CCTV: Today the G20 virtual foreign ministers' meeting on Afghanistan was held. Do you have anything to read out on China's participation?
Zhao Lijian: State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi attended the G20 virtual foreign ministers' meeting on Afghanistan on September 23. He stated that as a major platform for international economic cooperation, the G20 should, based on its purview, play a constructive role in efforts to seek peace, promote development and build consensus in Afghanistan. The Chinese side made the following six proposals:
First, humanitarian assistance is of utmost urgency. China has decided to provide 200 million RMB worth of supplies to Afghanistan, including an initial batch of 3 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines. We hope countries responsible for the current situation in Afghanistan will seriously reflect upon what they have done and take prompt and concrete actions to ease the Afghan people's difficulties and fulfill their due obligation.
Second, economic sanctions must stop. Various unilateral sanctions or restrictions on Afghanistan should be lifted. The country's foreign reserves are national assets that should not be used as leverage to exert political pressure on Afghanistan. China calls on G20 members to actively adopt concrete measures to help ease the liquidity pressure in Afghanistan.
Third, interactions and engagement must be inclusive. The international community should support the Afghan people in independently choosing a development path suited to the national conditions, eventually building a broad-based and inclusive political architecture, respecting the basic rights of ethnic minorities, women and children, and following a peaceful foreign policy of good-neighborliness and friendship with other countries, especially neighboring countries.
Fourth, counter-terrorism cooperation should be deepened. The international community should bear in mind the vision of a community with a shared future for mankind, build a united front against terrorism, oppose double standards and selective counter-terrorism, and prevent Afghanistan from becoming a hotbed and harbor for terrorism again.
Fifth, both the symptoms and root causes of the refugee issue need to be addressed. The US and NATO countries should bear the primary responsibility for resolving the refugee and migrant issue in Afghanistan. The international community should also help Afghanistan speed up its economic reconstruction and fundamentally reduce the number of refugees and migrants.
Sixth, various mechanisms should coordinate for greater efficiency. China supports the role of the UN as the main channel for upholding peace and stability and promoting humanitarian assistance in Afghanistan, and urges the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) and other UN agencies to earnestly fulfill their duties. We welcome various multilateral mechanisms on Afghanistan to leverage their respective strengths and form synergy for assisting Afghanistan.
Xinhua News Agency: On September 20, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) published the Global Innovation Index 2021, where China ranked the 12th, up by two places compared to 2020. The report also spoke highly of China's progress in innovation, emphasizing the importance of government decisions and incentives to encouraging innovation. What is China's comment?
Zhao Lijian: I have seen relevant reports. According to the WIPO report, China has been moving up the ranking for nine consecutive years since 2013 and has been the top among middle-income economies. China ranks the first in nine areas, including patent filings, trademarks filings, industrial designs, high-tech exports, creative goods exports and domestic market scale. This is a full testament to the remarkable achievement China has made in scientific innovation and IPR protection.
In recent years, the Chinese government has been prioritizing the central role of scientific innovation in national development, implementing the innovation-driven development strategy and IPR strategy, and strengthening innovation and IPR protection, which resulted in significant improvement in innovation capabilities and the awareness of IPR protection in society. Yesterday, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council issued the guidelines for building a country strong on IPR for the 2021-2035 period. It put forward such objectives as accelerating the advancement of IPR reform and development, comprehensively improving China's IPR capability, upholding the vision of a community with a shared future for mankind, planning and promoting IPR reform and development with a global perspective, and working to build open, inclusive, balanced international IPR rules to deliver benefits of innovation to people of all countries.
As an important force for global scientific innovation and a major country of IPR, China is ready to work with all countries as always, take the historic opportunity presented by the latest round of scientific revolution and industrial revolution to speed up translating scientific outcomes into real productivity, build an open, fair, just and non-discriminatory environment for scientific development, tap new drivers for post-COVID economic growth and jointly achieve leapfrog development.
CCTV: State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi attended a meeting between foreign ministers of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and the UN Secretary-General. Do you have a readout on that?
Zhao Lijian: Today, State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi attended via videolink a meeting between foreign ministers of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and the UN Secretary-General in Beijing. State Councilor Wang said that the international community has high expectations for the P5, hoping in particular that they will strengthen solidarity and coordination and be a source of confidence and stability for the world.
First, the P5 are duty-bound to safeguard world peace. We should become a positive rather than negative factor for peace and be solution-providers rather than trouble-makers. In resolving hotspot issues, we should adhere to the UN Charter, give full play to mediation, make good use of peacekeeping missions, use coercive sanctions with caution and prudence, and refrain from wanton use of force.
Second, the P5 are duty-bound to practice multilateralism. All parties set great store by the US President's statement that he is not seeking a "new Cold War". The key is to translate this statement into action by abandoning the Cold War mentality and zero-sum game, renouncing ideological prejudice and exclusive cliques, and rejecting the impulse of group confrontation and geopolitical rivalry. Countries will be watching.
Third, the P5 are duty-bound to promote solidarity against COVID-19. We should unequivocally oppose attempts to politicize the pandemic, label the virus, and use origins tracing as a tool, and remove all words and actions that interfere with international cooperation against the coronavirus.
Fourth, the P5 are duty-bound to promote global cooperation. In his speech at the General Debate of the UN General Assembly, President Xi Jinping proposed the Global Development Initiative, which aims to galvanize global synergy and speed up the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. We welcome the active participation of all parties. The P5 have made commitments to implement the Paris Agreement on climate change, and should keep our word.
AFP: I have a question on the South Korean presidential race. One of the leading candidates said that if elected he would urge the US to deploy tactical nuclear weapons to South Korea if it is threatened by the North. What is China's position on the redeployment of US nuclear weapons in South Korea?
Zhao Lijian: China's position on the Korean Peninsula and the nuclear issue is consistent and clear. It is irresponsible that some politician in the ROK make an issue out of the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue.
Global Times: An interactive dialogue with the Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery was held a few days ago during the 48th session of the Human Rights Council, where many countries expressed concern over human trafficking and forced labor in the US. Could you shed some light on China's position?
Zhao Lijian: China shares the concern over human trafficking and forced labor in the US. Throughout history, the US practiced abhorrent slavery and slave trade and committed genocide against American Indians. Today the US still remains plagued with human trafficking and forced labor.
I'd like to share some statistics with you: nearly 100,000 people are trafficked to the US from abroad for forced labor annually in the past five years,