Your Excellency the Honourable Dr Jeannette Young AC PSM, Governor of Queensland and Professor Graeme Nimmo RFD,

Honourable Cameron Dick MP, Deputy Premier of Queensland, Treasurer and Minister for Trade and Investment,

Cr Angela Owen, Representative of Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner,

Mr Michael Ma, President of Queensland Chinese United Council, 

Distinguished guests, compatriots and friends,

Good evening!

    We are gathered here this evening to celebrate the arrival of the Chinese Lunar New Year. On behalf of the Consulate-General of the PRC in Brisbane, I would like to warmly welcome all of you and send our heartfelt thanks to you for your kind support for our work.

    Not long ago, the 78th session of the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution by consensus to designate the Spring Festival as a United Nations holiday. As the most amazing traditional festival in Chinese culture, the Spring Festival inherits the Chinese civilization concept of peace, amity and harmony, and also carries the common values of mankind such as family reunion, social inclusion and harmonious coexistence between humanity and nature. As the Spring Festival of the Year of the Dragon is approaching, I would also like to extend a New Year greeting to you all. Happy Chinese Lunar New Year!

    The year of 2023 marks the beginning of full implementation of the guiding principles laid down at the 20th National Congress of the CPC. The CPC has united and led the Chinese people of all ethnic groups to forge ahead with resolve and tenacity. China's GDP expanded 5.2 percent year-on-year, accounting for more than 30 percent of global economic growth. Strategic emerging industries are developing rapidly in China. The proportion of exports of “new three” products such as lithium batteries, photovoltaic and new energy vehicles has risen considerably. High-tech, high-value-added products and those support the green transformation have become new export growth engines. The Chinese economy enjoys strong resilience, ample potential and is promising and improving in both quality and quantity in the future.

    When faced with major issues concerning the future of humanity and the direction of world development, China has all along stood firmly on the right side of history and on the side of human progress. China firmly chooses unity and cooperation, openness and inclusiveness, peace and justice over division, confrontation, isolation, decoupling and war of power.

    The Central Conference on Work Relating to Foreign Affairs was held in December 2023. It was pointed out that a community with a shared future for mankind is the noble goal pursued by China in conducting major-country diplomacy with Chinese characteristics. We call for an equal and orderly multi-polar world and a universally beneficial and inclusive economic globalization. We will follow the strategic guidance of implementing the Global Development Initiative, the Global Security Initiative and the Global Civilization Initiative, and take high-quality Belt and Road cooperation as the practical platform to bring all countries to jointly meet challenges and achieve prosperity and progress for all.

    Last November, Prime Minister Albanese paid a successful visit to China and met with President Xi Jinping again. This high-level exchange has significant importance for the two sides to build on what has been achieved and chart the way forward. Thanks to the joint efforts of both sides, China and Australia have resumed exchanges in various fields. The bilateral relations have embarked on the right path of improvement and development. In 2023, China-Australia trade volume reached a new high and the investment cooperation has also made positive achievements.

    About the same time, the former Premier of Queensland Annastacia Palaszczuk led Queensland's largest trade mission to attend the 6th China International Import Expo, at which the Chinese and Queensland enterprises signed several memorandums of understanding on trade agreements worth a total of 212 million yuan. China is Queensland's largest goods export market, as well as an important investor and the largest source of international students. Overseas Chinese and students play a bridging role in promoting China-Queensland friendly relations. They support and are benefited from China-Australia friendship and cooperation.

    The year 2024 marks the 10th anniversary of the establishment of China-Australia Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. China and Australia should follow the trend of the times, proceed from common interests, and jointly foster a relationship in which there is equality, the pursuit of common ground and shelving of differences, and mutually beneficial cooperation, so as to keep moving forward China-Australia Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. China is ready to work with Australia to give full play to the potential of the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement, expand cooperation in emerging areas such as climate change and green economy, uphold the global and regional free trade systems, and provide a sound business environment for the investment and operation of each other's companies. The Chinese Consulate-General in Brisbane is willing to actively support exchanges between governments, political parties, think tanks, youth and sub-national regions, create more favorable conditions for personnel exchanges and enhance mutual understanding and amity between the two peoples.

    Compatriots on both sides of the Taiwan Strait are Chinese, and the Chinese culture is deeply rooted in our veins. The strong unity of Chinese civilization has fundamentally determined the common belief of the Chinese nation that the homeland cannot be divided, the country cannot be destabilized, the ethnic groups cannot be separated, and the civilization cannot be disrupted. The deepest wish of the Chinese people on both sides of the Strait is to heal the scar of history and seek national reunification and rejuvenation. The so-called election in China's Taiwan region cannot change the basic pattern and the development of cross-Strait relations and the common desire of compatriots on both sides of the Taiwan Strait to draw closer, nor can it stop the general trend towards inevitable reunification.

    Distinguished guests and friends,

    As the Book of Changes, a Chinese work of divination and prophecy, states, the yang energy, which can be represented by dragon, rises as Spring approaches. Dragon is a totem and unique cultural symbol of the Chinese nation, which means strength, wisdom and good luck. In the New Year, we will persevere like a dragon diving into the deep while shore up confidence like soaring dragon and leaping tiger, forge ahead with determination for our dreams of a more prosperous and modernized motherland and contribute to the China-Australia, China-Queensland friendship.

    Thank you for your kind attention!