Chinese State Councilor Zhou Yongkang met in Beijing Monday with German Minister of the Interior Otto Schily and his company.

Zhou, also Minister of Public Security, said the Sino-German relations have developed smoothly in many fields. The Chinese public security forces and German interior police had been strengthening cooperation in the fight against terrorism and crackdown on transnational crimes, which benefited not only the two countries but also the world, he said, urging more pragmatic and effective cooperation in these fields.

Schily said anti-terrorism was a responsibility of all the countries in the world and the Ministry of the Interior would like to take more powerful efforts with China in the fields like anti-terrorism and crackdown on illegal immigration.

Schily is accompanying German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, who arrived here Monday on a three-day working visit to China.

(Xinhua News Agency December 7, 2004)