China and Samoa signed a new bilateral cooperation agreement aimed at strengthening economic, technical, and security cooperation between the two states, Samoan authorities announced Saturday.
The Samoan Foreign Ministry explained in a statement that “Samoa and the People’s Republic of China will continue to pursue greater collaboration that will deliver on joint interests and commitments, and address key priorities that are in line with Samoa’s Pathway for the Development of Samoa.”
The deal’s signing reportedly followed a meeting between Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and the Samoan Prime Minister which covered a range of “issues of mutual interest and concern, including key regional priorities such as climate change, the pandemic and peace and security.”
The statement by Samoa’s Foreign Ministry noted that “China is a key development partner for Samoa, providing infrastructural developments in the health, education and public administration sectors, human resource development, sports development and technical cooperation in the agriculture sector.”
Wang Yi’s visit to Samoa was the third stop on a lengthy goodwill tour of Pacific Islands nations which has been met with suspicion by Western regimes. On Thursday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken labeled China “the most serious long-term challenge to the international order” in a lengthy and contradictory address which the Chinese Foreign Ministry slammed Friday as an effort to “contain and suppress China's development and maintain US hegemony and power.”
“As to the rules-based international order that the U.S. advocates, all people with insight can see through that they are nothing but the rules formulated by the U.S. and a few other countries with the aim at upholding the U.S.-dominant international order,” China's foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin noted.