China and Indonesia have vowed to strengthen cooperation on COVID-19
vaccine during talks between Chinese State Councilor and Foreign
Minister Wang Yi and Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan, Indonesian President's
special envoy and the country's Coordinator for Cooperation with China.
The pair met Friday in southwest China's Yunnan Province.
Saying
that vaccine cooperation is the current focus of bilateral
anti-epidemic cooperation, Wang said China is willing to work with
Indonesia to comprehensively promote the research and development,
production and use of the vaccine, and jointly contribute to the
availability and affordability of vaccines in the region and the world.
Wang pointed out that accelerating the joint construction of Belt and Road is a powerful weapon to counter the impact of the pandemic.
The
Belt and Road cooperation between China and Indonesia has withstood the
test of the pandemic and has become an "anchor of stability" for
cooperation between the two countries, he said.
Noting that this
year marks the 70th anniversary of the establishment of China-Indonesia
diplomatic relations, Wang expressed the hope that the two countries
should strengthen cooperation in fields including e-commerce, artificial
intelligence, as well as people-to-people and cultural exchanges.
He
said that the two countries should play a leading role in upholding
fairness and justice, maintaining multilateralism and the
democratization of international relations, and safeguarding the common
interests of emerging economies.
Luhut said that Indonesia is
willing to focus on strengthening vaccine and health cooperation with
China, sign cooperation documents on the Belt and Road Initiative and
Global Maritime Fulcrum at an early date, and jointly uphold
multilateralism.