BEIJING, March 1 -- Chinese State Councilor and Minister of National Defense Wei Fenghe held talks with Thandi Modise, minister of defense and military veterans of South Africa,via video link on March 1, 2022.

Wei Fenghe said that China and South Africa are good friends and partners with profound friendship and mutual trust. Under strategic guidance of the heads of state of the two countries, the China-South Africa comprehensive strategic partnership has seen continuous in-depth development in recent years. The two sides work together in fighting the pandemic and cooperation in various fields have yielded fruitful results.

Wei pointed out that China and South Africa, both being major developing countries and emerging market economies, should jointly resist hegemonic, domineering and bullying behaviors, practice genuine multilateralism and safeguard international fairness and justice, so as to make positive contributions to world peace and development.

The Chinese military is willing to maintain high-level communication with the military of South Africa, improve the cooperation mechanism, expand cooperation fields, jointly fight the pandemic, striving to promote the development of bilateral military relations, Wei said.

Ms Modise said that South Africa attaches great importance to the development of bilateral relations and will stand firm together with China to jointly oppose hegemonism and jointly handle challenges of today’s world.

The South African military hopes to strengthen cooperation with its Chinese counterpart in terms of joint training and exercise, armaments technology, naval and air force exchanges, to continuously improve the relations between the two militaries, Modise said.

The two ministers also exchanged views on international and regional issues of common concern.