On May 29, 2006, Assistant Foreign Minister He Yafei met with the joint press delegation from African countries including South Africa, Ghana, the Republic of Congo and Tanzania. He welcomed the journalists' reporting trip to China and hoped that they will acquire a comprehensive understanding of China and play a positive role in ensuring the people of their respective countries to have a better understanding of China and pushing for further development of China-Africa friendly cooperative relations.

He made highly positive comments on China-Africa traditional friendship and the fruitful cooperation between both sides in all areas in recent years, indicating that this year is of great significance to China-Africa relations. At the beginning of this year, the Chinese government issued China's African Policy, putting forward the objectives and measures on China-Africa comprehensive cooperation under the new situation. President Hu Jintao paid a successful visit to three African countries in April and the Beijing summit of China-Africa Cooperation Forum will be held in the second half of this year. All these will further promote in-depth development of the China-Africa new-type strategic partnership.

He also took questions from the journalists on China-Africa relations, the Beijing summit of China-Africa Cooperation Forum, China-Japan relations, the relations between China and those countries with which it has not established diplomatic ties yet, the reform of the UN Security Council and the Taiwan question.

The joint press delegation from Africa has made this reporting trip to China at the invitation of the Information Department of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, and besides Beijing, they will also visit Guizhou and Shanghai.