On July 21, 2008, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao met with visiting Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Ziguangge, Zhongnanhai.

Wen said China and Russia have reached new heights in political mutual trust, pragmatic cooperation and strategic cooperation. Wen said he hoped that the two nations would step up the fulfillment of all consensuses and agreements and make new progress in such areas as economy, trade, energy, infrastructure construction and humanities exchanges so as to enrich China-Russia strategic cooperative partnership.

Lavrov said Russia and China have witnessed the deepening of bilateral strategic cooperative partnership, in which high-level visits play an important role. Lavrov said he hoped that the two nations would work together to promote the bilateral energy negotiation mechanism and successfully host such cultural programs as the 2009 Russian language year in China and 2010 Chinese language year in Russia. Russia would try to reach a consensus with China within this year on the "2009-2012 plan for implementing the Russia-China Good-Neighborly Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation" and strengthen cooperation with China in disaster relief, Lavrov said.