On 26th March, H. E. Ambassador Xiao Jianguo to Brunei Darussalam hosted a Ramadhan briefing for local media and think tanks on various topics. Over 50 participants from Brunei media and think tanks were present. The major contents of the briefing are as follows:

1. His Majesty’s State Visit to China and China-Brunei Relations

China and Brunei have a long history of friendship. Since the establishment of diplomatic relations more than 30 years ago, our two countries have continuously deepened political mutual trust, actively aligned development strategies, and achieved fruitful results in practical cooperation in various fields. We have also maintained good coordination in international and regional affairs, set a fine example of equality and mutual benefit between countries of different sizes, and made positive contributions to regional peace, stability, development and prosperity.

Last month, His Majesty successfully paid a state visit to China and attended the opening ceremony of the 9th Asian Winter Games in Harbin. The two heads of state held a cordial and friendly exchange, during which they spoke highly of the high-level development momentum of China-Brunei relations and reached important consensus on advancing bilateral relations towards a China-Brunei community with a shared future, charting a strategic blueprint and injecting strong impetus into the growth of China-Brunei ties. This also sent a positive message that amid global transformations unseen in a century, China and Brunei are forging ahead together on the path to modernization.

President Xi Jinping pointed out that the joint building of a China-Brunei community with a shared future conforms to the trend of the times, serves the fundamental interests of the two countries and two peoples, and opens a new chapter in bilateral relations. The two countries should seize the opportunity to deepen mutually beneficial cooperation and strategic coordination, respect and trust each other, and always be good neighbors facing each other across the sea, good friends trusting each other, and good partners for common development.

His Majesty stresses that Brunei and China have always respected and trusted each other, and bilateral relations have continued to grow. Brunei highly values its ties with China,  firmly adheres to the one-China policy, and regards China as a key partner for cooperation. Brunei stands ready to work with China to consolidate the strategic cooperative partnership and jointly working towards a Brunei-China community with a shared future, bringing greater benefits to the peoples of both countries.

In recent years, under the strategic guidance of the two heads of state, China and Brunei have continuously deepened high-level political mutual trust and achieved fruitful results in practical cooperation across various fields.

The flagship project of Belt and Road cooperation, the Hengyi Industries, has been operating with high quality, contributing approximately 10% of Brunei’s annual GDP and playing a vital role in Brunei’s economic diversification. The expansion of Muara Port is progressing steadily, with the “Port-Industry-Park” model being better implemented, advancing toward a regional hub port.In 2024, bilateral trade between China and Brunei reached 2.809billion USD,withBrunei’sexportstoChinanearing2.1 billion USD, a year-on-year increase of 7.8%. China has become Brunei’s second-largest source of foreign investment and one of its top three trading partners, further strengthening the bonds of mutual interest.

Over the past year, the trial planting of China’s hybrid rice in Brunei has yielded a bumper harvest, and the Project of Hybrid Rice Senior Expert Consultant was successfully completed, contributing to Brunei’s food security. Brunei’s aquatic products, including Udang Galah, have entered the Chinese market, making their way to the dining tables of Chinese consumers.

People-to-people exchanges in education, culture, city-to-city cooperation have grown even more frequent, further fostering mutual understanding and friendship between the two peoples.

At present, China-Brunei relations stand at a new historical height, with broad prospects and great potential. We are ready to work hand in hand with Brunei friends to follow guidance of the important consensus reached by the two heads of state, focus on deepening and solidifying the building of a China-Brunei community with a shared future, and firmly support each other in translating the strategic vision of our heads-of-state into vibrant cooperation and concrete outcomes. Together, we will serve as each other’s reliable partners on the path to modernization and in realizing our respective national development and rejuvenation.

2. the Two Sessions and China’s Economy

The year 2024 saw profound changes in the international landscape as well as remarkable progress in China’s reform and development. Under the stewardship of President Xi Jinping, China’s economy has made steady progress while maintaining overall stability, effectively pursuing higher-quality growth and appropriately increase economic output. With 5% growth, China contributed nearly 30% to global economic growth, remaining an “anchor of stability” and “engine of growth” for the world economy.China’s development stands out among major economies. We have made such achievements amid a nationwide push for green transition, amid lackluster growth worldwide, and amid unilateral sanctions and suppression from certain countries. It shows the Chinese economy’s resilience, strength and remarkable success facing difficulties.

The recently concluded Two Sessions once again drew global attention to China. Setting a growth target of around 5% reflects both our thorough understanding of China’s economic fundamentals and our strong confidence and manoeuvre in governance capacity and future potential.

China’s economy is anchored by solid foundations, multiple strengths, strong resilience, and vast potential, with its long-term positive trajectory unchanged.

1. Continued Reform Benefits

China will further deepen reforms, unleash and develop productive forces, and provide robust impetus and institutional safeguards for Chinese modernization.

2. Strengthened Industrial Foundations

As the only country with all industrial categories defined by the UN, China is accelerating breakthroughs in core technologies and fostering new quality productive forces tailored to local conditions, creating new growth drivers.

3. Advantages of a Mega-Sized Market

New urbanization, energy-saving upgrades, and carbon reduction present vast investment opportunities.

4. Ample Policy Space

With a low fiscal deficit ratio and government debt level, China has sufficient policy tools and reserves to ensure targeted and forceful measures, providing strong support for growth.

Most importantly, China has the strong leadership of the CPC Central Committee with President Xi Jinping at its core, and the guidance of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, possessing the institutional strengths of socialism with Chinese characteristics that enable us to pool resources to accomplish major undertakings. We benefit from a vast domestic market and a comprehensive industrial ecosystem, along with a large pool of diligent, talented, and highly-competent workers and entrepreneurs. China will maintain its strategic focus, stay committed to managing our own affairs well, and continue to consolidate and strengthen the long-term positive trajectory of our economic development.

Opening-up is China’s fundamental national policy. No matter how the international landscape evolves, we will steadfastly advance high-standard opening-up, steadily expand institutional opening-up, and broaden autonomous and unilateral opening measures. We will deepen reforms to the mechanisms for promoting foreign investment, foster a first-class, market-oriented, law-based, and internationalized business environment, and actively develop green trade and digital trade. We sincerely welcome our Bruneian friends to deepen your cooperation with China, invest in China, and share in the benefits of China’s development.

3. China's Foreign Policy

“What kind of world to build and how to build it” is an eternal proposition for the development of human society. In 2013, Chinese President Xi Jinping first proposed the vision of a community with a shared future for mankind, offering China’s answer to the question of the times.

Over the past decade, President Xi Jinping has systematically elaborated on this significant vision on multiple international occasions. Today, dozens of countries and regions are working with China to build communities with a shared future in various forms. The concept of building a community with a shared future for mankind has been incorporated into many UN General Assembly resolutions and multilateral documents, increasingly becoming an important global public good with far-reaching significance.

Notably, during His Majesty’s visit to China in February, both countries agreed to work towards building a China-Brunei community with a shared future, joining the broader family of nations committed to this vision. This reflects the shared aspiration of the Chinese and Bruneian people to stand together through thick and thin and advance hand in hand.

At the Central Conference on Work Relating to Foreign Affairs held in December 2023, China identified the advancement of building a community with a shared future for mankind as the overarching goal of its major-country diplomacy with distinctive Chinese characteristics. This vision has been systematically developed with a comprehensive framework comprising six key dimensions: pursuing a world of lasting peace, universal security, common prosperity, openness and inclusiveness, and clean and beautiful environment as our objective; promoting global governance through wide consultation, joint contribution and shared benefits as our approach; upholding the common values of humanity as our guiding principle; fostering a new type of international relations as our foundation; implementing the Global Development Initiative, Global Security Initiative and Global Civilization Initiative as our strategic guidance; and advancing high-quality Belt and Road cooperation as our practical platform. Together, these elements form the top-level architecture of China’s foreign policy in the new era, designed to enable countries to jointly address challenges and achieve shared prosperity.

In the new era, China’s diplomacy remains committed to achieving both self-development and common development, serving as a steadfast force for global progress. With a focus on implementing the UN 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, China has vigorously advanced cooperation under the Global Development Initiative (GDI) to enhance developing countries’ capacity for self-development. China has established the 4 billion USD Global Development and South-South Cooperation Fund and set up the Global Development Promotion Center, with over 80 countries joining the Group of Friends of the GDI. As of October last year, the initiative has mobilized nearly 20 billion USD in development funding and implemented more than 1,100 projects featuring “small yet smart” solutions that deliver real benefits to people’s livelihoods. These projects cover critical areas including poverty reduction, food security and climate change, benefiting over 30 million people worldwide.

In the new era, China’s diplomacy upholds the principle of harmony as most precious, steadfastly serving as a force for peace. Guided by the Global Security Initiative, China facilitated the historic reconciliation between Saudi Arabia and Iran and promoted unity among Palestinian factions. In both the Ukraine crisis and Gaza conflict, China has actively promoted peace talks while providing multiple batches of emergency humanitarian assistance, firmly supporting the legitimate national rights of the Palestinian people. Over the past three decades, China has deployed more than 50,000 peacekeepers to UN operations and sent medical teams and hospital ships worldwide for disaster relief and medical services, demonstrating China’s responsible commitment to maintaining world peace and its resolute determination to safeguard global security.

In the new era, China’s diplomacy champions harmonious coexistence, resolutely serving as a force for inclusiveness. Through the Global Civilization Initiative, China promotes the common values of humanity and deepens mutual learning and exchanges with all countries to advance human civilization and foster mutual understanding among peoples. We have cultivated profound friendships worldwide, strengthened exchanges on governance and development experience, established over 30 major cultural and tourism events including 2024 ASEAN-China Year of People-to-People Exchanges, and formed approximately 3,000 sister-city relationships globally. China’s initiative to designate June 10thas the International Day for Dialogue Among Civilizations at the UN has further enhanced mutual understanding and enabled diverse civilizations to flourish together through equal-footed interactions and mutual learning.

In the new era, China remains committed to upholding justice and standing firmly as a force for righteousness on the right side of history. Adhering to true multilateralism, China advocates for an equal and orderly multipolar world and a universally beneficial and inclusive economic globalization. We stand in solidarity with Muslim countries, including Brunei, in resolutely supporting the just cause of the Palestinian people to restore their legitimate national rights.

The year 2025 marks the 80th anniversary of both the victory in the Chinese People’s War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and the World Anti-Fascist War, as well as the 80th founding anniversary of the United Nations. As a permanent member of the UN Security Council, China will steadfastly uphold the central role of the UN, serve as a pillar of the multilateral system, and be a strong advocate for the Global South. We will make unremitting efforts to build a more just and equitable global governance system.

4. China-U.S. relations

Regarding China-U.S. relations, I would like to take this opportunity to brief you on its latest development.

As the world’s largest developing and developed countries respectively, the relationship between China and the United States not only affects the well-being of our two peoples, but also has significant implications for the future of the world. As President Xi Jinping noted in his telephone call with President Donald J. Trump earlier this year, confrontation and conflict should not be an option. Given the extensive common interests and broad space for cooperation, it is possible for China and the United States to become partners helping each other succeed and prosper together.

China firmly opposes the recent move of the U.S. to levy a 10 percent additional tariff on Chinese imports under the pretext of the fentanyl issue. Lessons in the past have repeatedly proven that openness and cooperation lead to mutual benefit, while tariff wars and trade wars have no winners—they harm both others and oneself. Multilateralism is the right path forward, one that broadens with time, whereas unilateralism will ultimately leave a country isolated to a dead end. Pressuring, coercing or threatening China is not a right way to engage with China. Anyone using maximum pressure on China is picking the wrong guy and miscalculating. As Member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and Foreign Minister Wang Yi emphasized at the Two Sessions press conference, cooperation will bring about mutual benefit and win-win, and China will definitely take countermeasures in response to arbitrary pressure.

China is one of the world’s toughest countries on counternarcotics both in terms of policy and its implementation. Fentanyl is an issue for the U.S. China has given support to the U.S. response to the fentanyl issue in the spirit of humanity. At the U.S. request, China announced back in 2019 the decision to officially schedule fentanyl-related substances as a class. We are the first country in the world to do so. China has conducted practical counternarcotics cooperation with the U.S. side in a broad-based way. The achievements we have made are there for all to see. The U.S. should view and address its own issues objectively and rationally. Unilaterally imposing additional tariffs will not resolve fentanyl crisis in the U.S.

China and the U.S. have different national conditions, and it is normal for differences to exist. However, decoupling and supply chains disruption are not the right solutions. China’s policy towards the United States remains consistent and stable, guided by the three principles proposed by President Xi Jinping, namely, which are mutual respect, peaceful coexistence, and win-win cooperation. We are willing to work with the U.S. in the same direction under these principles to build a stable, healthy, and sustainable bilateral relationship, and to find the right way for our two major countries to coexist on this planet.

5. the Taiwan Question and Xinjiang Development

There is but one China in the world, Taiwan is an inalienable part of China’s territory, and the government of the People’s Republic of China is the sole legal government representing the whole of China. As we all know, the one-China principle is a well-recognized norm in international relations, a prevailing consensus in the international community and the political foundation for China to establish and grow its relations with other countries.

For quite some time, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) authorities have used exchange and cooperation in economy, trade, technology, culture, and education, among other fields, as a pretext to drill through the rock-solid international commitment to the one-China principle, and expand so-called “international space.” They have coerced or cajoled other countries through dollar diplomacy and bribes to set new institutions or rename existing ones in some countries, tempt them to cross, trample on or make moves on the margins of the red line of the Taiwan question, and destroy their relations with China. China has all along opposed official interaction of any form between the Taiwan authorities and countries that have diplomatic relations with China.

During the State Visit to China last month, His Majesty has repeatedly reaffirmed Brunei’s adherence to the one-China policy, which was also incorporated into the Joint Statement issued by both countries. The Chinese side expressed appreciation for this stance. We hope and are confident that the Brunei side will continue to uphold the relevant commitments made by His Majesty and Brunei government, and to understand and support China’s position on issues related to Taiwan.

Xinjiang is an inhabited area of Muslims in China. Like Brunei, during the upcoming Hari Raya, Muslims in Xinjiang will also celebrate the festival by preparing feasts, singing and dancing. People will visit relatives and friends, share delicacies, and exchange blessings. Such scene vividly demonstrates Xinjiang's protection of freedom of religious belief. Since the 18th CPC National Congress, President Xi Jinping has always cared deeply about Xinjiang's reform, development, stability, and the well-being of people of all ethnic groups. The CPC and the Chinese government have continuously enriched and refined strategies for governing Xinjiang, driving comprehensive progress and historic achievements in all undertakings across the region. China's policies in Xinjiang have yielded remarkable results, and the region's developmental accomplishments are evident to all. However, a tiny minority still view Xinjiang through a "tinted lens," deliberately fabricating lies and spreading "viruses" of misinformation, severely undermining Xinjiang's development and stability while violating the fundamental human rights of its people. Falsehoods, after all, remain lies and will inevitably collapse in the face of facts and truth.

Every time the Embassy shares Xinjiang's cuisine, dances, and breathtaking landscapes on Instagram, we gain a lot of views and thumbs-up from Bruneian friends. We hope you can continue to share Xinjiang's stories, helping the magnificence of Xinjiang reach broader audiences; continue to support Xinjiang's prosperity and stability so that this vast region can thrive with vitality; and continue to uphold fairness and justice by staying objective, advocating integrity, and rejecting falsehoods, giving Xinjiang the recognition it deserves. China's Xinjiang always keeps its door wide open. The region's social and economic development as well as achievements in safeguarding human rights are evident to all. We warmly welcome Bruneian friends to visit Xinjiang, experience the warm hospitality of its people, marvel at the majestic scenery across both sides of the Tianshan Mountains, and enjoy the vibrant stories of this splendid land.