On December 14, Minister Jing Quan attended Kansas-Henan direct containerized soybean inaugural shipment celebration and delivered remarks. A total of over 30 participants joined the event, including Vice Governor of Henan He Jinping, Lieutenant Governor of Kansas David Toland, US Consul General in Wuhan Melissa Lan and acting Consul General of China in Chicago Huang Liming.

In his remarks, Minister Jing spoke highly of the cooperation between Henan and Kansas. He said, as an impressive subnational economic and trade event, this celebration fully shows three basic features of China-US relations for the current stage: First, the essence of China-US relationship is win-win. China and the United States have broad common interests and space for cooperation. The two sides should continue to follow the right direction, strengthen pragmatic cooperation, and inject more positive energy to the development of bilateral relations. Second, China's opening-up and high-quality development will provide more and broader opportunities to the United States. China is fostering a new development paradigm with the domestic circulation as the mainstay and domestic and international circulations reinforcing each other, and promoting high-quality development. It will bring huge opportunities for our cooperation in agriculture, energy, manufacturing, financial services, and infrastructure construction. Third, subnational cooperation and people-to-people exchanges provide inexhaustible impetus to the development of bilateral relations. Up to now, the number of sister province/state and sister cities of the two countries has reached 283 pairs. Although we have differences in political system, history, and stage of development, we can overcome differences, deepen understanding, and make our cooperation bear more fruit as long as we follow the spirit of mutual respect, peaceful coexistence, and mutual benefit.

Participants of Henan and Kansas said, the 40-year friendship of Henan and Kansas has stood the test of time and gained new vitality. It has achieved positive results in economic and trade cooperation, and enjoys extensive space for cooperation in agriculture and education. This celebration is the best example of the pragmatic cooperation between Henan and Kansas. The two sides will take this event as an opportunity to further strengthen exchanges, enhance mutual understanding and mutual trust, and deliver more benefits to the people of both sides.