2015-05-14

In the afternoon of May 14^th, 2015, Mr. ZHANG Yi paid a visit to Mr. Martin Thuemmel, Director of Political Department of German Embassy in Beijing. Both of them exchanged their views on the topics in which they were interested.

Mr. ZHANG Yi and Mr. Martin Thuemmel

Mr. Thuemmel expressed his welcome to Mr. ZHANG and his companion and indicated his willingness to carry out the economic cooperation and cultural exchange with the Commission with a view to strengthening the friendship between German and Chinese people.

Mr. ZHANG extended his gratitude to Mr. Thuemmel’s reception and gave the brief introduction to the mission and present work of the Commission. Then, he provided the detailed presentation on the international forum with the topic of building core areas of the Belt and Road which was underway and organized by the Commission. The Forum is focused on the future concrete executive plan for Xinjiang and Fujian, two core areas of the Belt and Road, the present national policy of China. It will be the forum-oriented think tank that will integrate the intellectual support, the diagnosis of the present problems and the evaluation of the executive plan into one entity and will serve as a new perspective through which European countries can have a better understanding of the policy of the Belt and Road. Mr. Thuemmel showed his interest in this Forum and was willing to know it further. He pointed out that any new policy was in need of the process of clarification. It was very important to enable more and more foreigners to understand the present macro-levelpolicy of the Belt and Road through the concrete forums and the analyses, diagnoses of specific problems, which would be conducive to dispelling the misunderstanding and doubts from the outside.

Mr. ZHANG agreed on Mr. Thuemmel’s opinion. He provided the further explanation, the policy of the Belt and Road more relied on the efforts of implementing the concrete projects to enrich its content of this policy. He remarked, since Chinese people recognized the remarkable features of German technology, the cooperation concerning the effort of combining German technology and Chinese market would be brilliant, which could be the concrete projects and contents within the framework of the Belt and Road. Many local governments of China were quite looking forward to the actual implementation of the cooperation in their own regions. Meanwhile, the concept Industry 4.0 had caused a great stir in China, and right now it was the moment the Chinese government was encouraging people to be engaged in the work of entrepreneurship and innovation and permitted foreign companies and institutions to participate in the work of setting up the industrial standard of China, the Commission was quite willing to cooperate with German enterprises and institutions to improve the industrial standard of China on the reliance of advanced technology of Germany. Mr. Thuemmel said,he was glad to know the Commission had a favorable recognition of German technology and was willing to carry out the further publicity work in this field in the hope of achieving win-win situation for the concerned cooperation parties of Germany and China.

Mr. ZHANG and Mr. Thuemmel also exchanged their views on the topics of China-Germany youth football match, the vocational training and educational cooperation in which they were interested. Mr. ZHANG said, Chinese people had a limited understanding of Germany and it would be very necessary to undertake the work of promoting cultural exchange and educational cooperation on both sides with a view to reinforcing the mutual understanding and friendship between German and Chinese people and laying the solid foundation for the mutual trust and cooperation ten years later. Henceforth, the Commission was willing to promote German youth football training program, vocational training and other forms of educational cooperation in China in the hope of enabling Chinese youths to understand Germany and enrich their understanding of the world through the concrete projects. Mr. Thuemmel introduced the experiences Germany had accumulated in this field and was pleased to know the related achievements the Commission had made. He said, to promote the friendship between German and Chinese people was his work, German Embassy was quite willing to participate in the related activities and he expected the Commission to make further achievements in this field.

The meeting concluded amid the friendly atmosphere.