Chinese President Xi Jinping meets with Crown Prince of Kuwait Sheikh Mishal Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah in Hangzhou, capital city of East China's Zhejiang Province, September 22, 2023. Photo: Xinhua

The China-Kuwait relationship has made significant progress, yielding great achievements across various fields of cooperation, Chinese President Xi Jinping told visiting Crown Prince of Kuwait Sheikh Mishal Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah in Hangzhou, capital city of East China's Zhejiang Province, on Friday.

The crown prince will attend the opening ceremony of the 19th Asian Games in Hangzhou on Saturday.

Xi said Kuwait was the first Gulf Arab country to establish diplomatic relations with China and the first country in the Middle East to sign Belt and Road cooperation documents with China. 

China and Kuwait established diplomatic ties 52 years ago, and relations were elevated to a strategic partnership in 2018.

Wang Guangyuan, an associate professor at the Arab Research Center, Beijing Language and Culture University, told the Global Times on Friday that the visit by the crown prince will not only consolidate traditional friendship between the two countries, but also push forward comprehensive development of ties in all fields, especially the connectivity of the BRI and Vision 2035 of Kuwait. 

Wang added that the visit on the occasion of the Asian Games will make the Chinese people know more about Kuwait and therefore promote people-to-people bond between the two countries. 

In December last year, Xi attended the first China-Arab States Summit and the China-Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Summit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, which charted the course for future China-GCC ties and China-Arab ties.

During the meeting on Friday, Xi said that China is willing to work with Kuwait to implement the outcomes of the two summits, continuously improve the level of collective cooperation between China and Arab states and between China and Kuwait, enhance communication and cooperation at the UN and other multilateral platforms, and safeguard the common interests of developing countries.

The crown prince hailed the Belt and Road Initiative and the Global Development Initiative, the Global Security Initiative and the Global Civilization Initiative, which he said are all based on the grand goal and purpose of promoting peace and progress for mankind and are of great significance. 

Kuwait is willing to deepen practical cooperation with China in various fields and intensify communication and cooperation in the Middle East and Gulf regions, said the crown prince.

Ding Long, a professor with the Middle East Studies Institute of Shanghai International Studies University, told the Global Times on Friday that relations between China and Kuwait have lasted a long time and withstood the test of history.

After the meeting, the leaders of the two countries jointly witnessed the signing of the Joint Statement on the Five-Year Plan for Bilateral Cooperation between the People's Republic of China and the State of Kuwait (2024-2028) as well as a number of bilateral cooperation documents in the fields of renewable energy, infrastructure construction, and environmental governance.