Secretary Li Qiang,
Dr. Henry Kissinger,
Friends,
Distinguished Guests,
It gives me great pleasure to attend the Meeting in Commemoration of the 50th Anniversary of the Shanghai Communiqué and, together with people from both countries, walk through again that ice-breaking journey, draw experience from history, and seek inspirations for the road ahead. Let me begin by extending congratulations on the convening of this meeting.
Fifty years ago today, right in the Jinjiang Hotel where you are gathering, China and the United States jointly issued the Shanghai Communiqué. It thus ended the prolonged estrangement between the two countries, and started the process toward normalization of China-U.S. relations. It signified the willingness of two major countries with different social systems to co-exist in peace and marked the beginning of structural transformation in international relations.
Guided by the spirit of the Shanghai Communiqué, China and the United States have achieved a series of major progress in their relations. The two countries, once at war with each other, have established 50 pairs of sister provinces/states and 233 pairs of sister cities. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, more than 300 flights shuttled between the two countries every week, and over five million travels were made across the Pacific every year. China-U.S. business ties, once negligible, expanded to U.S.$750 billion in bilateral trade and U.S.$240 billion in two-way investment. From tackling terrorism, financial crises and Ebola, to providing leadership in the signing of the JCPOA and the conclusion of the Paris Agreement on climate change, China and the United States did many great things benefiting the world through their cooperation.
