On the morning of May 20, 2025, Ambassador Zhao Weiping held a press meeting at the Chinese Embassy attended by representatives from more than 10 media houses of Namibia. The transcript of the press meeting is as follows:

Amb. Zhao:

Dear friends, good morning. Thank you for attending my first press meeting this year, today I will talk about China-Namibia relations, China’s position on the US’ imposition of the so-called “reciprocal tariff”, the Taiwan question, and China’s experience of poverty alleviation and the meaning of Chinese modernization. As you know this is the regular press meeting, I don’t have any specific news to announce. It’s just a kind of background briefing. But of course as always, I will be very happy to answer any questions you may have after my opening remarks. I will start with China’s experience of poverty alleviation and the meaning of Chinese modernization.

Firstly, I have the pleasure to present two books to all of you, which are already placed in front of you. One is Up and Out of Poverty, a compilation of Chinese President Xi Jinping's major statements on poverty alleviation from September 1988 to May 1990 while he served in Ningde Prefecture, Fu Jian Province of China, as the local Party chief. Another one is Eradicating Poverty, which contains excerpts from President Xi Jinping’s remarks on poverty alleviation on various occasions from November 2012 to June 2018. These two books are collection of President Xi Jinping’s important thoughts on poverty alleviation in China.

As you all know, over the past four decades since the launch of Reform and Opening-up, China has created an economic miracle. China's GDP increased from 149.5 billion USD in 1978 to 18.9 trillion USD in 2024, growing by more than 125 times. In 2024, per capita GDP in China reached around 13.3 thousand USD, which is 85 times higher than in 1978 when our per capita GDP was only 156 USD. As of 2020, China has succeeded in eradicating absolute poverty.

From the books I presented you, you will find that President Xi Jinping has made poverty eradication a top priority in the governance of China. He is personally devoted to that, and all the measures for eradicating poverty have been taken under his guidance and leadership. The success of poverty alleviation in China is also a vivid example of the unique advantages of the system of socialism with Chinese characteristics and the people-oriented Chinese modernization.  

The concept of Chinese modernization was officially introduced by President Xi Jinping in a keynote address at the CPC and World Political Parties Summit in July 2021. He mentioned that “the CPC will unite and lead the Chinese people in pressing ahead with the Chinese-style modernization to make new contributions to humanity's search for ways to modernize.” The Resolution on the Major Achievements and Historical Experience of the Party over the Past Century adopted at the sixth plenary session of the 19th CPC Central Committee in November 2021 also mentioned “Chinese path to modernization”.

The greatest lesson we have learned in advancing our social and economic development is that in promoting modernization, we should not only follow the general rules, but also act in light of our national realities. There doesn't exist a fixed model for the path to modernization, cutting one's feet to fit the shoes will lead nowhere.

The main features of Chinese modernization are clear. It is the modernization of the second largest population in the world. It is the modernization of common prosperity for all. It is the modernization of material and cultural-ethical advancement. It is the modernization of harmony between humanity and nature. And it is the modernization of peaceful development. We are very happy to share our experience of modernization with our African friends, and join hands in achieving modernization together. Joining Hands to Advance Modernization is also the theme of the 2024 Beijing FOCAC Summit.

Now I would like to update you on the new development of China-Namibia relations this year. As a good start of this year’s bilateral relations, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi made Namibia the first stop of his first annual trip to Africa in January. During his visit, he respectively met with then President Nangolo Mbumba and then President-elect Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah. In February, at the request of the Namibian side, the Chinese side sent 8 pilots and technicians to assist in the mission of our Namibian friends to transport the remains of Namibia’s Founding Father Sam Nujoma to various memorial services across the country. In March, President Xi Jinping assigned his special envoy to attend the inauguration ceremony of President Ndaitwah, and the special envoy also paid a courtesy call on Her Excellency President.

We highly appreciate the reaffirmation by the new Namibian Government to deepen China-Namibia cooperation, and the Chinese side also attaches great importance to the bilateral relationship. We hope and believe that, with the joint efforts of both sides, China-Namibia relations will achieve even greater development in the next five years and bring even bigger benefits to our two peoples.

What I want to emphasis here is that, China will provide strong support to the Namibian Government’s efforts in achieving the goals set up in the SWAPO Party Manifesto and Implementation Plan. We are now earnestly implementing the outcomes of 2024 Beijing FOCAC Summit, good progress has been made in pushing forward important major projects funded by the Chinese government, such as the Police Housing Project, Borehole Drilling Project, Smart City Pilot Project and Social Housing Project. The first batch of China emergency food assistance has arrived in Namibia in January and has been distributed to the affected communities. The second batch will arrive soon.

Meanwhile, we are also working hard to expand China’s imports from Namibia. Early this month, Hon. Wang Lingjun, Vice Minister of the General Administration of Customs of China, visited Namibia and signed an MoU with Namibia Revenue Agency to boost customs cooperation and promote trade facilitation between our two countries. He also signed an agreement with Hon. Ingenesia Inge Zaamwani, Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Land Reform, on the inspection, quarantine, and hygiene requirements for mutton and chevon to be exported from Namibia to China. The two sides are also actively discussing the export of Namibia’s other agricultural and aquatic products to China.

There is a great potential for investment cooperation between our two countries, and the Chinese Government will continue to encourage Chinese enterprises to expand their investments in Namibia. We are also maintaining close consultations with each other in the areas of agricultural and vocational training cooperation.

Now, I want to reaffirm China’s position on opposing the United States’ abuse of tariffs. The so-called ‘reciprocal tariffs’ imposed by the US administration seriously infringe upon the legitimate rights and interests of all countries, violate World Trade Organization (WTO) rules, undermine the rules-based multilateral trading system, and disrupt the global economic order. It is a typical act of unilateralism, protectionism, and economic bullying. The Chinese Government strongly condemns and resolutely opposes such move. We responded with tariff and non-tariff countermeasures to firmly safeguard our legitimate rights and interests. China's position has been consistent: if we are forced to fight, we will fight to the end, but if for talks, the door remains open.

From May 10 to 11, China and the US held a high-level meeting on economic and trade affairs in Geneva and issued a Joint Statement at the end of the meeting. This meeting made substantial progress, significantly reducing bilateral tariff levels. The US has canceled 91 percentage points of its additional tariffs, and China has canceled 91 percentage points of its counter-tariffs accordingly. The US has suspended the implementation of 24 percentage points of the "reciprocal tariffs", and China has also suspended the implementation of 24 percentage of its counter-tariffs. The two sides also agreed to establish a mechanism to continue discussions about economic and trade affairs on each other's concerns. As required, the two sides may conduct working-level consultations on relevant economic and trade issues.

The last issue I want to mention in my opening remarks is the Taiwan question, which is very important for us. It’s a background information for our media friends. In October 1971, the 26th session of the United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution 2758 by an overwhelming majority. The resolution restored all the rights of the People’s Republic of China at the UN and recognized the representatives of the government of the People’s Republic of China as the sole legitimate representatives of China at the UN. This resolution settled, once and for all, the political, legal, and procedural issues concerning China's representation in the UN. It affirmed that this representation covers the entire country, including Taiwan.

It also spelled out that China has one single seat in the UN, so there is no such thing as "two Chinas" or "one China, one Taiwan". Before this resolution, the 1943 Cairo Declaration and the 1945 Potsdam Proclamation also clearly stipulated that the Chinese territory stolen by Japan, including Taiwan and the Penghu Islands, should be returned to China. All the documents are based on the fact that China is a complete country and Taiwan is part of China.

However, in recent years, some countries falsely profess that the status of Taiwan has yet to be determined and have attempted to use the Taiwan question to contain China. Such move disregards historical and legal facts and will lead nowhere. The Taiwan question is purely China’s internal affairs that brooks no external interference. Namibia always adheres to the one-China principle and firmly supports China's efforts to safeguard its territorial integrity. We highly appreciate this valuable support. This is just a background briefing on the Taiwan question. So when you encounter this situation, you will know some of the historical facts on this issue.

My opening remarks end here, and now the floor is open for the questions. I really hope to use this opportunity to exchange views and ideas with our media friends on any issues which may be of your interest, thank you.

Q: Good morning Ambassador, I am Linea Dishena from Nampa. This year the Office of the Presidency and the National Planning Commission of Namibia released about 50 scholarship applications for Namibian students to study in China. So I would like to find out is this part of education diplomacy and is it part of joint commission Ambassador just mentioned.

A: Thank you. Education is an important area of our bilateral cooperation, not only in terms of the improvement of Namibia’s educational infrastructure. As our friends may have already known that since the establishment of our diplomatic relations, China has donated 9 schools to Namibia. And I think China is the country donated the biggest number of schools to Namibia.

Also China has been providing government scholarships for Namibian students to study in China, and I think the number is quite right, it’s about 50 government scholarships to Namibian students. But the majority of those 50 scholarships are for master degree. In addition, we also provide about 200 training opportunities for Namibian friends to participate in various training programs in China.

I think these scholarships and training opportunities are welcomed by our Namibian friends, and this is a very important aspect of our educational cooperation. And we will further strengthen such cooperation in the years to come. Thank you.

Q: Good morning Ambassador, my name is Envaalde Matheus, and I work for One Africa Television. You mentioned or you committed to support Namibian government, of course the SWAPO Party, to implement the Manifesto that they launched during last year’s election. The Party is promised to create hundreds of thousands of jobs. Question number one is what role will China play, and what are the sectors you would look at to help the government to create these jobs? Number two, we’ve had the conversations of oil and gas, what’s China’s position and how would you come through to help Namibia to utilize the discoveries quickly?

A: Thank you. We are ready to provide strong support to the Namibian government’s efforts in achieving the goals set up in the SWAPO Party Manifesto and Implementation Plan. I think this support will be reflected in a number of ways. It will be reflected in our development assistance to Namibia and also in our encouragement of Chinese companies’ investment in Namibia.

In terms of the bilateral development assistance, we are earnestly implementing the outcomes of the Beijing FOCAC Summit, and also the consensus reached by President Xi Jinping and President Mbumba in the bilateral meeting on the sideline of the Beijing FOCAC Summit. You may have noticed that President Xi Jinping announced Ten Partnership Actions to support China-Africa cooperation. That Ten Partnership Actions will be implemented with a financial support of 50 billion USD, which is also announced by President Xi at the Summit. As I mentioned, we have already made substantial progress on some of those bilateral projects, like the Police Housing Project which will cost more than 900 million Namibian Dollars. So all the Chinese government grant projects will not only improve the relevant infrastructure here, but in the mean time will also create jobs. Take the Police Housing Project for example, roughly estimated, the whole project will create more than 2000 jobs, of course they are temporary jobs. And of course we will not just limited to those projects. We will discuss other projects in the future. There’s one point I have to mention: we, of course, will do it to the best of our ability. Of course it’s difficult for us to accommodate any kind of requests. But we are sincere in doing as much as we can to provide our assistance to our Namibian friends.

The other aspect is investment. What was announced by China at the Beijing FOCAC Summit also includes support for more investment to African countries. I mentioned the 50 billion USD financial support, and I think quite big part of that financial support will be used to support Chinese companies to invest here. Because for some major projects, financing can come from various sources. It can be from commercial sources and can be also from government sources. Usually, government sources of financial support for those investment will be very important for the company to make their decision to invest. For the Chinese company’s investment, I can assure you that the number of Chinese companies that come to the embassy expressing their interest of investment has been growing. So we can expect a big growth of Chinese investment here in Namibia. And there will be wide range of areas which will interest Chinese investors.

For the oil and gas, so far no Chinese company is participating in the exploration. But I can assure you, once the production started, there will be Chinese companies. They will come to participate. I think companies of different countries have their own investment model or practice. For Chinese companies, especially for oil and gas, usually they don't participate at the exploration stage. But you can see that Chinese companies are active in oil and gas sectors. They are already very active in some of the countries in this region and also around the world. I think the oil and gas will be potential areas for bilateral cooperation.

Q: Ambassador, can I just follow up to add a little question. We are also talking about green hydrogen and green industries. You have mentioned that there are no Chinese companies that participated in these issues. Maybe with the green hydrogen, are there any chances that Chinese companies are recognizing its promising potential?

A: In terms of green hydrogen, I personally believe it’s a very good project. Because you are so strong with your natural wind and solar power resources. We are also following your green hydrogen program very closely. And so far some Chinese companies have already expressed their interests in participating in this program. Like one Chinese company, Envision Energy Group of China, who made an announcement last September here in Namibia that they want to participate in green hydrogen projects. And also there are some state-owned Chinese companies that are interested in participating in this program. But one thing you know, according to my observation and also observation of some Chinese companies, for the green hydrogen, the Chinese company have to forge partnership with the European companies. Because the market will be in Europe. The market will not be in China. Because commercially, it's not feasible at this stage to export it to China. So the Chinese companies have realized this point that the good strategy is to cooperate with the European companies. According to my knowledge, the European companies also have interests in cooperating with the Chinese companies, whether it's about financing, procurement of equipment, or construction of relevant infrastructure and facilities. I cannot speak for the companies, but I think they have already had some discussions in this regard.

Q: Thank you very much, Ambassador. Can I ask you three questions. One is about Gaza. It is said again and again that Israel has blocked Gaza to make it difficult to the point that even aid doesn't come into Gaza. As a major economy and world’s superpower, what has China done to support the Palestinian people, especially when it comes to aid. The second question is on the reciprocal tariff that the America has imposed on China, that was 125%. How much impact economically did the tariffs make on China? And how much economic impact did the Chinese response have on the US? The last question, it is said again and again that China's influence in Africa is becoming inevitably evident. And certain countries are warning African leaders to be careful of Chinese aid. Because according to them, this is another neocolonialism. So what is China's position in this regard.

A: Thank you for all your questions. I will answer your last question first. I think China-Africa relations or China-Africa cooperation is based on equality and mutual respect. I think our African friends, you are in the best position to answer this question, whether China is exercising the so-called neocolonialism, which is created very ironically by those former colonialists in Africa. Just as the Beijing FOCAC Summit last year has indicated to us that the leaders of the majority of African countries were present at the Summit, that fact alone can tell us that, this China-Africa relationship is mutually beneficial. Not only the Chinese side attaches great importance to this relationship, but also our African friends attach great importance to this relationship. Actually, China means what it says. We will put all our commitments, whether they are announced at the Beijing FOCAC Summit, or bilaterally, we will honor all those promises and commitments. So I think we are determined to push forward this mutually beneficial relationship with Africa by working even more closely with our African friends. We know some countries are not happy with this fruitful China-Africa partnership. But we should not be influenced by them in any way. We just do our own business, and just focus on our own cooperative projects. Eventually, we will have more tangible benefits, and this partnership will bring even greater benefits to both the peoples of Africa and China. Just let the facts speak. It's not necessary to respond too much to such nonsense that China is practicing neocolonialism in Africa.

Your second question is about the tariff issue. First I want to emphasize that there will be no winner for any trade war or tariff war, because trade itself is mutually beneficial. If it's not mutually beneficial, why would you trade in the first place? The Americans claim that they are unfairly treated. But the US is the largest economy in the world, and actually, the existing trading system of the world was set up by the US itself. Now they say that they are unfairly treated. That’s just not logical at all. It's a fact that we enjoy big amounts of surplus in our trade with the US. But the problem of the US is not the trade deficit. I think they know it very well. If they want to sustain the hegemony of the USD, there has to be trade deficits. Otherwise, how can they sustain the hegemony of the USD? That's the way the current world economic system works. Now they want everything. They want hegemony of the USD, and they even want trade surplus. How can that be possible? As I said, we don't want to have any trade war with the US. But once it's imposed on us, we have no other way. We have to respond to that.

What impact it has caused to our respective countries, the US and China? I think we still need time to observe, as this issue just started. It will certainly last for some time, so we have to watch. But one thing I want to emphasize is that, for China, we are well prepared. We announced our countermeasures just 9 hours after the US administration's announcement of the decision of the so-called reciprocal tariffs. If we were not well prepared, how could it happened so soon? China's economy for the first quarter of this year still enjoys very good growth, either for GDP or Foreign Trade. Of course the tariff started in April, so we have to wait and see. We have experienced a lot of difficult times in past more than 40 years of reform and opening-up. We are very proud that we have passed the tests of all the challenges in the past, and we are confident also to pass the test of the current challenge. For the US, you may have already read a lot of reports, either in social media or elsewhere. Actually, they depend a lot on some of Chinese products. Some of their industries, I don't know whether it is appropriate to say, will not be able to survive without the supply of the materials or machines they purchased from China. For the ordinary families, the kids will be unhappy with theirs parents. Because if there are no toys made by China available in the US markets, as President Trump mentioned that maybe a family can buy 20 toys for one kid in the past, but now they can only buy three. So that's a big difference. And for China, we import about $160 billion products from the USA. Big parts of that are agriculture products. Why we enjoy such big surplus with the US? Also because they prohibit the export of a lot of so-called high-tech related products to China. That means our economy’s dependence on their exports to China actually is not very big. Because they have already prohibited exporting anything which they think may boost China's economic ability. So even with no export from US, that will not affect us too much. But without imports from china, they cannot stand that.

For the Palestine, for the Gaza, that's indeed tragic. What happened in Gaza has demonstrated again that we need a multi-polar world. If this world is still dominated by one single so-called superpower or by a few other powers, I think such tragedy will be very difficult to avoid. China has always been playing its own role in promoting peace and stability in the middle-east and in preventing conflicts and tragedies in that region. We have very good and close partnership with the Palestine state. So we have played our role. But we need to have further unity and we should further strengthen the Global South in the international stage.

Q: I have a follow up question, Ambassador. I would like to find out how many Chinese business companies are there in Namibia? Do you have the figures? And then my other question is actually similar to my colleague's which is on the impact between the two countries that are in the battlefield of the trade war. Does this tariff and trade war have an extended impact perhaps on trade between China and Namibia, not just for your respective countries?

A: About 60 Chinese companies are registered with the Embassy. We don't have any regulation to register all the Chinese companies. It's not something in our law and regulation, but the companies can voluntarily register with us. Usually the state-owned companies are required by their headquarters to register with the Embassy. So for these registered 60 Chinese companies, most of them are state-owned companies. Although the number is not very big, I can tell you that a lot of those Chinese companies are major Chinese companies. They are big ones. And also some of them are even the so-called five hundred biggest companies in the world. That's for your first question.

The second question is whether what is going on in terms of the tariff problem will affect China-Namibia economic cooperation. If we say there is any impact, I think it is very likely that it will impact our bilateral trade positively. But of course we cannot say that the current tariff problem is a good thing because of that. It's not a good thing, because the US also imposes tariffs of 21% on Namibia. So it has a very damaging effect for the whole global trade. But for China and Namibia, why do I say it may impact positively, because I think at least from our perspective, I want our Namibian friends to also think this way, that in the current complicated international situation and global trading situation, it's very important to continue to further boost our bilateral economic cooperation. I think we share this determination and this idea. As time goes by, our Namibian friends will see this more clearly, because there will be a real move to further strengthen our bilateral economic cooperation. As I mentioned, a delegation from China's General Administration of Customs visited Namibia last month. Its Vice Minister signed relevant cooperative documents with our Namibian friends for China to import your lamb, and for China and Namibia to provide more trade facilitation to our two business communities by strengthening custom cooperation. So at least for the agricultural and aquatic products exported to China, we are going to have more good news in the near future. For our bilateral trade, I think it will only be strengthened. We should also be very careful to prevent it from the negative impacts of the current global trade situation.

Q: Just my last question. I know last year Ambassador is saying the trade volume between China and Namibia was around 1.3 billion USD. Maybe you can just kindly update it.

A: At the end of last year it's 1.4 billion USD. I don't have the statistics for the first quarter of this year.

Q: Ambassador you have mentioned the companies here. We've seen some of the Chinese companies being reported in Namibia for violating labor laws. I just want to find out what the Chinese government plans to do to ensure that these companies will not sabotage the relations between China and Namibia. What challenges has China encountered in the process of developing nuclear energy? What’s the status quo?

A: I can assure you that the majority of the Chinese companies are doing quite well in this regard, especially those major companies, like the Swakop Uranium and also the Rössing Uranium. I think they have set very good examples. Of course there have been some reports of the problem you mentioned. But in my impression, such reports have been much fewer now. Maybe several years ago, before I was here, I heard more of these reports, but now they are much less frequent. If we look at all the major publications, such reports have become very rare. Our Embassy has always encouraged our companies and citizens here to abide by laws and relations. This is something I think every government should do. Just like your embassy in China, of course, they also encourage Namibian citizens in China to obey Chinese law. That's just a natural thing. On some occasions, we have done such thing already. Just recently, we invited NamRA officials to the Embassy and asked them to give a briefing on your revenue laws and regulations of their portfolio to the Chinese business community -- right here in the same room. About 40 representatives from the Chinese business community attended. We want to host more such seminars to further educate our citizens and enterprises here.

The other issue is about the uranium and nuclear power. We have two uranium mines here in Namibia, which are mutually beneficial projects for our two countries. For Namibia, as I said in previous press meetings, they contributed about 7% of your GDP and directly employed somewhere between 2,000 and 3,000 Namibians to work at those two mines. And these jobs are good-paid. Indirectly, they have also created an additional 3,000 jobs. They also pay a significant amount of tax to your finance. So this is a good thing. And of course, for China, we have a very ambitious nuclear power program, so we need overseas supplies of uranium. So it's a mutually beneficial project. You mentioned the nuclear power, are you referring to your government's plan? (Journalist: Your government’s plan.) Currently we have 58 nuclear power units or reactors in China that are already in operation. And we plan to build another 50 nuclear reactors, almost half of these have already been approved to build, and the rest are in the planning phase. So currently, in terms of electricity generated by nuclear reactors, China stands as the second largest in the world. By the year 2030, in terms of nuclear power capacity, I think we will overtake the United States as the largest in the world. By 2040, our nuclear power installed capacity will reach 200 million kilowatts. That's already a huge amount of electricity. But it will only represent 10% of the total power generation in China. That's some of the information I want to share with you. Thank you.

Q: Thank you so much Ambassador. I personally buy some products from Chinese shops. I think that also reflects the good relationship between China and Africa. That's why we have Chinese shops here in Namibia. But I would like to know the position of China in terms of passing skills and also assisting with machinery and equipment to Namibian Schools that are willing to make toys and other products. So that we export them, maybe to China or other countries, to ensure a balanced economy. So that maybe one day Namibians will open shops in China and create jobs for Chinese people as well, not only Chinese creating jobs for the Namibians. So what is the position of China in terms of offering assistance with machinery, equipment, and passing skills to Namibian schools who are willing to come with products?

A: The Namibian Government now emphasizes very much on value addition, and to achieve that, you need to develop your own manufacturing sector. That's the idea. And we understand it very well. The development of the manufacturing sector is very important to a national economy. Not only for your national economy, but also for a lot of countries. Of course, for some island countries, it may not be realistic for them to develop manufacturing sector in their beautiful islands. But generally speaking, for almost all the countries, manufacturing is essential to economic growth. That is certain. So we understand very well the aspiration of Namibia government and people to develop your own manufacturing sector. And of course, if the Namibian government makes request in this regard, I think we can have discussions. If there's any specific idea or project, and the Namibia government needs support from the Chinese side, we are open to discuss everything. But it's not easy to develop a manufacturing sector. It takes time. I'm not referring to your case specifically, this is just a very general comment. It's not easy. Currently, China is the largest manufacturing country in the world. But this achievement is the result of more than 40 years of effort. At the beginning of our Reform and Opening-up, especially in the 1980s and 1990s, in order to attract the foreign investments to our manufacturing sector, we provided what we called super-national treatment to foreign investors. We even didn't require them to pay taxes for a long period of time, to say 10 years or 20 years, and we give them full administrative support. If they wanted to set up a manufacturing company in China, we didn’t follow the usual procedure process, as it may take a long time for them to get approval. If they submitted an application today, we could approve it today or no later than tomorrow. We even provide all the basic facilities like factory buildings. A lot of favorable policies were made to attract them. Because the Chinese market is very large, so in this process, we also ask them to transfer some of their expertise or technology. Of course, they would not transfer everything, but they did transfer some. You know we have Five-Year Plan every 5 years, and we always implement what we plan. I’m sharing all this information with you just to say that progress doesn’t come easily. It will be a long process. But of course, we have to start. That's important. Thank you.