Full text of Jiang Jianguo's speech at China-Africa Media Summit

The friendly cooperation between China and Africa has continued for generations and acquired new vitality. Today, China, as always, takes its relation with Africa as an important cornerstone in its foreign relations, a policy that won't change despite China's own development and rising international status. President Xi Jinping chose Africa for his first state visit as the new head of China, during which heused "credibility, practicality, amity and sincerity" to summarize China's Africa policy, put forth the right outlook on justice and interests, and proclaimed to the international community that China and Africa are a community of common destiny, and they will always be reliable friends and sincere partners that support and help each other in their efforts to realize the Chinese Dream and the African Dream. When President Xi delivered a speech at the UN Sustainable Development Summit in September this year, he announced a series of initiatives in support of Africa - China will firmly support increasing the representation and voice of African countries in the international governance system, provide the African Union with USD100 million free military aid in the next five years, establish an assistance fund for South-South cooperation, and increase USD12 billion investment in the least-developed countries. These supportive measures for Africa received vehement responses from African friends attending the UN Summit. At the upcoming FOCAC Johannesburg Summit, China will also put forwarda series of major steps aimed at accelerating the industrialization and agricultural modernization in Africa. It will dovetail the development strategies of both sides, promote the China-Africa capacity cooperation, and combine China's development with pushing Africa's independent and sustainable development, so as to achieve win-win cooperation and mutual development. We believe this summit will provide an opportunity for China and Africa to align their development strategies, concepts and policies, draw the blueprint for the future development of bilateral relations, and start a new and grand chapter of China-Africa relations.

The friendly cooperation between China and Africa is rooted among the people and based on exchanges, and the media is an important bond that connects the feelings of the Chinese and Africans and a significant bridge that promotes bilateral cultural exchanges. The China-Africa media exchanges and cooperation has gained major headway in recent years with great momentum. High-level mutual visits are more frequent in the media community, and Chinese and African media are working more closely together in terms of report exchange, joint interview and filming cooperation, giving a strong impetus to the China-Africa friendship and relations. Not long ago the Chinese Central Television played a program of Chinese journalists giving public speeches on TV, which left a deep impression on me. Of the ten best speakers selected across the country, two are Chinese journalists stationed in Africa, and one of them is a young female journalist assigned by Xinhua News Agency to Somali. Her speech, however, wasn't focused on the war and chaos in Somali, but on how she had witnessed the local people's fortitude, recorded their tenacious struggle against tribulations, and spread their expectations and dreams to the whole world. The other speaker is a journalist from People's Daily who spent more than 1,000 days in Africa. When Ebola played havoc in Africa, he stayed there and used his pen and camera to tell the world how China and Africa worked tirelessly together to fight against the virus. I believe many of you sitting here today, like those two journalists, are the protector, reporter and contributor to China-Africa cooperation and friendship. China-Africa relations cannot achieve sustained growth without the positive role played by the media and the joint efforts of us all.

Today the China-Africa relations are standing at a new historical starting point, and China-Africa media cooperation is looking at a golden opportunity. In the new historical conditions, how can the media help carry on the friendship and promote the friendly cooperation between China and Africa? How to promote the cultural exchange and mutual learning and people-to-people communication between the two sides? How to deepen bilateral dialogue and exchanges for common development? These are questions that all of us are thinking about. To deepen the China-Africa media exchange and cooperation and create vast prospects for win-win development, I would like to make the following four proposals.