On November 1, Ambassador Liu Xiaoming met with Ms. Yvette Cooper, the Labour Party’s Shadow Foreign Secretary, at the Chinese Embassy.

Ambassador Liu congratulated Ms. Cooper on her appointment as Shadow Foreign Secretary, and hoped to establish a good working relationship with her and jointly promote continued development of the China-UK relations. Ambassador Liu highly commended the great progress in China-UK relations under the Labour government. He pointed out that the two sides established mechanisms such as the annual Prime Ministers’ meeting, Economic and Financial Dialogue, Strategic Dialogue, etc. and achieved remarkable results in the cooperation in economy, trade, education, culture and other fields, laying a solid foundation for the development of China-UK relations, and hoped that the Labour Party will continue to play an active role in promoting the development of the bilateral relations. The Chinese side looks forward to receiving Labour Party leader Ed Miliband, Ms. Cooper and other members of the shadow cabinet in China at a time convenient for both sides.

Ambassador Liu said that China is happy to see that the coalition government kept the Labour government’s positive policy toward China and the various dialogue and cooperation mechanisms between the two sides. He believed that Prime Minister Cameron’s visit to China early this month will help to bring about greater progress in China-UK relations.

Ms. Cooper thanked Ambassador Liu for his congratulations, saying that China, as a world power, has an important position in the British foreign policy, and that the major political parties in UK have a broad consensus on actively developing the relations with China. Although in opposition at present, the Labour Party will be committed as always to the development of strong UK-China ties. The Labour Party is ready to strengthen cooperation with China in various fields, including closer inter-party exchanges. Cooper said that UK and China share common interests in the promotion of global economic recovery and employment growth and should strengthen communication and coordination to make greater contribution to the world economic and trade development.

The two sides also exchanged views on issues such as the G20 Summit in Seoul, climate change, WTO Doha Round negotiations, etc.