplomatic innovation in recent years, effectively advancing the development of China’s relations with foreign countries.

So far, China has established the mechanism of regular meetings with countries such as Russia, Germany, Poland, Australia, and Kazakhstan.