President Xi’s visit presents golden opportunity to strengthen China-Switzerland partnership
Chinese President Xi Jinping’s four-day visit to Switzerland starting Sunday will be a great opportunity for the two countries to boost their partnership, a paragon of China’s interaction with the West.
This will be President Xi’s first trip abroad in 2017, and is expected to build Beijing’s great partnership with Bern.
The visit is also expected to tap into the great potential for broader cooperation, update the bilateral free trade deal and expand consensus on safeguarding the global trade system.
Xi’s visit comes less than a year after the 2016 April visit to China by then Swiss president Johann Schneider-Ammann.
Switzerland has recorded a trove of “firsts” in its participation in China’s reform and opening up, and its sensible China policy has fostered substantial cooperation of mutual benefit.
The European country, one of the first Western nations to establish diplomatic relations with China, has become the first and only country to set up a strategic partnership with China featuring innovation.
President Xi’s visit will begin in Zurich on Sunday and end in Geneva on Wednesday.
