Speech by H.E. Li Keqiang at the 17th Meeting of the Council of Heads of Government of Member States of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization

Prime Minister Kokhir Rasulzoda,
Colleagues,

It gives me great pleasure to join you in Tajikistan, the country of mountains, for the 17th Meeting of the Council of Heads of Government of Member States of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). On behalf of the Chinese government, I wish to thank the government of Tajikistan for the thoughtful preparations and arrangements made for our meeting.

Since its inception 17 years ago, the SCO has achieved fruitful results in security, economic, and people-to-people exchanges and cooperation, and contributed to peace and stability of the Eurasian continent and development and prosperity of the region.

Last June, the first SCO summit with an expanded membership was successfully held in Qingdao, China. At this milestone event, the Qingdao Declaration was adopted and a blueprint was drawn up for SCO’s development in the new historical stage. President Xi Jinping and other SCO leaders reached important consensus on further promoting the Shanghai Spirit under the new circumstances, enhancing unity and mutual trust among old and new members, fostering an even closer SCO community with a shared future, and building a community with a shared future for mankind. The Qingdao Summit injected strong impetus into SCO’s future development. The international community looks to the SCO to exert greater influence and a bigger role in regional and international affairs.

As we speak, the international landscape continues to be complicated by rising uncertainties and destabilizing factors, a weak world economic recovery, growing trend toward unilateralism and protectionism, flare-ups of regional hotspots, and worsening terrorist and other non-conventional security threats. In this context, SCO member states face both the arduous task of development and challenges to security and stability.

China stands ready to work with fellow SCO members to implement the Qingdao Declaration, the Outline for the Implementation of the Treaty on Long-term Good Neighborliness, Friendship and Cooperation and other SCO documents, promote greater synergy of development strategies, and strengthen policy communication and coordination. With greater unity and more efficient cooperation, the SCO will play a bigger role in promoting peace and stability in the region and common development of all countries. In this connection, I propose we make efforts in the following areas.