Chinese top legislator Wu Bangguo met Russian State Duma (the
lower house of parliament) Chairman Boris Gryzlov on Monday and
co-chaired with him the first meeting of the cooperation committee
of China's National People's Congress (NPC) and the State Duma.
During talks with Wu, the chairman of the NPC Standing
Committee, Gryzlov said Wu's visit was a major event in
Russian-Chinese parliamentary exchanges.
He said the State Duma attached great importance to developing
friendly ties with the NPC, enhancing parliamentary exchanges at
all levels and in all areas, and making new contributions to the
strategic partnership between Russia and China.
Wu, for his part, spoke highly of the parliamentary exchanges
between the two countries, saying that in the past decade since
China and Russia established the strategic partnership, the fastest
growth of bilateral ties in history had been witnessed.
China and Russia had exchanged high-level visits regularly, seen
their mutual political trust ever deepening, and offered
understanding and support to each other on major issues of
respective concern, Wu said.
Bilateral economic and trade cooperation and humanitarian
exchanges were growing at a fast pace, and the two countries shared
the same or similar positions on major international and regional
issues, he added.
The growth of China-Russia relations had brought tangible
benefits to the two sides and two peoples, the Chinese top
legislator said.
On parliamentary exchanges, Wu said the cooperation committee,
set up during Gryzlov's visit to China last June, was the
highest-level regular meeting mechanism the NPC had ever
established with foreign parliaments. The committee's first meeting
marked the startup of this mechanism, he added.
Wu described this year as being important in the growth of
China-Russia ties and made a four-point proposal on strengthening
cooperation between the NPC and the State Duma.
First, Wu said, parliamentary cooperation needed to be oriented
towards better serving the strategic partnership between China and
Russia, providing the legal guarantee for the development of
bilateral ties and supervising the implementation of legal
documents signed by the two sides.
Secondly, legislative exchanges should be enhanced to improve
the quality of legislation and ensure smooth economic and social
development, Wu said.
Thirdly, exchanges in the humanitarian sphere should also be
boosted to foster better understanding between enterprises of the
two countries and promote personnel and inter-party exchanges, he
said.
Fourthly, the two countries should enhance coordination in
international and regional parliamentary organizations to promote
regional and global peace and stability, he said.
Gryzlov agreed with Wu on his assessment of bilateral ties and
the proposal to boost the parliamentary cooperation.
Russia and China were each other's biggest and most important
neighbors, and developing bilateral relations and parliamentary
cooperation was in the interests of both countries, Gryzlov
said.
He expressed belief that the cooperation committee of the State
Duma and the NPC would elevate the level of parliamentary
cooperation between the two countries and promote the development
of the Russia-China strategic partnership.
The committee was established last June in Beijing. The
committee convenes annually in China or Russia.
Wu arrived in Moscow from the Volga River city of Volgograd on
Sunday to continue his four-day official goodwill visit to
Russia.
(Xinhua News Agency May 30, 2006)
