BRUSSELS, March 18 -- At the invitation of the German Marshall Foundation of the US, Vice-minister Ai Ping of the International Department of the CPC Central Committee attended in Belgium the Brussels Forum 2013 from March 14th to 18th.

The theme of this year's forum is Fragility of the Global System. Around 400 influential political, corporate and intellectual leaders from European countries and the United States attended the Forum, including President Herman Van Rompuy of the European Council and EU High Representative Catherine Ashton for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy. Vice-minister Ai Ping, as an invited speaker, made a speech on China in Transition. On the sidelines, he met respectively with EU High Representative Ashton, Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Igor Morgulov, US former Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg, and Dewi Anwar, foreign affairs advisor to Indonesia's vice-president.

Ai Ping introduced to the participants the main ideas of the 18th CPC National Congress and the on-going sessions of the National People's Congress and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. He stressed that these meetings, as a channel for the world to learn about China and its future development, present to the world a stable and confident country dedicated to peaceful development and will offer positive energy to the overall stability and prosperity of the world. China will continue to strengthen its friendly exchanges and mutually beneficial cooperation and bring new progress to its relations with the rest of the world, so as to promote development of the international political and economic orders in a more fair and equitable direction, Ai added.

The participants congratulated China on the smooth transition of its collective leadership and showed great interest in the new changes and policies of China. They held high expectation for China's peaceful development as well as a bigger role of China on the international stage. The participants also expressed their willingness to strengthen communication and cooperation with China and work together to safeguard world peace, stability and prosperity.

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