(14 Mar 2023)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Beijing - 14 March 2023
Spokesperson: Wang Wenbin
Duration: 07 min 44 sec
1. Announcement
Following the decision to manage COVID-19 with measures against Class B infectious diseases starting from January 8 this year, the Chinese government has introduced a series of measures to facilitate cross-border people-to-people exchange, which has been widely welcomed by the international community. To further facilitate exchange and cooperation between China and other countries, the Chinese government has decided that from March 15, visas that we issued before COVID are still valid and will be reactivated. The review and issuance of tourist visas and other types of visas will be resumed, and visa-free entry for several places will be resumed.
2. We learned that President Xi is visiting Moscow and meeting with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin next week, can you confirm whether he’s planning for a similar engagement with President Zelenskyy? What will be China's role in the Russian-Ukrainian peace talks?
China and Russia are in communication at all levels, and I have no information to release at this time on the matter you mentioned. China's position on the crisis in Ukraine has always been clear, and China has maintained communication with all parties. In viewing and dealing with international and regional hotspot issues, China has always adhered to the foreign policy objective of maintaining world peace and promoting common development. Based on the merits of the matter itself, it insists on its commitment to promote peaceful resolution of conflicts through diplomatic negotiations and other means, and the same applies to the issue of Ukraine.
Not long ago, China released a document entitled "China's Position on Political Settlement of the Ukraine Crisis", which puts forward 12 propositions, including respecting the sovereignty of all countries, abandoning the Cold War mentality, ceasing the war, initiating peace talks and stopping unilateral sanctions, the core of which is to urge peace and promote talks. China is willing to take this as the basis and continue to work with the international community to play a constructive role in the political settlement of the crisis in Ukraine.
3. Australia will purchase nuclear-powered attack submarines from the U.S. to modernize its fleet. Any comment?
The United States, UK and Australia established a so-called trilateral security partnership to promote cooperation in nuclear submarines and other cutting-edge military technologies. This is the typical cold-war mentality which will only motivate arms race, damage the international nuclear nonproliferation regime, and harm regional stability and peace.
Peaceful countries have expressed grave concern and firm opposition to this. The latest joint statement issued by the US, UK, and Australia shows that the three countries have gone further down the wrong and dangerous path for their own geopolitical self-interest, completely ignoring the concerns of the international community.
The nuclear submarine cooperation between the US, the UK and Australia involves nuclear-weapon states, and the transfer of large quantities of highly enriched uranium to non-nuclear-weapon states, posing a serious risk of nuclear proliferation and violating the object and purpose of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.
4. Recently, China has again expanded the scope of outbound group tours for Chinese citizens, can you share more information?
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18 мар 2023
