Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Zhao Lijian’s Regular Press Conference on June 30, 2022
"Xinhua News Agency:
According to reports, the first batch of Chinese emergency food aid arrived in Sri Lanka yesterday. Could you offer more details?
Zhao Lijian:
On June 28, 1,000 tonnes of rice, the first batch of Chinese emergency humanitarian aid, arrived at the Colombo International Container Terminals. The Chinese ambassador to Sri Lanka and Sri Lankan officials received the shipment at the port and attended a handover ceremony. The Sri Lankan side thanked China for offering assistance at this trying time and underscored that a friend in need is a friend indeed. China’s assistance once again testifies to the ever-lasting and time-tested friendship between both sides. They said the Sri Lankan government and people will always remember the help they received.
As a traditional friend and neighbor, China has been closely following the difficulties and challenges faced by Sri Lanka and feel deeply for Sri Lanka. We have provided support to Sri Lanka’s socioeconomic development to the best of our capacity. Between April and May this year, the Chinese government announced a total of RMB500 million worth of emergency humanitarian assistance to Sri Lanka, the largest sum of free aid the country has received so far since the economic and livelihood crisis hit. Chinese provinces, cities and businesses and the Red Cross Society of China have provided multiple batches of various types of assistance to people in Sri Lanka to improve their livelihood. China has pledged a total food donation of 10,000 metric tons of rice to Sri Lanka, which will provide daily nutritious meals to 1.1 million children in 7,900 schools across nine provinces in Sri Lanka for at least six months.
China will continue to work with Sri Lanka to overcome risks and challenges and help it emerge from the current difficulties.
Associated Press of Pakistan:
On June 29, the Karot hydropower project was put into full commercial operation. Can you share more details about it? And what is China’s comment on that?
Zhao Lijian:
Let me extend congratulations on the start of full commercial operation of the Karot Hydropower Plant.
The Karot Hydropower Plant is a priority project for energy cooperation and the first large-scale hydropower investment project under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). The project was listed in the joint statement of the Chinese and Pakistani governments. Workers from both countries overcame difficulties and challenges together to complete the project, a process that took them seven years. With a total installed capacity of 720,000 kilowatts, the Karot Hydropower Plant will generate an average of 3.2 billion kilowatt hours of electricity per year, which can meet the electricity demand of around five million people in the region and effectively reduce power shortage in Pakistan and improve the country’s energy structure. It is expected to save about 1.4 million tonnes of standard coal and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by about 3.5 million tonnes per year, which will help achieve the global “carbon neutral” target and make new contributions to global climate response while promoting energy construction and economic and social development in Pakistan.
China and Pakistan are all-weather strategic cooperative partners. CPEC is a key pilot project under the Belt and Road Initiative and an important platform for all-round practical cooperation between the two countries. It is guided by the concept of green, open and clean development and committed to realizing sustainable, livelihood-oriented and high-standard growth. Since its launch, cooperation in various fields under CPEC has delivered fruitful outcomes. China stands ready to work with Pakistan to renew our traditional friendship, deepen all-round practical cooperation and ensure CPEC will continue to blossom and bear more fruits and bring bilateral relations, people-to-people exchanges and economic and social development of the two countries to a new level.
Global Times:
In recent days, Chinese military’s Y-20 cargo planes arrived at Kabul International Airport, carrying with them disaster relief supplies for people in Afghanistan. Some Internet users said this contrasts sharply with what happened at this same airport in August last year, when at least two Afghans fell to their deaths from a US C-17 cargo airplane which hastily took off. Do you have any comment?
Zhao Lijian:
I have noted relevant reports. I noticed some say that, at the same airport, one plane caused the loss of lives, while the other brought hopes. After the earthquake hit, China has acted at top speed to help Afghanistan to the best of its capacity. We have immediately provided RMB50 million worth of emergency humanitarian assistance to the quake-affected areas in Afghanistan. China is among the first countries that have provided the biggest and most tangible aid to Afghanistan. As of June 29, three batches of relief supplies had arrived in Afghanistan. The Chinese side is in close coordination with the interim government of Afghanistan to ensure that the relief supplies will be delivered to the people affected as soon as possible to help them pull through.
The US is the one that started the ongoing humanitarian disasters in Afghanistan. It is immediately responsible for the raging wars and conflicts, poverty, hunger and the people’s suffering in that country for many years. During the 20 years of US invasion in Afghanistan, over 30,000 Afghan civilians were killed and 11 million Afghans became refugees. During the same period, the US also connived at, supported and participated in the production and trade of drugs in Afghanistan. As such, the cultivation of poppy and production of opium far exceed the level before the US invasion, leading to drug proliferation in the country and seriously threatening the life and health of Afghan people. It is even more indignant that the US has, without asking the Afghan people, brazenly frozen their $7 billion life-saving money, making things even worse for them. This egregious behavior is more than outrageous.
In the face of natural disasters and man-made calamities, the US should immediately stop chokeholding the Afghan people and return to them Afghanistan’s national assets as soon as possible. They should take concrete actions to remedy the harms they have inflicted on the Afghan people and mitigate the ongoing humanitarian disaster in that country.
Beijing Daily:
According to reports, retired US military intelligence officer Scott Bennett said that the United Nations should organize an international tribunal for American biological weapons developers whose laboratories operated in Ukraine on the basis of the evidence collected by Russia. What’s China’s comment?
Zhao Lijian:
I have noted relevant reports. We are seeing more and more people, including people in the US with inside information, raising questions about the US’s military biological activities around the globe. I have mentioned quite a few times the fact that the US conducts more such activities than any other country. It is also the only country that opposes the establishment of a verification mechanism under the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC). There have long been serious international concerns about the US activities conducted all over the world.
Ensuring compliance through verification is an international consensus. Biosecurity should be no exception. As one of the BWC depository states, the US is supposed to lead by example. We once again urge the US to act responsibly and provide convincing clarifications on its military biological activities in Ukraine and other places sooner rather than later. And we urge the US not to seek to gloss over or cover up its activities. The best way for the US to prove its innocence is to open its doors for international review.
The Ninth Review Conference of the BWC will be held at the end of this year. The US should take it as an opportunity to mend its ways, stop being the last country that stands stubbornly in the way of the establishment of a BWC verification mechanism, and make concrete contribution to the global biosecurity governance. This would help restore international confidence in the US’s compliance and also strengthen global biosecurity."
Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Zhao Lijian’s Regular Press Conference on June 30, 2022