Focusing on Common Development and Jointly Composing a New Chapter of Friendship

By H.E. Fei Mingxing*

Apia, Samoa – 01 October 2024 – October 1, 2024 marks the 75^th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China.

Seventy five years ago, the Communist Party of China (CPC) united and led the Chinese people through arduous struggle to win national independence and national liberation, establish the People’s Republic of China, and open a new chapter in Chinese history.

Over the past 75 years, the Chinese nation has achieved a great leap from standing up, becoming prosperous to becoming strong, and has become the world’s second largest economy and the largest industrialized country.

In the past 10 years, China’s total economic output has increased from 13.3% to around 18% of the world economy, and its total trade volume in goods has ranked first in the world for seven consecutive years. Its annual average contribution to world economic growth has exceeded 30%, and it has always been the biggest engine driving world economic growth.

In the first half of this year, the gross domestic product of China grew by 5%, new drivers of economic growth accelerated, and new progress was made in high-quality development.

At present, China is comprehensively promoting the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation with Chinese path to modernization. The goal is to comprehensively build China into a great modern socialist country that is prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced, harmonious, and beautiful from 2035 through the middle of this century by 2049, the 100th year of the founding of New China.

Two important meetings have been successfully held recently. One was the Third Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the CPC in July, and the other was the Pacific Islands Forum Leaders’ Meeting in Tonga in August.

The Third Plenum of the 20th Central Committee of the CPC is an important planning for the country’s development path and strategy in the context of the new era. China will continue to adhere to the people-centered development philosophy, comprehensively deepen reforms, construct a new development pattern, and achieve sustainable economic and social development.

At the just concluded Pacific Islands Forum Leaders’ Meeting, leaders of Pacific Island Countries (PICs) put forward many measures to address climate change and achieve sustainable development, promising to adapt to local conditions, strengthen regional coordination and cooperation, and promote the realization of the 2050 Strategy for the Blue Pacific Continent.

These two meetings are of great significance to both Samoa and the Pacific island region. The blueprint for Chinese path to modernization outlined at the Third Plenary Session brings new development opportunities to PICs.

China will adhere to high-standard opening-up, adhere to the path of peaceful development, adhere to high-quality Belt and Road cooperation, adhere to the concept of green development, take concrete actions to support development of PICs, and build a closer China-PICs community with a shared future.

The Third Plenary Session proposed to improve ecological conservation systems, make concerted efforts to cut carbon emissions, reduce pollution, pursue green development, and boost economic growth, actively respond to climate change, and move faster to improve the systems and mechanisms for applying the principle that lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets. This is highly consistent with the priority made by Pacific island leaders to address climate change.

As a sincere good friend and partner of Samoa, China, within the framework of South-South cooperation and with full respect for the will of the Samoan government and people, will continue providing assistance to Samoa to the best of its ability without any political strings attached.

Since the beginning of this year, more than 100 Samoan officials and professionals have been trained in China. More than 20 Samoan students have left for China to study under the Chinese Government Scholarship. The Samoa Police Academy funded by the Chinese government was handed over to the Samoan government in August. The construction of three primary schools in Samoa was kickstarted in May. New groups of Chinese Medical Team and SCATAP (Samoa-China Agricultural Technical Aid Project) arrived in Apia respectively in April and June.

China’s new development brings more new opportunities to the “Global South” members including Samoa, and contributes wisdom and strength to world peace and development, as well as human civilization progress.

Next year, we will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties between China and Samoa, which is an important milestone in the history of friendship between the two countries. China and Samoa will jointly carry out a series of celebration activities and review the cooperation process over the past 50 years.

Looking into the future, China is willing to work with Samoa to strengthen the effective integration of Global Security Initiative, the Global Development Initiative, and the Global Civilization Initiative with the Blue Pacific 2050 Strategy and the Pathway for the Development of Samoa, and to strengthen cooperation in multiple areas including climate change, agriculture and fisheries, education and health care.

Let us seize the new opportunities brought about by China’s development in the new era and elevate the China-Samoa comprehensive strategic partnership featuring mutual respect and common development to a new level, to benefit the two peoples.

The Chinese festival is also the festival for Samoan friends. I wish everyone a happy time and a happy family!

*H.E. Fei Mingxing is the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the People’s Republic of China to the Independent State of Samoa.