On July 4, 2013, State Councilor Yang Jiechi met with visiting Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird in Zhongnanhai, Beijing.

Yang Jiechi said that in recent years, China and Canada have enjoyed a good momentum of sound development for bilateral relations with the joint efforts of both sides. China highly values China-Canada relationship and is willing to work with Canada to enhance political mutual trust, to deepen mutually-beneficial and practical cooperation, to expand people-to-people exchanges and to push forward the bilateral relations to a new level so as to bring more benefits to the two peoples.

Baird said that the Canadian government takes the development of its relations with China as one of the priorities of its foreign policy. Canada hopes to work with China to continuously deepen and expand practical cooperation between the two countries and to push forward Canada-China relations for greater development.

The two sides as well exchanged views on international and regional issues of mutual interest.