Chinese President Hu Jintao, at invitation, visited the Republic of Korea (ROK), Tajikistan and Turkmenistan and attended the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Dushanbe from August 25 to 30, 2008. As the visit approached the end, Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi who accompanied President Hu during those activities introduced to the journalists the outcome of President Hu’s visit.

President Hu’s visit is the first one paid by the Chinese leader after China successfully held the Beijing Olympic Games. It is a major diplomatic activity of China with the neighboring regions, noted Yang. As the current international and regional situations experience great changes, the visit has strategic significance to strengthening China’s relations with countries concerned, promoting the SCO cooperation and maintaining peace and stability in the region.

Attaching great importance to the visit, the 3 countries warmly welcomed and received President Hu with great hospitality, noted Yang. During the visit to the 3 nations and on the bilateral and multilateral occasions of the SCO summit, President Hu exchanged in-depth opinions and reached extensive and important consensus with the leaders of related countries on the bilateral relations and the major international and regional issues of common concern. He also contacted widely the statesmen, entrepreneurs and businesses, media and youth of the 3 countries with the purpose to increase friendship and discuss the blueprint of cooperation and development. President Hu attended 49 activities during a period of 5 days. With a tight schedule, the visit has achieved fruitful outcome with far-reaching influence.

I. Deepening the all-level cooperation in various fields and consolidating the good-neighborly friendship

Since China established diplomatic ties with South Korea, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan respectively 16 years ago, the bilateral relations have grown rapidly and the cooperation fields expanded continuously. In particular, the bilateral ties have stepped to new levels in recent years, said Yang. Through the visit all the countries concerned expect to continue to expand and deepen the bilateral relations and cooperation in various fields. During the visit, China issued a joint communiqué with the ROK, a joint statement to further enhance the good-neighborly friendship and cooperative relations with Tajikistan and a joint statement with Turkmenistan and signed more than 30 bilateral cooperation documents in the fields of economy, trade, science, technology, finance, energy efficiency, energy sources, transport and education.

During the visit to the ROK, President Hu and the ROK leaders jointly set the direction and objectives of bilateral ties under the new situation and reached a series of new and important consensus. Hu proposed that China and the ROK take the long-term common development as the basic goal of bilateral ties, share the development opportunities, cope with challenges together, deepen cooperation in all fields and strengthen coordination and cooperation on major international and regional issues, with which President Lee Myung-bak agreed. The two sides also agreed to make joint efforts to constantly increase political mutual trust, deepen economic and trade cooperation, widen cultural, educational and youth exchanges, and strengthen coordination and partnership to push forward the six-party talks process and maintain peace and stability in Northeast Asia. The suggestion of President Hu on reinforcing the bilateral economic and trade cooperation by strengthening cooperation in key areas, boosting mutual investment and expanding cooperation in international economic affairs received positive responses from the ROK government and business community.

During his visit to Tajikistan, President Hu pointed out that it is a firm principle of the Chinese government to develop the mutually beneficial and win-win relations with Tajikistan featured by long-term friendship, equality and trust. President Rakhmon stressed that it is one of the top priorities of Tajik diplomatic relations to consolidate and reinforce the friendly ties with China. Both sides agreed to strengthen the friendly exchanges in all fields at various levels, increase mutual trust and push forward the pragmatic cooperation in such fields as transport, hydropower, minerals and agriculture; deepen security cooperation and fight resolutely the “three forces” including the “East Turkistan”; enhance the multilateral coordination and improve communications and coordination within the multilateral frameworks including the United Nations; step up the cooperation in the fields of culture, sports, education and health and consolidate the foundation of friendship.

During the visit to Turkmenistan, President Hu emphasized that it is an established principle of the Chinese government to grow the mutually beneficial and win-win relations with Turkmenistan featured by long-term friendship, equality and trust. President Berdymukhamedov noted that the Turkmenistan-China relations are established on the basis of sincere friendship and mutually beneficial cooperation between their people and China is one of the most important and reliable partners of Turkmenistan. Both sides agreed to strengthen the contacts at all levels and deepen consultations and dialogue; push forward the pragmatic cooperation in the fields of infrastructure construction and energy; enhance the cooperation of law enforcement and security departments and firmly combat the “three forces” including the “East Turkistan”; increase communications and coordination within the multilateral frameworks including the United Nations and extend greater support to each other on the issues of common concern; boost cooperation in such fields as culture, sports, education, news, health and tourism.

All the 3 countries reiterated firm adherence to the one-China policy on the Taiwan and Tibet related questions and support for China’s efforts of maintaining the national sovereignty and territorial integrity.

II. Promoting the sustainable and healthy development of the SCO and building a harmonious region

Yang noted that the SCO has become a major regional organization for maintaining peace and stability in Central Asia, promoting economic development and strengthening cultural and educational exchanges after years of development. At the Dushanbe summit, President Hu made an important speech entitled Joining Hands to Build a Harmonious Region with Lasting Peace and Common Prosperity, analyzed deeply the security situation in the region and the challenges and threats faced by the SCO members, appealed to them to unite more closely, implement the Treaty of Long-term Good-neighborly Friendship and Cooperation comprehensively, strengthen strategic consultations, consolidate political mutual trust; increase security cooperation and maintain regional peace; deepen economic cooperation and realize mutual benefit and a win-win outcome; push forward educational and cultural cooperation and build the bridge of friendship; follow the opening principle and jointly build regional harmony. The speech of President Hu was positively commented and highly praised by the leaders at the summit. He also systematically elaborated how to promote the sustainable and healthy development of the SCO and deepen regional cooperation and reached major consensus with other members on the development and cooperation priorities in the next stage, principle of mutual relations and basic position of external exchanges of the SCO.

As a bright point of the meeting, a series of important documents including the Dushanbe Declaration of Heads of SCO Member States and the Regulations on Status of SCO Dialogue Partner were passed at the summit. The members also coordinated their position, exchanged in-depth opinions and reached broad consensus on a number of major international and regional issues including the situation of Central Asia, combating together the “three forces”, the situation of Afghanistan, global energy, finance and food security.

During the summit, President Hu met with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev respectively, exchanging sincere and in-depth opinions with them on the bilateral ties and the international and regional issues of common concern, which has helped increase the understanding and mutual trust and promote the mutually beneficial cooperation between China and the two countries.

III. Announcing China will continue to follow the road of peaceful development and adhere to the mutually beneficial and win-win opening strategy

Yang said that the foreign leaders spoke highly of the huge success made by the Chinese government and people of hosting the Beijing Olympic Games and the excellent performance of the Chinese athletes and made highly positive remarks on the great efforts made by the Chinese government and people of carrying forward the Olympic spirit. During the visit, President Hu expressed gratitude to the international community for its sincere support for and active participation in the Beijing Olympic Games and congratulations to the athletes of all countries on their achievements.

In response to the high attention paid by the international community to the direction of China’s internal and external policies after the Beijing Olympic Games, President Hu, when visiting the 3 countries and attending the SCO summit, delivered speeches to comprehensively explain China’s internal and external principles and policies, stressing that China’s development over the past 3 decades was attributable to reform and opening up and its future development must also rely on reform and opening up. The Chinese people will unswervingly push forward reform and opening up and strive for the comprehensive building of a well-off society and accelerating the socialistic modernization. He reiterated that China will resolutely follow the road of peaceful development, implement the mutually beneficial and win-win opening strategy, seek peaceful, open and cooperative development and be committed to building a harmonious world with lasting peace and common prosperity. The position elaborated by President Hu is widely recognized by the 3 countries he visited and the international community.

Yang noted that the visit of President Hu has reached the scheduled goals and is a successful effort to promote the good-neighborly friendship, deepen unity and mutual trust and seek mutual benefit and win-win outcome. The visit has far-reaching influence on further enhancing China’s bilateral relations with the ROK, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan, promoting the long-term healthy and stable development of the SCO and building a harmonious region and world at large. According to Yang, the people of many countries are deeply impressed by the “Jiayou” cheered by the Chinese audiences for the athletes of different countries during the Olympic Games and “Jiayou” has become an international language. During President Hu’s visit to the ROK, a business leader of South Korea suggested all the participants at the luncheon held for President Hu to shout “Jiayou” for the development of China-ROK relations. Yang expressed confidence that China and the related countries will actively implement the important consensuses reached during President Hu’s visit, fuel the development of bilateral ties and peace, stability and development of the region and jointly build an even better future.