By Zhou Dongyao
It's early summer in Warsaw, capital of Poland, and the flowers along the Vistula River have blossomed with the fragrance penetrating amid a beautiful piano melody.
On June 20, Chinese President Xi Jinping paid a state visit Poland, which is located at the heartland of Europe and is the largest among 16 Central and East European (CEE).
Polish people have defended their national sovereignty at crucial historical moments, despite disappearing from the world map for 120 years.
It is a nation of glory with Copernicus, Chopin and Madame Curie serving as patriotic figures, while the Baltic Sea lies nearby and the land is referred to as "amber country."
Poland is one of the first countries that recognized and established diplomatic ties with the People's Republic of China. They have enjoyed a long-standing friendship with Beijing.
The Chopin Park (Royal Lazienki Park) had been the setting of Sino-American ambassadorial talks for over ten years, where there's a more than two centuries old and 1100 meters long "China Road."
Dec. 2011, China and Poland signed up for strategic partnership
Last November when Polish President Duda visited China, Xi reached a consensus to upgrade the strategic partnership level. China-Poland relations are developing comprehensively and welcomed by the Polish people.
Poland is among China's key economic and trade cooperation partners in Central and East Europe. Last year, two-way trade volume reached US$17.09 billion and Poland had become China's biggest business partner in the CEE for 11 consecutive years.
The new Polish administration endorses docking China's Belt and Road Initiative with the "16+1 Cooperation". Poland is a founding member of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB).
Two countries have vast space for cooperation
On June 20, Xi and Duda spoke highly of China-Poland friendship and development, and have agreed to enhance cooperation to bring pragmatic benefits for both sides.
Xi stressed Beijing would like to work with Warsaw to deepen sustainable healthy development.
The two countries should consolidate mutual trust to dock development strategies and transform political mutual trust to sustainable practical cooperation, and to set the regular China-Europe freight trains to drive more cooperation programs under the Belt and Road Initiative.China and Poland should increase information connectivity and productivity cooperation, deepen cooperation in the fields of business, finance, agriculture and high-technology to solidify friendship that promote people-to-people and cultural exchanges.
Duda said Poland admires China's development achievements and would like to deepen economic and cultural cooperation under the framework of Poland-China strategic partnership and via China-CEE countries cooperation platforms including the Belt and Road and AIIB to make Poland a gateway for China in Europe.
Poland supports 18th China-EU Summit
Both sides agreed to reinforce the docking with each other's developing strategies to promote construction of essential programs for early harvests under the Belt and Road Initiative.
They also agreed to seek further cooperation with the EU to develop the China-EU strategic partnership comprehensively. They endorsed implementation of the China-EU Cooperation 2020 Strategic Plan to build a peaceful, developing, reforming and civilized partnership.
There's hope that joint efforts by China and Europe for the G20 Hangzhou Summit in September would lead to positive results. The two presidents signed a joint statement on upgrading ties, while they witnessed the signing of a series of bilateral cooperation documents regarding information connectivity, infrastructure construction, productivity, education, culture and spaceflight.
Polish trip short, but filled with fruitful results.
Xi also met with the Polish prime minister and speakers of the House and Senate as they attended a ceremony of the first arrival of China-Europe freight train and the 3rd Annual Meeting of the Silk Road International Forum, where Xi had delivered a speech.
Accordingly, Poland, known as "amber country", is sure to blossom with more beautiful flowers in conjunction with the Belt and Road.
( The opinions expressed here do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Panview or CCTV.com. )
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