By Rhod Mackenzie
Russia and China have planned a number of important contacts by the end of this year. According to Interfax, Wang Yi, head of the Office of the Commission of the CPC Central Committee on Foreign Affairs, said this today, speaking in the framework of an international dialogue with ASEAN partners. According to the Chinese official, Beijing sees "bright prospects" for developing relations with Russia, taking into account the successful recent visit of the head of China to Moscow.
“We are satisfied with the trend in the development of our relations and are deeply convinced of the bright prospects for our relations. [...] A number of important high-level contacts are expected in the second half of the year. It is important for us to coordinate well, strengthen our bilateral and multilateral cooperation, and implement well the goals set by the leaders of our countries in developing our relations,” Wang Yi said.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, for his part, stressed that "the broad, rich agenda of the Russian-Chinese dialogue requires regular checking of clocks."
“In this sense, our meeting today is very, very timely. We support ASEAN's focus on continuing its constructive role in the Asia-Pacific region, we support ASEAN-centric mechanisms, and we will work together with the People's Republic of China to strengthen them,” the Russian Foreign Minister said.
ASEAN - Association of Southeast Asian Nations. The organization brings together 10 Asian countries, including Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Singapore and the Philippines, with a total population of over 667,000,000 people. Since July 1996, Russia has been a full-scale dialogue partner with ASEAN, by now several regular Russia-ASEAN summits have already taken place.
This article originally appeard in Russian at expert.ru