China has been underscoring the key role of sci-tech innovation in its pursuit of high-quality development, according to the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025) for National Economic and Social Development and the Long-Range Objectives Through the Year 2035, which was adopted at the fifth plenary session of the 19th CPC Central Committee closed on Oct 29.

China is always willing to share its opportunities and achievements. By accelerating innovation, it aims to create a better platform for international sci-tech cooperation.

Nothing is more reassuring than the facts. Those who worry about China's future sci-tech innovation strategy can look at what China has done in the past five years.

According to the Ministry of Science and Technology, China has built cooperative relations in the sci-tech field with 161 countries and regions, signed 114 intergovernmental agreements and joined more than 200 international organizations and multilateral mechanisms.

China has also taken part in key international science programs and projects. It supports the development of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor and the Square Kilometer Array.

Within a sci-tech innovative action plan under the Belt and Road Initiative, the country has assisted more than 8,300 youth scientists from several countries to work in China, trained 180,000 people, launched the construction of 33 "Belt and Road" joint laboratories, built cooperative relations on sci-tech parks with eight countries, built five national-level technology transfer platforms and launched a Sino-African sci-tech innovation cooperation center.

An increasing number of Chinese scientists and researchers have contributed to solving major global issues. To help fight the COVID-19 pandemic, China shared its prevention and control experience with the international society by building an open scientific service platform, which has served 175 countries and regions and been downloaded more than 160 million times.

It has pledged to develop COVID-19 vaccines as a public good. It has also joined COVAX, an international initiative aimed at ensuring equitable global access to COVID-19 vaccines, becoming the largest economy so far to support the initiative.

China will further boost the development of basic research and high technologies in the future, which means deeper and wider cooperation opportunities.