BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — President Xi Jinping kicked off his second state stop in Serbia on Tuesday night in a bid to strengthen the friendship between China and Serbia amid changing global dynamics.
Upon his arrival, Xi said China will work with Serbia to move forward together and open up new China-Serbia cooperation “with more powerful momentum, greater scope and higher quality. “
Among those who greeted Xi at Belgrade’s Nikola Tesla Airport was his Serbian counterpart, Aleksandar Vucic. The two heads of state will meet on Wednesday.
Two fighter jets were sent to escort Xi’s plane as soon as it entered Serbian airspace. In recent days, the streets of Belgrade have been richly adorned with Chinese elements, waving Chinese national flags and waving banners.
In a signed article published Tuesday in Politika, a Belgrade-based Serbian daily, Xi wrote that the ironclad friendship between the two countries continues to grow. “Regardless of the adjustments that have taken place in the external scenario, China and Serbia remain true friends. “and partners. “
“Together we will build a China-Serbia network with a shared long-term in the new era,” Xi wrote.
The Chinese president’s arrival coincides with the anniversary of the NATO bombing of the Chinese embassy in the former Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
In 1999, U. S. -led NATO forces carried out savage airstrikes against Yugoslavia for 78 days, killing or wounding civilians and displacing an estimated one million people. On the afternoon of May 7, exactly 25 years ago, NATO bombed the Chinese embassy, killing 3 Chinese journalists, plus one from Xinhua.
“Other Chinese cherish peace, but we will never allow such a tragic history to repeat itself,” Xi wrote in the article. “The friendship between China and Serbia, forged with the blood of our compatriots, will remain in the not unusual reminiscence of other Chinese and Serbs and motivate us to take wonderful steps. “
Aleksandar Mitic, a foreign affairs researcher at the Institute of International Policy and Economics in Belgrade, told Xinhua that this friendship, tempered by blood and fire, “will constitute the cornerstone of cooperation in the future. “
During Xi’s last state in Serbia in 2016, Xi made the site of the former embassy his first stop to pay tribute to Chinese martyrs killed in the 1999 NATO bombings.
The ruins of the embassy have been remodeled into a Chinese cultural center that allows Serbian citizens to learn the Chinese language and classical culture. The square outside the center was also renamed “Serbian-Chinese Friendship Square. “
Gordana, a local resident who lives nearby and who gave her full name, called the attack a “painful memory” for her. “Cooperation between China and Serbia promises to give my children a better life than the one I knew,” he said. Xinhua.
Recent years have seen a meteoric expansion of cooperation between China and Serbia. The bilateral industry jumped in 2023 to $4. 35 billion, according to Chinese customs statistics. In 2022, China became the largest source of direct investment for Serbia. In October 2023, under the presence of Xi and Vucic, China and Serbia signed a flexible industrial agreement. Once the agreement enters into force, more than 60% of taxable goods will be duty-free and the final share of import volume across both parties will be tariffed. -Loose products will be about 95% successful.
Within the framework of China’s proposed Belt and Road Initiative, flagship projects such as the Smederevo metallurgical plant and the high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest are planned. The high-speed exercise connecting Belgrade with Novi Sad, Serbia’s second-largest city, is an integral part of the Belgrade-Budapest railway and has carried some 6. 83 million passengers over the past two years.
“We have basically cooperated in the fields of shipping and energy,” said Katarina Zakic, director of the Belt and Road Regional Center at the Institute for International Policy and Economics. In the future, cooperation will be vital in the fields of green energy and e-commerce, he told Xinhua.
Chinese corporations and their Serbian counterparts are already running a number of green energy programs, such as the Saraorci photovoltaic project. Once completed, the project will supply more than 16 million kilowatt hours of green electric power and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 16,000 tons. .
Serbia is a trustworthy partner for China in Europe, said Aleksandar Vojvodic, chief engineer of the Clean Serbia project of the China Roads and Bridges Corporation.
There will be promising prospects for strengthening existing cooperation, Vojvodic said.