Indonesian President Joko Widodo meets Wang Yi

Indonesian President Joko Widodo met with visiting Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Jakarta on Thursday. Both sides pledging to strengthen cooperation and maintain regional stability.

Wang, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, is currently on a six-day visit to Indonesia, Cambodia and Papua New Guinea which started on Thursday.

During the meeting, Wang conveyed President Xi Jinping's cordial regards and best wishes to President Widodo, and congratulated Indonesia on smooth and successful holding of the general election.

Wang noted Widodo's 10 years in power, highlighting his focus on development, improving people's livelihood, and successfully tackling the COVID challenge.

President Widodo visited China eight times in 10 years and met with President Xi 12 times. They reached important consensus on enhancing the level of China-Indonesia relations, opened a new chapter in the rapid development of bilateral relations, promoted the Belt and Road cooperation to achieved fruitful results, and jointly led the bilateral relationship to enter a new stage of building a community with a shared future for mankind, Wang said.

He said that China highly appreciates the historic contribution President Widodo has made to the Chinese-Indonesian friendship, adding that China looks forward to working with the Indonesian side to advance bilateral ties to inherit the past and usher in the future for new development.

China is willing to carry forward the traditional friendship with Indonesia, consolidate political mutual trust, deepen strategic cooperation, so as to set an example of the shared future, solidarity and cooperation among major developing countries, Wang said.

China firmly supports Indonesia in pursuing a development path suited to its national conditions and realizing Golden Indonesia 2045 Vision, and is willing to march ahead together with Indonesia on the path of their modernization with respective features, Wang said.

China firmly supports the deepening of practical cooperation between the two countries, including the high-level operation of the Jakarta-Bandung high-speed railway and the progress of major flagship projects such as the "Regional Comprehensive Economic Corridor," and create new growth points of cooperation, Wang said.

China firmly supports Indonesia to play the role of a major country, Wang said, calling on the two countries to strengthen mutual coordination and cooperation, deepen China-ASEAN cooperation, maintain the correct direction of East Asian cooperation, resist all kinds of moves to provoke division and confrontation in the region, and promote the construction of a more just and reasonable global governance system.

Widodo said that China is an important cooperative partner of Indonesia and the comprehensive strategic partnership between the two countries has maintained a sound momentum.

Widodo said Indonesia attaches importance to its relations with China and hopes to strengthen bilateral cooperation in the fields of economy and trade, food security, energy and other areas and to promote more Indonesian high-quality products to enter the Chinese market.

Noting the successful opening and operation of the Jakarta-Bandung high-speed railway, Widodo said that he hopes China will continue to support Indonesia's high-speed railway construction, adding that more Chinese companies are welcomed to invest and do business in Indonesia.

The president said that China plays an important role in international and regional affairs. Indonesia is willing to work closely with China, adhere to the one-China policy, and jointly safeguard regional peace and stability.

The two sides also exchanged views on issues such as the situation in the Middle East.

Wang also met with Indonesian president-elect Prabowo Subianto and held talks with Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi on Thursday.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo meets Wang Yi

China’s first intelligent field plant phenotype precision identification platform went into operation recently in Sanya City, south China’s Hainan Province, which is a milestone in the country’s development of intelligent breeding.

The phenotype of a plant is a term used to describe observable characteristics of the plant, such as its appearance, and some inherent physiological characteristics, such as resistance to drought and diseases.

In an experimental field of the National Nanfan Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, a large piece of equipment is moving across the field. The equipment, called the field plant phenotype precision identification platform, can move according to the preset track and can be remotely controlled. While moving, the equipment can scan the plants with its six sensors, just like a CT machine for plants.

"The ultimate goal is to achieve high-throughput, large-scale, efficient and precise collection of germplasm resources, which can be four to five times higher than the efficiency of the traditional manual collection," said Jin Xiuliang, a researcher at the institute.

Although the equipment looks simple from the outside, it contains six high-precision image acquisition devices such as multi-spectral, thermal infrared, and chlorophyll fluorescence devices. Data can be collected at fixed times and points according to experimental needs, and the collection of a germplasm material can be completed within 30 seconds.

After the data collected through this platform is transmitted to the data analysis center, researchers can more quickly and accurately screen out germplasm resources with excellent traits, laying the foundation for subsequent crop breeding.

"The plant phenotype identification facility at the National Nanfan Research Institute is a milestone in the field of crop science in China. It can greatly enhance the independent innovation capabilities of germplasm innovation, gene mining, and variety breeding, and enhance the international competitiveness of China's seed industry," said Li Huihui, vice president of the institute.  

China makes major progress in smart crop breeding