Ladies and Gentlemen, Friends,
On the occasion of the 94th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). I would like to extend sincere appreciation for friends from all communities for your long-term care and support for the PLA’s development.
The PLA is an army of the people built and led by the Communist Party of China (CPC). Over the past 94 years, the PLA has built on past achievements and grown stronger through battle with good development results.
The PLA has won timeless honors for the CPC and the Chinese people. They are the backbone for China to preserve the nature of our governance as well as national dignity.
They are also a strong force for regional and global peace.
China and South Africa are good brothers, partners and friends that share weal and woe with each other. We built a deep friendship from as early as the struggles against imperialism, colonialism and racism.
Since the new South Africa started and especially after our two countries built diplomatic ties, we have all along been supporting and learning from each other in our respective pursuits for development paths suited to our national conditions.
We have achieved a major leap forward from partnership, strategic partnership to comprehensive strategic partnership.
Under the joint guidance of President Xi Jinping and President Ramaphosa, the China-South Africa Comprehensive Strategic Partnership has grown into a fine example for China-Africa and South-South relations.
In recent years, there have been frequent military exchanges at various levels between China and South Africa.
Progress was made in pragmatic cooperation between institutional building, mutual visits of delegations, exchanges among academies, joint drills and training, as well as military industry and trade.
Our exchanges on this front is now at its best in history. It has not only become an important pillar for China-South Africa Comprehensive Strategic Partner to further grow, but also made important contributions to peace and security in Africa and beyond.
In particular, faced with the COVID-19 pandemic, our two militaries have fought hard together which demonstrates our “Comrades Plus Brothers” special bond.
At such a time of severe impact from COVID-19, I take it as one of my major responsibilities and missions to actively move forward the relations between the militaries of China and South Africa.
I maintained frequent communication and exchanges with leaders of the South African military and I look forward to more of such exchanges in the future.
I am convinced that with the strategic guidance of top leaders of our two countries, we will surely elevate China-South Africa military relations toward a higher level and make greater contributions to preserving regional and world peace.
I thank you.
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