Chinese Ambassador to Cambodia HE Wang Wentian.
Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the People’s Republic of China to the Kingdom of Cambodia
HE Wang Wentian
My dear compatriots and friends, today is the National Day of the People’s Republic of China.
On this joyous occasion, on behalf of the Chinese Embassy in Cambodia, I would like to extend the most sincere greetings to all staff of Chinese-funded institutions, volunteer Chinese teachers, overseas students and local Chinese compatriots.
Taking this opportunity, I would also like to express my heartfelt gratitude to our Cambodian friends from all walks of life who have cared about and supported China’s development for a long time and are committed to enhancing the traditional China-Cambodia friendship.
Seventy-one years ago, under the leadership of the Communist Party of China (CPC), the Chinese people successfully overthrew the three mountains of imperialism, feudalism and bureaucratic capitalism after years of struggle and completed a new democratic revolution.
The founding of the new China marked the Chinese people standing up, with the Chinese nation embarking on a great path to achieve great rejuvenation.
Over the past 71 years, under the leadership of the CPC, the Chinese people, through self-reliance and painstaking efforts, have overcome one difficulty and another, and created many great achievements which have attracted world attention.
The Chinese nation has not only stood up, but also become richer and stronger.
This year China will achieve its first centenary goal by completing the building of a moderately prosperous society in all respects. Today’s China is closer than ever before to realising the great goal of national rejuvenation.
Since the beginning of this year, Covid-19 has spread all over the world. Faced with this aggressive pandemic, we, under the leadership of the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping as its core, have given top priority to people’s lives and health, waging a people’s war against the pandemic.
Within a short time, China has achieved major strategic outcomes in the fight and effectively safeguarded the lives and health of the Chinese people.
While maintaining prevention and control efforts at home, China has been actively advocating a community of common health for mankind, while fully supporting and engaging in international cooperation in pandemic control. This demonstrates our responsibilities as a major country.
China has cumulatively provided more than $2 billion in international aid for pandemic control. The Chinese government will actively carry out the solemn commitment of making China’s vaccine an international public product as proposed by President Xi Jinping, and help make the vaccine accessible and affordable for developing countries.
Faced with the pandemic and the complicated and evolving international environment, China has coordinated the promotion of epidemic prevention and control, and economic and social development.
By vigorously advancing the “dual circulation” development pattern in which the domestic economic cycle plays a leading role while the international economic cycle remains its extension and supplement, we have steadily and effectively restored the normal order of economic and social development.
According to statistics, China’s second-quarter GDP has realised year-on-year growth of 3.2 per cent.
The International Monetary Fund predicts that China will become the only major economy that can maintain positive growth throughout 2020.
This year marks the 10th anniversary of the establishment of the comprehensive strategic partnership of cooperation between China and Cambodia, while it is also the first anniversary of the signing of the action plan for building a China-Cambodia community of shared futures.
Faced with the Covid-19 pandemic, the two countries, the two governments and the two peoples have stood together to overcome difficulties, setting an example for international cooperation in pandemic control.
We have jointly created many firsts during the pandemic.
Prime Minister Hun Sen was the first foreign head of government to visit China, while the first batch of foreign aid to Wuhan came from Cambodia.
The Chinese government and military have respectively sent groups of medical experts to Cambodia, the first initiative of its kind in the region or the world.
The China-Cambodia Free Trade Agreement was the Kingdom’s first FTA concluded through video negotiations, while the 2020 Golden Dragon joint military exercise was China’s first and only joint military exercise with a foreign army.
The fifth meeting of the China-Cambodia Intergovernmental Coordination Committee was the first high-level bilateral cooperation meeting to be held by China and a neighbouring country.
These and countless other facts prove that the traditional China-Cambodia friendship has been further refined during the pandemic.
Undergoing profound changes unseen in a century, the world is at a new historical starting point, and the destiny of mankind has never been so closely connected.
China will stay firmly committed to opening our door wider to the world, and working jointly with Cambodia as well as other countries to achieve more win-win results.
China will always practise multilateralism and continue to promote the building of a community with a shared future for mankind, in order to realise greater solidarity and progress for human society.
May China and Cambodia enjoy ever growing prosperity and their peoples living in peace.
May the brotherly China-Cambodia friendship be passed on from generation to generation and last forever.
