On a firm friendship trail

China and France set to deepen trade and political ties as Paris emerges as a possible offshore settlement center for the yuan

French President Francois Hollande's state visit to China on April 25-26 assumes special significance because, among other things, Paris and Beijing both pursue independent foreign policies.

In 1964, under the presidency of Charles de Gaulle, France became one of the first Western countries to establish diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China. In 1973, Georges Pompidou became the first French president and the first head of state of a Western country to pay an official visit to China (former US president Richard Nixon's visit to China more than a year earlier was not an official one).

Bilateral relations have developed by leaps and bounds since the establishment of diplomatic ties between China and France, which is also the first Western power to establish comprehensive partnership followed by comprehensive strategic partnership with China. In 2010, Sino-French ties reached a historic high when Beijing and Paris decided to "build a new, mature and stable comprehensive strategic partnership based on mutual trust and mutual benefit and with a global perspective".

Since Hollande is the first head of a Western state to visit China after the new leadership assumed office in Beijing, he has focused on deepening Sino-French friendship to take bilateral cooperation to a new level.

China and France both have always advocated and promoted multi-polarization and are committed to maintaining regional and global peace and stability. France with its unique influence across the globe and China with its rising soft power will work together to realize the theme of our times, "peace and development".

The establishment and development of the new Sino-French comprehensive strategic partnership will further improve the mechanism of high-level meetings and people-to-people exchanges between the two countries, enhance political mutual trust and strengthen strategic coordination. This will help expand the political influence of the two countries across the globe, especially because China and France will play an increasingly important role in implementing global strategies.

China and France both are major economies: China is the world's second-largest economy and France the fifth-largest. But China is only the eighth-largest export market and eighth-largest source of imports for France, and the two countries' economic and trade ties have not developed in proportion to their ever-deepening political relations.

The French economy is facing a number of difficulties because of the eurozone debt crisis. The International Monetary Fund's latest forecast says the French economy will shrink by 0.2 percent this year. China's growth rate, too, slowed down to 7.7 percent in this year's first quarter. Therefore, the two countries have huge bilateral trade potential to inject fresh vitality into their comprehensive strategic partnership.