On September 6,2004, Chinese Special Envoy on Middle East Wang Shijie received a joint interview by Chinese and Egyptian media at the Chinese Embassy in Egypt, briefing them on China's views on the current regional situations and his fourth trip to the Middle East.
Special Envoy Wang Shijie indicated that currently the Middle East situation is very much grim and all diplomatic efforts to promote the peace process have failed to score obvious results. The "Roadmap" peace plan was blocked and Israel has put forward a unilateral action plan of withdrawing from the Gaza Strip. China attaches importance to the Middle East issue, has long been committed to pushing for peace in the Middle East and advocates the settlement of relevant issues through peace talks based on related resolutions of the United Nations (UN) and the principle of "land for peace". China holds that Israel should not only leave the Gaza Strip, but also withdraw its troops from the West Bank of the Jordan River. Palestine and Israel should implement the "Roadmap" peace plan in order to resume direct talks.
After a briefing on the meeting with officials of the Egyptian Foreign Ministry and Secretary-General Amr Moussa of the League of Arab States (LAS), Special Envoy Wang noted that Egypt and the LAS hold great influence in international and regional affairs. In terms of the assessment of the situation and how to push for the peace process, China shares the same view with Egypt and the LAS. China would like to strengthen cooperation with Egypt and the LAS and continue working along with the international community within and without the UN in a bid to jointly promote development of the Middle East peace process.
Special Envoy Wang also took questions from journalists on the Middle East "Roadmap" peace plan, the unilateral action plan of Israel, the Iraqi situation and some other issues.
Journalists from more than ten media agencies of both China and abroad including Egyptian Al-Ahram, Arab News, Middle East News Agency as well as Chinese news agencies stationed to Egypt such as Xinhua News Agency, People's Daily, Guangming Daily, China Today and China Radio International participated in the joint interview.