Your Excellency Minister E Jingping, 

Your Excellency Vice Minister Tian Xuebin, 

Diplomatic Envoys from the Five Mekong Countries, 

Ladies and Gentlemen, 

Good afternoon, 

It is my great honor to attend this launching ceremony of the Lancang-Mekong Water Resources Cooperation Information Sharing Platform Website. On behalf of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, I would like to send warm congratulations. 

Water nurtures all creatures of all places. The Lancang-Mekong River links up six countries and keeps surging forward for nearly five thousand kilometers. It is a natural bond linking the six countries and a cradle for generations of riparian people for thousands of years. 

The ancient Chinese said, great virtue is like water, and thevisionary people find joy in water. I think we are all visionary people who can make good use of the Lancang-Mekong River. Since the commencement of the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation (LMC) mechanism over four years ago, water resources cooperation has become a flagship area of cooperation, with the cooperation in relevant fields in full swing. The Water Resources Cooperation Center has been established, and ministerial meetings, joint working groups and cooperation fora have operated smoothly. All parties have fully implemented the Five-year Action Plan and yielded fruitful results. 

Strengthening hydrological information sharing and jointly establishing the Lancang-Mekong Water Resources Cooperation Information Sharing Platform were the important initiatives proposed by Premier Li Keqiang at the Third Lancang-Mekong Cooperation Leaders’ Meeting in August this year. From the beginning of this month, China started to share hydrological information of the Lancang River in dry season with the Mekong countries. And the website of the information sharing platform was launched today. It shows China’ s firm determination to promote the LMC and to elevate water partnership. 

Friends, 

Against the backdrop of triple challenges of once-in-a-century changes, COVID-19 and China-US competition, and rampant protectionism and unilateralism, the LMC has shown great vitality by forging ahead against the downward trend. The six countries have made robust anti-pandemic cooperation, promoted work and production consumption, and enhanced people-to-people exchanges, which exemplified the Lancang-Mekong spirit of “shared river, shared future”. We need to stick to our initial purpose of cooperation, join hands to deal with challenges, seek integration and common development, and make this new mechanism bring more benefits to the people along the river. 

We need to deepen water resources cooperation. Water resources governance benefits future generations. We need to intensify upstream and downstream coordination, take care of each other’ s concerns, implement practical cooperation projects, and improve comprehensive governance capabilities, making the Lancang-Mekong River a river of friendship, cooperation and prosperity all together.  

We need to work together to defeat the pandemic and accelerate economic recovery.  

We need to eliminate external interruptions. Some countries outside the region repeatedly made use of the issue of the Mekong water resources to spread rumors and play up the so-called “Chinese threat” for political purposes, in order to sow discord among countries and sabotage sub-regional cooperation. The Mekong sub-region is an arena of common development, rather than a battlefield of geopolitics. China will keep boosting strategic mutual trust with the Mekong countries, uphold win-win cooperation, and work with them to develop and safeguard our shared home. 

Friends, 

The important parts of Xi Jinping Thought on Ecological Civilization are the harmonious coexistence between man and nature, and lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets. China has made remarkable achievements in preserving ecological environment in recent years. An ancient Chinese saying goes, a bird flies high not merely because of the lightness of one of its feathers, the horse runs fast not merely because of one of its legs. The Chinese government is willing to work with other five countries to closely cooperate on the protection, management and development of the Lancang-Mekong water resources, discuss the future LMC development, build a community with a shared future for the Mekong countries, and share the fruitful outcomes of the LMC. 

Thank you!