Secretary-General-designate of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, said the organisation hopes to have better cooperation with China in the future. Guterres made the remarks in an interview with CCTV during his two-day visit to China.

"Well, I expect that future cooperation to be even better than the past cooperation. And I think that all reasons to be very optimistic about the development of that cooperation. Since the speech of your president [Xi Jinping] in the General Assembly when we were celebrating the 70 years of the UN, China has assumed a very important number of engagements - financial engagements in relation to funds that were created to support both the activities of the UN and the sustainable development goals. There were initiatives in new banks that were launched."

"There is the 'One Belt, One Road' initiative that is very important initiative from the point of view of bringing the world together to facilitate a fair globalization. And I would even make an appeal, I mean. One thing is clear if you look at the Security Council. The Security Council has been polarized."

"There has been a lot of mistrust among the members of the Security Council, and difficulties in facing some of these terrible crises we mentioned. - Syria crisis, Africa, Sudan or South Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo and others. Now, I think China today has a very important role to play. For China, if you look at the Middle East, or if you look at Africa, China has no specific interests to protect. It is irrelevant for China if A wins over B or B wins over A. The interests of China is peace. My strong appeal is for China to engage more and more as a global mediator," Antonio Guterres said.