On October 27, the 2020 Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Symposium on Enhanced Foreign Affairs Coordination and the signing ceremony of the Memorandum for Enhanced Foreign Affairs Coordination in the 14th Five-Year Plan Period took place in Beijing. As stressed at the symposium, in the new circumstances, the foreign affairs offices of the three localities should earnestly implement the strategy for the coordinated development of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, coordinate regional resources for foreign-related work, actively explore the coordinated development pattern in this regard, strengthen communication and exchanges, and forge greater synergy to serve the overall needs of China's diplomacy and the strategy for the coordinated development of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region. Wang Tongqing, Director-General of the Department of Foreign Affairs Management of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Xiong Jiuling, Director-General of the Beijing Foreign Affairs Office, Luan Jianzhang, Secretary of the Party Leadership Group of the Tianjin Foreign Affairs Office and Wang Lizhong, Director-General of the Hebei Foreign Affairs Office attended the event.
Starting from this year, the Joint Meeting of Directors-General of Foreign Affairs Offices of Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei, which was launched in 2018, is upgraded to a symposium on coordinated development of foreign affairs in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, with a view to promoting pragmatic cooperation at a higher level and on a larger scale. The symposium will be held annually in the three places by turns. The key outcomes of this year's symposium include the memorandum and the list of cooperative projects for the 14th Five-Year Plan period. The list covers 11 projects in eight fields, including the development of Xiong'an New Area, sharing of resources from sister cities, cooperation and communication on affairs concerning Hong Kong and Macao, significant international events, joint international promotion campaigns, cooperation in foreign-related security, team building, and collaboration and sharing of think tanks.
As pointed out at the symposium, during the 14th Five-Year Plan period, the three places will further integrate the resources for foreign-related work, improve the joint service and support mechanism for major state events and build a service and support brand with regional characteristics. They will take joint actions to strengthen foreign-related epidemic prevention and control, conduct promotional activities on consular protection abroad, and establish the exchange mechanism for handling foreign-related cases. They will strengthen integrated development to provide strong support for the building of free trade zones and airport economic zones, promote the building of a unified, open market, better facilitate customs clearance, and ensure coordinated development of free trade zones in the region. They will carry out joint promotion campaigns, organize overseas journalists to do features on the region and make arrangements for collective interviews, so as to ensure objective and fair coverage. In addition, they will advance cooperation in human resources, further improve the joint training mechanism, establish a multilingual pool of high-caliber translators, and strengthen collaborative research on key foreign-related issues by fully leveraging each other's resources and advantages.
