–in latest sign of China’s openness to global investors increasingly upbeat on Chinese market
CHINESE State Councillor and Foreign Minister Qin Gang and Tesla Founder Elon Musk met in Beijing on Tuesday, as a stream of foreign CEOs had visited China. This is happening as the world’s second largest economy strives toward high-level opening-up and enhance its attractiveness to foreign investment.

Qin Gang said China will continue to steadfastly promote high-level opening-up and is committed to creating a better market-oriented, legal, and international business environment for enterprises from various countries, including Tesla.
“China’s development is an opportunity for the world. A healthy, stable and constructive China-US relation is beneficial not only for China and the US, but also for the whole world,” Qin said.

Qin also used Tesla cars as a metaphor to describe the relations between China and the US, saying the two countries should “hit the brake” in a timely manner to avoid “dangerous driving” and push win-win co-operation.
Musk said Tesla objects to “decoupling” and is willing to further expand business in China, according to a statement published on the website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Tuesday.

Chinese experts said along with a series of achievements China has made in attracting and stabilising Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), more and more foreign CEOs chose to be “physically in China” to ink deals. This shows the indisputable attractiveness of the Chinese market and the Chinese economy, despite the noises made by some Western media suggesting otherwise.

Musk flew in a private jet to China on Tuesday. The CEO of Tesla, which has the Chinese market contributing nearly 21 percent of its overall revenue in the first quarter of 2023, commissioned the Shanghai Gigafactory with a dance in the rain in Shanghai in 2019.
Musk has visited China many times. In 2018 and 2019, he was spotted by Chinese netizens eating pancake with crispy fried dough sheet, steamed buns with filling and hot pot in different Chinese cities. (Global Times)

China Space Station sees heavenly reunion of six taikonauts

THE China Space Station staged its first “heavenly reunion” of six taikonauts on Tuesday evening after it entered the application and development phase at the end of 2022. Led by mission commander and veteran taikonaut Jing Haipeng, the incoming Shenzhou-16 trio entered the space station at 6:22 pm on Tuesday where they received warm embraces from their Shenzhou-15 brothers.

The historic moment marked the beginning of China’s second in-orbit direct handover between two Shenzhou crews, following the first one between the Shenzhou-15 and Shenzhou-14 crew in November 2022.

Shenzhou-15 mission commander Fei Junlong and his fellow crew members Deng Qingming and Zhang Lu, who are famous for their great skills and passion for Chinese calligraphy, decorated the Tianhe core module with red and joyful couplets for the welcome party. The six taikonauts exchanged hugs and firm handshakes before they had a group picture taken to celebrate the reunion in space.

Next, the crew of the two missions will carry out an in-orbit handover and will live together in the space station for about five days before the Shenzhou-15 returns to earth, according to the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA).

Currently, a total of 17 astronauts are in orbit: Six taikonauts from China, five NASA astronauts from the US, three cosmonauts from Russia, two from Saudi Arabia and one from the UAE.

Marking the first manned space mission after China’s space station entered its application and development phase, the Shenzhou-16 spacecraft carrying three taikonauts was successfully launched onboard a Long March-2F carrier rocket at 9:31 am on Tuesday from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre located in Northwest China.

After a flight of around 10 minutes, the Shenzhou-16 spacecraft successfully separated from the launch vehicle and entered its preset orbit, with the crew members in good condition, according to a statement the CMSA sent to the Global Times, announcing the success of the launch mission.

At 4:29 pm on Tuesday, some six and a half hours after launch, the Shenzhou-16 spacecraft docked with the Tianhe core module’s radial port, announced the CMSA. (Global Times)

China’s rapid economic recovery brings ‘big opportunities’ to Uruguay: Uruguayan Agriculture Minister

URUGUAY’S Minister of Livestock, Agriculture and Fisheries Fernando Mattos just finished his 19-day-long trip in China on Friday, achieving fruitful results of bilateral agricultural co-operation including signed agreements between their agricultural ministries as well as other related institutions.

Mattos said that China’s rapid economic recovery has brought many and constantly growing opportunities to Uruguay, adding that the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has reduced the geographical distance between the two far friends and partners.

The Embassy of Uruguay in Beijing told a press conference held on Thursday that Fernando Mattos’ visit took place at the invitation of Tang Renjian, China’s Minister of Agriculture and Rural Affairs. During Mattos’ 19-day visit in China, he completed an intense agenda with approximately 100 meetings including conferences with General Administration of Customs of China (GAC) and the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs of China (MOA).

IMPORTANT PARTNERS

In addition, Mattos visited Hong Kong, Macao, Guangdong, Henan, Shanghai, Jilin, Shandong and Beijing, and he also met with the highest authorities of some international organisations in China such as the president of the New Development Bank (NDB) and the top representative of Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations in China.

According to the Embassy of Uruguay, Mattos signed the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the Ministry of Livestock, Agriculture and Fisheries of Uruguay and China’s MOA on co-operation in fisheries and aquaculture.

The minister also witnessed the signing of important co-operation documents between institutions in Uruguay and China. During the visit, the National Agricultural Research Institute of Uruguay signed a co-operation agreement with the National Food and Strategic Reserves Administration of China, and the Uruguayan Horse Breeders Association signed a co-operation agreement with the China Horse Industry Association.

Mattos’ visit came after Uruguayan Foreign Minister Francisco Bustillo Bonasso’s five-day visit to China starting from April 16, during which Bustillo said that Uruguay attaches great importance to nurturing good Uruguay-China relations and is expected to further work closely with China to ramp up co-operation in economic and other fields.

According to the data released by GAC, bilateral trade reached $7.44 billion in 2022, up 14.9 percent on a yearly basis. China’s imports from Uruguay jumped 23 percent to hit $4.46 billion last year.

“We ended a visit of such details with an extensive agenda due to the fact that it has been four years that we could not make trips to China and we had some of bilateral pending issues, so this trip is necessary to generate more closer diplomatic, commercial and personal relationship, bring more opportunities to consolidate the fact that Uruguay is a great strategic supplier of food and fiber for China,” Mattos said during the press conference.

During an exclusive interview with the Global Times on Thursday, Mattos said China’s rapid economic recovery has brought “big opportunities” for Uruguay and benefits the people.

“We have seen everyone is optimistic about the recovery with increasing demand and sales. More trade, more movements and more purchase … This is very good for us because we depend on this to increase the economic output and I will bring the good news when I return to my country,” Mattos said.

FUTURE OPPORTUNITIES

Uruguay is the first Southern Common Market (MERCOSUR in Spanish) country to sign an MOU with China on co-operation under the framework of the BRI. Mattos noted that the BRI has reduced the geographical distance between the two far friends and partners, which means more connectivity with more shipping lines and airlines that can bring Uruguayan fresh agricultural products to the Chinese consumers’ baskets.

Mattos told the Global Times that during his visit to the NDB, he talked with the president about the variation of currencies. He said that in the future, as China will have more economic activities in the global financial market, the yuan may transform and progress as a global reference currency.

During these visits to different Chinese cities, Mattos said that he and his delegation have found enormous future possibilities of complementarity, and great opportunities to expand the commercial and technical co-operation to improve their productive processes within a shared spirit of sustainability.

In addition, they have also seen the country’s rapid modern economic development. “Western countries lack knowledge of China’s reality, and we will talk more about the true living conditions that we have seen, as well as the marked progress that the world’s huge market has made, including getting tens of millions of people from extreme poverty to relative prosperity in such a short time, which is really impressive and admirable,” Mattos said during the press conference.

“Looking ahead, regarding the results that our two countries can obtain from the trade consolidation, we hope that our confidence will keep growing to obtain more investment, rising sales and a booming tourism, with higher level of good relationship that goes beyond commercial exchange,” he said. (Global Times)

China’s C919 jetliner goes into commercial operation

THE C919, China’s self-developed large passenger aircraft, completed its first commercial flight from Shanghai to Beijing on Sunday, marking its official entry into the civil aviation market.

The flight, operated by China Eastern Airlines, took off as MU9191 at 10:32 a.m. from Shanghai Hongqiao International Airport with 128 passengers on board.

The plane was greeted with a water salute after touching down at Beijing Capital International Airport at 12:31 p.m. on Sunday.

The C919 is China’s first self-developed trunk jetliner in accordance with international airworthiness standards and owns independent intellectual property rights.

The C919 project was launched in 2007. Developed by the Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China, Ltd. (COMAC), the first C919 aircraft rolled off the production line in Shanghai in November 2015. In 2017, the plane accomplished its maiden flight.

“The first commercial flight is a coming-of-age ceremony of the new aircraft, and C919 will get better and better if it stands the test of the market,” said Zhang Xiaoguang, Director of the Marketing and Sales Department of COMAC. (Xinhua)