BEIJING -- Chinese President Xi Jinping met with South African Deputy President Paul Mashatile in Beijing on Monday.

Xi said this year marks the 25th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties between China and South Africa, with the bilateral relationship entering a "golden era."

During his fourth state visit to South Africa in August, President Xi and President Cyril Ramaphosa agreed that China and South Africa should be strategic partners with high-level mutual trust, development partners that progress together, friendly partners that enjoy mutual understanding, and global partners with a commitment to justice.

"China stands ready to work with South Africa to continuously enrich the China-South Africa comprehensive strategic partnership and take bilateral relations to a new level," Xi said.

Noting that China supports South Africa in exploring a modernization path suited to its own national conditions, Xi said China is willing to further consolidate the foundation of political mutual trust and upgrade the level of mutually beneficial cooperation with South Africa.

Xi also expressed China's willingness to work with South Africa and other African countries to implement China's three initiatives on supporting Africa's industrialization, agricultural modernization and talent development, as well as the eight major steps to support high-quality Belt and Road cooperation, create a number of high-standard, sustainable cooperation projects that benefit people's livelihood, work for a more strategic and sustainable China-Africa cooperation, and promote the building of a high-level China-Africa community with a shared future.

Xi called on the two sides to continue to cooperate closely within the BRICS mechanism, strengthen solidarity and cooperation among developing countries, and promote the development of the global governance system in a direction conducive to developing countries.

Mashatile said President Xi's successful state visit to South Africa in August further consolidated the traditional friendship between South Africa and China, and injected strong impetus into the future development of relations. President Ramaphosa awarded the highest honor to President Xi, which showed that the South African people highly affirm and appreciate President Xi's great contribution to promoting South Africa-China friendship.

The South African side hopes to strengthen the synergy between its own development strategy and China's Belt and Road Initiative, and continue to deepen pragmatic cooperation in various fields. South Africa highly appreciates China's contribution to safeguarding the interests of developing countries and promoting world peace, and hopes to continue to strengthen cooperation with China in multilateral mechanisms such as BRICS, Mashatile added.

Wang Yi attended the meeting.