DECR vice-chairman attends plenary session of Russian-Chinese Friendship, Peace and Development Committee and meeting of the Russian and Chinese state leaders with representatives of the public in the two countries

 On July 4, 2017, the Russian-Chinese Friendship, Peace and Development Committee met for the 11^th plenary session as part of the visit of the President of the Chinese People’s Republic Mr. Xi Jinping to Moscow. The participants summed up the work carried by the committee last year, shared their experience of building contacts and implementing joint projects and considered plans for the nearest future.

After the introductory remarks by the committee’s cochairmen, Mr. B. Titov, Presidential Commissioner for Entrepreneurs’ Rights, and Mr. Dai Bingguo, CPR State Council Member in 2008-2013, reports were made by chairmen of the Committee’s issue councils. Archpriest Nikolay Balashov, co-chairman of the council for interreligious cooperation, vice-chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate department for external church relations, spoke about the projectscarried out and planned. In his report, he stressed the importance of Russian-Chinese interreligious cooperation for strengthening friendship between the Russian and Chinese peoples and made proposals for fostering it.

Father Nikolay said in particular, ‘Russia and China are two countries aspiring towards the future and technological progress, aiming to solve the task of modernizing the economy. But at the same time, these are two civilizations for whom it is extremely important to preserve the link with tradition and to rely on traditional values. Many Russian political, state, public and scientific leaders have long seen that though the Chinese arevery practical people, pragmatism is not enough for real friendship with China. Introduction to the Chinese wisdom, the sources of which lie in the spiritual tradition of China, helps to build better relations with Chinese partners. Similarly, introduction to the spiritual tradition of Russia, first of all Orthodoxy confessed by a majority in our country, will surely help our Chinese friends to develop better the whole range of Russian-Chinese cooperation’.

Among the attendees of the meeting were Hierodeacon Kirill (Peregudin) and D. Petrovsky, staff members of the DECR.

After the plenary session, President Vladimir Putin and PRC President Xi Jinping met with representatives of the public and business and media communities of the two countries at the Grand Kremlin Palace. Among the participants in the meeting was Archpriest Nikolay Balashov.

The work of the Russian-Chinese Friendship, Peace and Development Committee was given a high assessment by the both state leaders. ‘For already 20 years the Committee have been one of the leaders of the dialogue between China and Russia’, President Putin noted, expressing the conviction that this public body ‘will continue in the same creative and innovative way to fulfil its important mission to help foster mutual understanding and good-neighborliness between the peoples of our states’. President Xi Jinping also stressed that the Committee ‘has carried out a tremendous work in highlighting the age-old friendship and strengthening mutual understanding between the two nations, thus making a weighty contribution to the full-fledged, stable and successful development of our bilateral relations… I hope that you will work for new successes in the task to deepen practical cooperation between the two countries’.

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Established in 2014 as part of the Russian-Chinese Friendship, Peace and Development Committee, the Council for Interreligious Cooperation is called to become a platform for developing Russian-Chinese contacts in the religious sphere, to intensify the participation of believers in the two countries in people’s diplomacy and consolidation of friendship between Russia and China. The Council includes representatives of the traditional religions in Russia – Orthodoxy, Islam, Buddhism and Judaism and representatives of the five major religions in China – Daoism, Buddhism, Islam, Catholicism and Protestantism.

DECR Communication Service