China, Australia pledge to further deepen bilateral relations

SYDNEY: China and Australia have pledged here to further deepen bilateral relations between the two countries.

While meeting with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull on Friday, Meng Jianzhu, head of the Commission for Political and Legal Affairs of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, said that China and Australia have scored great achievements in developing bilateral ties, with leaders of the two countries exchanging successful visits and reaching important consensus on developing the comprehensive strategic partnership between the two sides.

As two major countries in the Asia-Pacific, China and Australia have common interests in many aspects and the prospects for future cooperation between the two countries are promising, Meng said.

Meng said as bilateral economic and trade ties are growing stronger and personnel exchanges between the two sides become more frequent, it is necessary for the two countries to establish a high-level security dialogue mechanism so as to lift the level of bilateral security cooperation.

Both sides should take the opportunity of launching the high-level security dialogue mechanism to respect each other's interests and address each other's concerns, deepen sincere dialogue, boost mutual understanding and mutual trust, broaden cooperation in the areas of fighting transnational crimes, anti-drug, anti-terrorism, combating cybercrime, and strengthen dialogue and communications in legal and judicial fields so as to safeguard the security of the two countries and serve the well-being of the two peoples.

For his part, Turnbull said that the two countries have witnessed the smooth development of bilateral ties.

Australia attaches great importance to strengthening cooperation with China in security and law enforcement, the Australian prime minister said, hoping that the two sides will further deepen cooperation and safeguard security and interests of the two countries through the platform of the China-Australia high- level security dialogue.

Also on Friday, Meng attended the first China-Australia high-level security dialogue and delivered a speech.

After the security dialogue, China and Australia signed a joint declaration in which the two sides pledged to boost cooperation in the fields of judicial and legal affairs, cyber security, fighting terrorism and transnational crimes.

In the joint declaration, the two sides also agreed to hold the second China-Australia high-level security dialogue in the first half of 2018 in China.