On November 28, 2016, Foreign Minister Wang Yi and incoming UN Secretary General António Guterres jointly met the press after holding talks in Beijing.

Wang Yi said that China welcomes Mr. António Guterres to visit China as the incoming UN Secretary General. Mr. António Guterres is a senior statesman with rich experience and outstanding capabilities and has held important posts in the UN for a long time. It is believed that Mr. António Guterres will definitely become an excellent Secretary General.

Wang Yi expressed that just now Mr. António Guterres and I have exchanged in-depth views on current international situation, the UN's role, China-UN cooperation and other topics, reaching extensive consensus. We both propose to further safeguard the purposes and principles of the UN Charter, which synergize the precious experience obtained from war-induced chaos and turmoil in the human society. They are basic principles guiding contemporary international relations, and must be abided by unswervingly. The collective security mechanism established in the UN Charter is an important guarantee of eliminating the war and boosting peace, and must be safeguarded constantly.

We both advocate further giving play to the UN's influence and role. When it comes to coping with increasing and various global challenges, no country can achieve victory by fighting alone. The UN is an effective platform to collectively deal with global challenges, and also a core mechanism for all countries to manage international affairs through cooperation. Facing the world with emerging chaos, all countries hold higher, instead of lower expectation towards the UN. The UN's role should be reinforced, not weakened.

We both call for further improvement in the UN's governance competence and efficiency. The UN should comply with the appeal of the international community, strengthen its capability for coping with global challenges, improve work efficiency and elevate the level of emergency response in a bid to enable the over 10 billion dollars of regular budget and peacekeeping assessments to be properly used as well as let more than 160,000 UN staff and peacekeeping personnel work to their full potential.

We all agree to further deepen China-UN cooperation. This year marks the 45th anniversary of the restoration of the lawful seat of China in the UN. China-UN relationship is at a new historical starting point. We should make joint efforts to speed up the implementation of the important outcomes from President Xi Jinping's attendance at the series of summits marking the 70th anniversary of the founding of the UN last year and well manage all the follow-up works after Premier Li Keqiang's attendance at the high-level meetings of the 71st session of the UN General Assembly this year, so as to elevate China-UN cooperation in various fields to another level.

In conclusion, as a founding member of the UN and permanent member of the UN Security Council, China will always firmly uphold the purposes and principles of the UN Charter, safeguard the UN's authority and position and maintain its core role in international affairs.