China’s ambassador to Bangladesh Li Jun on Saturday said that cooperation between Bangladesh and China was a mutually rewarding process and it had not developed and would not develop at the cost of either of the countries. Speaking at a roundtable on ‘Bangladesh-China relations: Potential of Growing Partnership in the Coming Decades’ at the National Press Club, he said that the two countries were neither hurdled by problems left over from history nor were troubled by dispute of interests at present.
‘Our cooperation is neither interrupted by respective internal political changes nor influenced by the changes of world or regional situation,’ he said.
Quoting recent comments by the Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi, the ambassador said, ‘What we have is only trust, friendship and co-operation.’ The other is a ‘closer comprehensive partnership.’
China shows respect to Bangladesh’s international standards as an important power in South Asia, not only for its mass population but also for its momentum of economic development, for its contribution to the unity of developing countries and world peace-keeping mission, Li said.
‘There are not only large rooms and wide fields for us to explore in bilateral cooperation but also common responsibilities for a better balanced, stable and prosperous region and world.’
Organised by the newly floated China-Bangladesh Study Group, the roundtable was attended as discussants by Mahbubur Rahman, member of the BNP standing committee, Munshi Foiz Ahmed, the chairman of Bangladesh Institute of International Strategic Studies, MA Taslim, professor of economics in Dhaka University, and Reazuddin Ahmed, editor of the News Today.
Former ambassador Humayun Kabir moderated the roundtable where Ashique Rahman, a research fellow of the peace and conflict division at the BIISS, was the keynote speaker.
Li said to manage a more pro-active, ever upward and sustainable bilateral partnership cooperation, it would need to catch the whole picture of what is happening in China and Bangladesh.
He said that China was now on the start of a new round of reforms and opening up, specified in economic restructuring and administrative restructuring. The outcome will be the enlargement of domestic consumption and investment abroad.
While in Bangladesh, he said, with the apparel sector in front, the advantage of labour-intensive industry was rising. Besides, it is situated in the linking point of the two important growth poles of the world, for the connection of which will be the most exciting story.
He agreed that EPZ for Chinese companies would facilitate Chinese investments and increase Bangladesh’s export to Chinese market. He stressed the need for the establishment of a Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar economic corridor to help turn Bangladesh’s geographical advantage into economic and social development competitiveness. The construction of Sonadia deep-sea port, he said, is in the interest of Bangladesh as well as the whole region.
Li noted that China’s cooperation with Bangladesh and other countries was inclusive and dependent on its national and mutual interests.
As the two largest emerging economies and developing countries, China and India share large common grounds in international affairs. With the bilateral trade and investment growing with a big leap, the two sides also managed to control their dispute over border issues.
‘The world is big enough for every country to develop and the fields are wide enough for all the players to be cooperative,’ he said.
Asked about his political initiative to resolve differences between the two parties over the election-time government, Li hoped that the two major political parties would find a solution through a peaceful dialogue. And the decision must be taken by political leaders and people of this country.
In his keynote speech, Ashique said that Bangladesh should continue with its efforts to explore future cooperation with China in water resource management, renewable energy, connectivity, foreign direct investment, access to Chinese market shifting low-end industries to Bangladesh from China, maritime security, Chinese technical and technological assistance in navigability of rivers of Bangladesh and capacity building of Mongla and Chittagong sea ports with Chinese cooperation.
-With New Age input
