China's top legislator pays official goodwill visit to Kazakhstan

ASTANA, May 27 (Xinhua) -- At the invitation of Yerlan Koshanov, speaker of the Mazhilis, the lower house of Kazakhstan's parliament, China's top legislator Zhao Leji paid an official goodwill visit to Kazakhstan from Monday to Wednesday.

During the visit, Zhao, chairman of China's National People's Congress Standing Committee, met with Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev and held talks with Maulen Ashimbayev, chairperson of the Senate of Kazakhstan and Koshanov respectively in Astana.

When meeting with Tokayev, Zhao said China is willing to work with Kazakhstan to firmly support each other on issues concerning each other's core interests, enhance the alignment of development strategies, and further advance high-quality Belt and Road cooperation.

Zhao called on the two sides to consolidate cooperation in investment, energy, minerals, connectivity and other fields; and to create new growth areas for cooperation in new energy, digital economy, artificial intelligence, cross-border e-commerce, smart cities and other areas. Both sides should work together to make the China-Kazakhstan Year of Cultural Exchange a success, he added.

Zhao also said China is willing to work with Kazakhstan to strengthen coordination within multilateral frameworks such as the UN, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and the China-Central Asia mechanism to safeguard the common interests of the two countries and international fairness and justice.

For his part, Tokayev said Kazakhstan and China are truly good neighbors, good friends and good partners, stressing that Kazakhstan adheres to the one-China principle and supports building a community with a shared future for humanity and the four major global initiatives, all proposed by Chinese President Xi Jinping.

The cooperation between the legislative bodies of the two countries has been continuously deepened, playing an important role in promoting friendship between Kazakhstan and China, Tokayev added.

In talks with Ashimbayev and Koshanov, Zhao said that exchanges and cooperation between legislative bodies are integral to China-Kazakhstan relations. He said that the legislative bodies should engage in exchanges of experience on developing democracy and the rule of law, improving legislative quality, and other areas, so as to support each country's development.

Ashimbayev said China has become an important pillar of global stability and a powerful engine of global economic growth, adding that Kazakhstan will create favorable conditions for bilateral economic, trade and investment cooperation.

Koshanov noted that the Kazakh side firmly supports China's position on issues related to Taiwan, Xinjiang, Hong Kong and Xizang, and expressed willingness to continue enhancing friendly exchanges between the legislative bodies of the two countries. Enditem