7. We actively carried out foreign relations work.
In accordance with the overall arrangements of the Party and state on diplomatic work, we have actively engaged in exchanges and cooperation with foreign parliaments and multilateral parliamentary organizations, making full use of the NPC's unique strengths in developing foreign relations.
1) We consolidated and expanded the NPC's mechanism-based exchanges with foreign parliaments.
The NPC, the Russian Federation Council, and the State Duma of Russia jointly established the new China-Russia Parliamentary Cooperation Committee. The committee held its first meeting, which was co-chaired by the leaders of the legislative bodies of the two countries. This initiative has helped to maintain a high level of parliamentary cooperation between China and Russia. We arranged for a high-level delegation of the United States House of Representatives to visit China, which included the first ever visit to Tibet. We held two meetings with the European Parliament under the mechanism of regular exchanges and resumed our parliamentary exchanges with Japan, which had been suspended for years. We officially implemented the mechanism of regular exchanges with the State Great Hural of Mongolia and established mechanisms for political dialogue with Peruvian and Argentine congresses. We strengthened diplomacy with the parliaments of other major countries of the world in a bid to enhance mutual trust and mutually beneficial cooperation.
2) We steadily promoted multilateral diplomatic activities among parliaments.
The year 2015 marked the 70th anniversary of the end of the Global War against Fascism and the founding of the United Nations. As Chairman of the Standing Committee of the NPC, I led a delegation to the Fourth World Conference of Speakers of Parliament at the United Nations Headquarters in New York. At the conference, I proposed that peace and development be made a theme of the meeting and that eradicating poverty and promoting economic and social development be made core objectives of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. I also attended the first BRICS Parliamentary Forum in Russia, which further enriched cooperation among BRICS countries and enhanced their confidence and cohesion.
We actively participated in the activities of multilateral organizations such as the Inter Parliamentary Union, the Asia-Pacific Parliamentary Forum, and the Asian Parliamentary Assembly. During these activities, we projected China's voice and worked to expand the international influence of developing countries and safeguard their common interests.
3) We conducted friendly international exchanges at all levels.
We actively engaged in high-level exchanges with the parliaments of Russia, the Republic of Korea, India, France, and Hungary and received 49 parliamentary or other delegations from countries including Pakistan, Italy, South Africa, Bangladesh, and Vietnam. We gave play to the role of the NPC's Foreign Affairs Committee as a window for international exchanges, and encouraged the relevant special committees and working committees to engage in exchanges with their counterparts in foreign parliaments. With a view to deepening pragmatic cooperation and promoting the alignment of the Silk Road Economic Belt and 21st Century Maritime Silk Road Initiative (the Belt and Road Initiative) with the development strategies of the relevant countries, we engaged in a continued effort to foster policy and legal environments that are more conducive to cooperation by stepping up policy coordination and providing stronger legal guarantees. We also encouraged mutual learning, drawing on the experience of other countries with reference to our key legislative items.
During our international exchanges, we resolutely safeguarded China's sovereignty, security, and development interests. On numerous occasions and in a variety of ways, we publicized the path, theory, and system of socialism with Chinese characteristics, informed the outside world of China's achievements in development, explained the meaning and significance of the Chinese Dream, and shared the story of the NPC, thereby winning China more understanding, trust, and support from the international community.