On September 17, 2017 local time, when jointly meeting the press in Panama City with Vice President and Foreign Minister Isabel Saint Malo de Alvarado of Panama, Foreign Minister Wang Yi expressed that Latin America is the natural extension of the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, and the Belt and Road Initiative has become a new opportunity for current China-Latin America cooperation.

Wang Yi expressed that Latin America and the Caribbean area are centralizations of the most developing countries as well as an emerging power constantly rising amid the balance of international powers. China has always viewed its relations with Latin American and Caribbean countries from a strategic height and long-term perspective. China holds a firm conviction that development of China and Latin America serve as opportunities for each other. China upholds an explicit principle that China-Latin America cooperation should insist on equity and mutual benefit and focus on common development. A general principle has been set up, which is to construct a community of shared future for China and Latin America hand in hand.

Wang Yi said that China-Latin America cooperation does not aim at any third party and poses no impact on respective relations with the third party, but aims to promote overall development of all countries in Latin America and elevate Latin America's position and function in the international occasions. The Belt and Road Initiative put forward by President Xi Jinping has become a new opportunity for current China-Latin America cooperation. As Latin America is an important natural extension of the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, the joint construction of the "Belt and Road" will bring new opportunities for the development of China-Latin America relations, and the Silk Road spirit will inject fresh impetus into the construction of a community of shared future for China and Latin America.

Wang Yi expressed that after China and Panama established diplomatic relations, a new member has been included into China's friend circle in Latin America and the Caribbean areas. Potentials in cooperation between China and Panama that having been accumulated for decades are now exploding, and will surely inject fresh vigor into the overall China-Latin America relations. Panama is a pivot for exchanges in the Western Hemisphere with developed financial industry and is promising to be an important linking pivot between China and Latin America for logistics, personnel exchanges and circulation of funds. It is expected that Panama could play a unique and significant role for the natural extension of the Maritime Silk Road to Latin America.