Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met with Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Secretary General Jasem Mohamed Albudaiwi in Riyadh on December 14, urging the bloc to finalize the China-GCC Free Trade Agreement (FTA), stating that conditions are “basically in place” and it is “time to take the final decisive step.”
Chinese FM Wang Yi co-chaired the Fifth Meeting of the Political Sub-committee of the China-Saudi Arabia High-level Joint Committee in Riyadh with Saudi FM Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud.#China and #SaudiArabia are important economic and trade partners to each other. China will… pic.twitter.com/8PHeLl7xQE
— Lin Jian 林剑 (@SpoxCHN_LinJian) December 15, 2025
This renewed call for the FTA, which has been under negotiation for over 20 years, aims to send a strong signal in defense of multilateralism against rising protectionism.
The meeting, which followed the landmark First China-GCC Summit in 2022, served to reinforce the comprehensive strategic partnership between the two sides, who view each other as trusted companions on the path to development. Both officials affirmed their commitment to deepening cooperation under the Belt and Road Initiative in areas like energy, trade, and innovation.
Wang Yi also stressed the need to strengthen multilateral coordination by implementing President Xi Jinping’s four major global initiatives: the Global Development Initiative (GDI), Global Security Initiative (GSI), Global Civilization Initiative (GCI), and the Global Governance Initiative (GGI), to bolster the collective self-reliance of the Global South.
The GCC highly appreciated China’s “just position” on regional issues, including the Palestinian question and the promotion of Saudi-Iran reconciliation, while looking forward to the Second China-GCC Summit to be held in China next year.
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