Chinese Premier Li Qiang held talks with visiting Prime Minister of the People's Republic of Bangladesh Tarique Rahman in Beijing on Thursday.
Noting that China and Bangladesh are traditional neighbors with close ties, Li said that President Xi Jinping is scheduled to meet Mr. Prime Minister Rahman to map out new plans for advancing bilateral relations.
He stressed China's firm support for Bangladesh in pursuing a development path suited to its national conditions and for the new Bangladeshi government in carrying out its administrative duties.
China stands ready to work with Bangladesh to uphold the policy of good neighborliness and friendship, consolidate strategic mutual trust, expand practical cooperation, thus promoting continuous new and greater development of bilateral relations, and delivering more benefits to the people of the two countries, he said. Li highlighted China's readiness to advance high-quality Belt and Road cooperation, steadily push forward the implementation of landmark projects in ports and water conservancy, and enhance cooperation in such sectors as trade, industrial and supply chains, and finance, thereby promoting common development and prosperity of the two countries.
China is willing to import more quality products from Bangladesh, support capable Chinese enterprises in investing there, and expand cooperation in emerging sectors such as new energy, digital economy and artificial intelligence, Li said, calling on the Bangladeshi side to continue to create a favorable environment for Chinese businesses.
The Chinese premier also called for enhanced cooperation in healthcare, education, youth and culture to improve people's sense of fulfillment.
As fellow developing countries, China is ready to closely coordinate and cooperate with Bangladesh in multilateral affairs, safeguard common interests, pursue greater strength through unity among developing countries, and make greater contributions to the shared development of the Global South, Li said. Rahman reaffirmed Bangladesh's commitment to the one-China principle and expressed the hope for closer high-level exchanges.
He said Bangladesh looks forward to deepening cooperation with China in economy, trade, and people-to-people exchanges under the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative.
Rahman underscored his country's firm support for the post-war international order based on the Cairo Declaration, the Potsdam Proclamation and the UN Charter, and voiced backing for the vision of a community with a shared future for humanity and China-proposed four major global initiatives.
He said Bangladesh is delighted to strengthen multilateral communication and cooperation with China to promote regional and global peace, stability and development.
After talks, Li and Rahman jointly witnessed the signing of multiple cooperation documents.
Prior to the talks, Li held a welcome ceremony for Rahman.
At the invitation of Li, Rahman is on an official visit to China from Wednesday to Friday.
Chinese premier holds talks with Bangladeshi PM
A small forestry town in southern Canada is edging toward oblivion as a decades-long tariff dispute with the United States drags on and the latest round of Trump tariffs deals a fresh blow to an already battered industry.
That latest blow has fallen on 100 Mile House, a district of roughly 2,000 people in south-central British Columbia (B.C.), where the sawmill shut permanently in December 2025 - the third in the region to close in recent years, costing 165 workers their jobs.
The closure came two months after the Trump administration added a 10 percent tariff on imported timber, citing national security concerns, on top of the countervailing duties the United States has imposed on Canadian softwood for years.
Maureen Pinkney, the mayor of 100 Mile House, said the shutdown has taken a toll on a small community where mill workers are an integral part.
"That's a real hard hit to very small communities where those people are an intricate part. And we had one mill worker leave and so did his wife who was a nurse. In the shortages of health care workers, that's a double hit which we really feel that," she said.
For workers in 100 Mile House, the mill closure brought steady work to an end.
"It's a direct hit against mill workers here for sure. And all of us went from one day working steady here, and to the next day, we're done," said Brundage, a forestry worker in 100 Mile House.
The softwood lumber dispute is among the longest-running and most costly trade conflicts between Canada and the United States.
It began in 1982, when Canadian softwood lumber exports accounted for more than a quarter of U.S. consumption. U.S. lumber producers argued that Canadian provincial governments gave forestry companies access to public timber at below-market prices, amounting to an unfair subsidy.
Canada has rejected that argument, saying its exporters benefit from efficient industry practices and resource management rather than government support.
Terry Kading, an associate professor of political studies at Thompson Rivers University, said the dispute reflects a recurring U.S. effort to protect domestic industries from Canadian competition.
"Once a sector in the United States, like the lumber industry, feels that Canada is doing something with its lumber, that's dumping or using different methods and things like that. The U.S. ended up defending its lumber industry in the States against Canada," Kading said.
That pattern has persisted for more than four decades, through five rounds of U.S. trade investigations, three bilateral agreements, none of which has delivered a lasting settlement.
The United States has imposed countervailing and anti-dumping duties on Canadian softwood lumber for nearly 20 years in total. The prolonged dispute has added to the pressure on British Columbia’s forestry industry.
According to the B.C. Forestry Council, more than 20 sawmills in the province have closed over the past three years, with tens of thousands of jobs lost.
The toll has drawn a response from Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, who in a video on Tuesday cast the softwood dispute as part of a wider pattern of U.S. trade pressure on Canada.
"Not the first time Americans have tried to use tariffs to break us," Carney said.
That pattern stretches back more than a century, to 1866, when the United States unilaterally cut trade ties with British North America, the predecessor of modern Canada.
Some Canadian scholars said the long history of trade disputes carries a lesson about trust in their southern neighbor.
"Canadians have certainly learned that they can trust the U.S. completely. Trust the U.S. to harm us or stab us in the back. So yes, we can trust that the U.S. to do that. I think that's a lesson for this generation of Canadians that we can't take the U.S. for granted. And we've gone from an era of implicit trust with the U.S. to needing to verify the trust," said Carlo Dade, the Director of International Policy and head of the New North America Initiative from the University of Calgary.
U.S. tariffs deepen toll of long-running Canada lumber dispute
