State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi and German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas spoke highly of the progress in China-Germany relations and bilateral cooperation in various fields in recent years.

They made the remarks on Nov 13 while attending the fourth round of China-Germany Strategic Dialogue on Diplomacy and Security in Beijing.

China is willing to work with Germany to actively implement the important consensus reached by the leaders of the two countries, strengthen political design and leadership of bilateral ties, maintain high-level exchanges and dialogues at all levels, and continuously enhance mutual political trust, Wang said.

Maas highly appreciated China’s active role in international affairs, which attached great importance to Germany-China ties, confirming his country’s willingness to strengthen coordination and cooperation with China in international affairs.

After their meeting, Wang attended a joint press conference with Maas to give a briefing on the results of the dialogue.

Sino-German cooperation is highly complementary and there are many points of interest, Wang said, adding that bilateral relations have maintained strong momentum.

Both sides agreed to firmly support multilateralism as unilateralism persists and power politics are mounting, which have brought many uncertainties to the world.

Wang and Maas agreed that the global free trade system should be unswervingly maintained.

Both China and Germany have benefited from the free trade system. For a long time, the two countries have adhered to two-way opening up and have become successful examples of mutually beneficial cooperation among developed and developing countries.

The two sides endeavored to achieve win-win outcomes through mutually beneficial cooperation so as to catalyze the revitalization of the Eurasian continent as a whole.

Economic circles in Germany have great enthusiasm for participating in the Belt and Road cooperation, Wang hailed, pointing out that China welcomes German companies to participate in the project and will carry out third-party cooperation in countries along the route under appropriate conditions.

After exchanging the views on situations on the Korean Peninsula, Iran and other hot topics, they also agreed that strategic communication should be strengthened to jointly address global issues and challenges.