BEIJING, July 10,
2024 /PRNewswire/ -- China and Tajikistan on Friday announced
the elevation of ties to comprehensive strategic partnership in the
new era during Chinese President Xi Jinping's ongoing state visit
to Tajikistan, injecting new
momentum and opening up a new chapter in bilateral ties and common
development of the two countries.
The visit, which saw Xi award Tajik President Emomali Rahmon the
Friendship Medal of the People's Republic
of China and the issuing of a joint statement detailing the
blueprint for bilateral cooperation, is seen as a landmark event,
underscoring the high-quality development and the elevation of
bilateral ties led by head-of-state diplomacy, analysts said. It
showed that the profound friendships between the two neighbors are
"as steadfast as the Pamir Plateau," they noted.
Deepening of bilateral ties is based on mutual trust and mutual
support of core interests, which shows that the two countries -
despite with different cultures, size of the economy and the level
of development - have been pioneering in the development of a new
type of international relations that are characterized by mutual
respect, equality and mutual benefit, observers said.
In light of the new circumstances, more priority areas for
bilateral cooperation are being laid out during the visit, which
will inject new momentum and open up a new chapter to the
collaboration of China and
Tajikistan. The two countries will
also gear up the joint building of Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)
to create more growth opportunities for the Central Asian
region.
Some of the other focal areas of collaboration also align with
the goals set by the just concluded Shanghai Cooperation
Organisation (SCO) summit in safeguarding regional peace and
stability, analysts said, expecting the two countries, upon the
visit, to coordinate more efforts to tackle both conventional and
nonconventional security threats.
Landmark visit
During his talks with Rahmon, Xi said China and Tajikistan are connected by mountains and
rivers, interdependent like lips and teeth, and sharing a common
destiny. The relationship between the two countries has deep
historical roots, a solid political foundation, rich content of
cooperation, and broad popular support, he added.
With joint efforts of both sides, China and Tajikistan have continuously deepened their
political mutual trust, yielded fruitful results in the Belt and
Road cooperation, and progressed a series of major projects
smoothly, strongly promoting the common development of both
countries, Xi said.
"The visit is a landmark event. It has achieved significant
results, laying the future foundation for deepening strategic
relations between China and
Tajikistan," Guzel Maitdinova, a
professor at the Department of Foreign Regional Studies and Foreign
Policy at Russian-Tajik (Slavonic) University, told the Global
Times.
Head-of-state diplomacy has a political advantage and is the
greatest guarantee for the stable and long-term development of
China-Tajikistan relations, observers noted.
The ongoing visit also marks Xi's third state visit to
Tajikistan in recent years. He
also visited the Central Asian country in 2014 and 2019. The
leaders of China and Tajikistan have been maintaining frequent
interactions through various forms such as face-to-face meetings
and phone calls, jointly steering and guiding the bilateral
relationship.
The visit of China's top leader
has received warm welcome among the Tajik people.
The Global Times witnessed on Thursday night a grand ceremony
which was held at Dushanbe
International Airport to welcome Xi's arrival in the country. Tajik
young people dressed in traditional costume were performing folk
dance and waving the national flags of China and Tajikistan at the airport.
It is also interesting that some of the Tajik youth greeted the
Global Times reporter and other Chinese visitors with bright smiles
and simple Chinese such as "Nihao," the Chinese way of saying
"Hello," with Chinese visitors responding in Tajik "Salom" in
return, which offers a vivid display of the people-to-people
connection between the two good neighbors and good friends.
"The bilateral relationship is built on a high level of trust
and mutual assistance, and the momentum of development and progress
of China-Tajikistan relations has remained unchanged,"
Chinese Ambassador to Tajikistan Ji Shumin told the Global Times in
an exclusive interview.
The two sides support each other on issues concerning their core
interests, including national sovereignty, security and territorial
integrity. Both are firmly opposed to politicizing, instrumenting
and applying double standards to the human rights issues, and to
any country's attempt to interfere in other countries' internal
affairs under the pretext of human rights, according to Ji.
China and Tajikistan are also both founding members of
the SCO, upholding the "Shanghai Spirit." In 2017, the two
countries forged a comprehensive strategic partnership. And the two
countries are committed to promoting the building of an SCO
community with a shared future and a China-Central Asia community
with a shared future, further strengthening mutual political trust
through various cooperation frameworks.
"The relations between China
and Tajikistan represent a
collaboration between a major country and a smaller one, as well as
between economies of different size, with different civilizations.
Despite the disparities, the two countries managed to build a
partnership based on an equal footing, which demonstrates a new
type of international relations based on equality and
consultation," Cui Heng, a scholar
from the Shanghai-based China
National Institute for SCO International Exchange and Judicial
Cooperation, told the Global Times on Friday.
Opening up a new chapter of cooperation
Xi on Friday awarded Tajik President Emomali Rahmon the
Friendship Medal of the People's Republic
of China in Dushanbe. It is
the first time the award was presented outside of China.
When Xi revisited Dushanbe in
June 2019, he also received the Order
of the Crown from Rahmon, Xinhua reported at the time.
Awarding honors is a very important and significant diplomatic
ceremony, and also a rare case of its kind, which underscores the
"profound" friendship between China and Tajikistan and is a recognition to the close
bilateral ties and the shared vision of the two neighbors,
observers said.
The two presidents also attended the inauguration of a
parliament building and a government building built with the
assistance of China in
Dushanbe.
When passing through the blue-domed new Parliament House of
Tajikistan in the city center of
Dushanbe, the Global Times noticed
that the magnificent building has already become a new calling card
of the capital, attracting crowds of local residents to take
photos.
"Strengthening China-Tajikistan cooperation is important for
Tajikistan to increase its level
of economic development, develop infrastructure, energy and
communication networks, and introduce innovative technologies,
among other fields," Maitdinova said.
According to the joint statement, the two countries will jointly
build the multimodal transport corridor linking China and Türkiye via regional countries
including Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Iran.
"The fruitful results will inject new dynamics to the further
development of bilateral cooperation, in par with the ongoing
cooperative efforts that are being steadily carried out between
China and Tajikistan," Cui added.
Tajikistan is among the
earliest countries to join the China-proposed BRI, and the country has been
pairing the initiative with its National Development Strategy of
Tajikistan for the period up to
2030, which has ushered in historic opportunities for cooperation.
To date, China has become
Tajikistan's largest source of
investment and aid, and one of Tajikistan's most important trading
partners.
The visit will also lay a foundation for the two countries to
explore joint measures to counter pressing challenges, such as
terrorism, extremism and separatism, or known as the "three evil
forces," transnational organized crimes, drug trafficking and cyber
threats, which makes the two countries a vital force in
"maintaining regional peace and stability and promoting common
development and prosperity," Maitdinova said.
The Chinese leader's state visit to Tajikistan follows a busy schedule at the SCO.
On Thursday the SCO summit was concluded in Astana, Kazakhstan, with China assuming the rotating presidency of the
SCO for 2024 and 2025.
According to Cui, China and
Tajikistan could also play a
constructive role in helping implement the organization's future
development roadmap drawn out during the SCO summit.
In a statement following the summit, leaders of the SCO members
called for the building of a multipolar world to address pressing
security risks and challenges. They also urged coordinated efforts
to tackle both conventional and nonconventional security
threats.
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SOURCE Global Times