On January 9, 2015, after the conclusion of the first ministerial meeting of the Forum between China and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), Foreign Minister Wang Yi met the press together with Foreign Minister Manuel Gonzalez Sanz of Costa Rica, the presidency of the CELAC, expressing that this meeting is of great significance and far-reaching influence with fruitful results, which will leave an indelible mark on the history of China-CELAC relations.

Wang Yi said that as an opening chapter of China’s all-round diplomacy in 2015, the meeting serves as an important step for China and the CELAC to implement the consensus reached by President Xi Jinping and Latin American and Caribbean state leaders during their meeting in Brasilia last July, marking the official launch of the China-CELAC Forum and the translation of the concept into reality. The Forum is a cooperation platform for the first time in history covering China and all the Latin American and Caribbean countries, therefore, China-CELAC relations have entered a new era featuring the parallel development of overall cooperation and bilateral relations as well as mutual promotion, and China and the CELAC are now embracing a new opportunity to push bilateral comprehensive cooperative partnership for equality, mutual benefit and common development.

Wang Yi expressed that this is a historic grand meeting with high profile and large scale. The foreign ministers or representatives of the CELAC member states all gather in Beijing, creating a new record in the history of China-CELAC exchanges. Both sides delivered a strong “China-CELAC voice” to the world.

Wang Yi expressed that President Xi Jinping delivered an important speech at the opening ceremony on how to advance China-CELAC cooperation, stressing that both sides should stick to the cooperative principle of equal treatment, the cooperative objective of mutual benefit and win-win results, the cooperative approach of flexibility and practicality and the cooperative spirit of openness and inclusiveness, which charted the course for the sound development of the Forum.

Wang Yi noted that China will practice the major-country diplomatic concept with Chinese characteristics in an in-depth way, implement the correct viewpoint of righteousness and benefit, and establish a community of shared destiny with Latin American and Caribbean countries. These will exert significant and far-reaching influence on earnestly enhancing unity and cooperation between China and other developing countries, closely linking China’s development with the common development of other vast developing countries and establishing the new model of international relations with win-win cooperation at the core.