Catherine McGuinness, City of London Policy chairwoman

With China’s presence on the global stage growing, naturally there is also mounting interest in news relating to the country. Therefore, I welcome the move by China Daily to launch an international edition newspaper which will go some way to helping people across the English-speaking world gain greater understanding of China, as well its economy and culture.

In particular I am pleased to see continued support by President Xi and the Chinese government to opening up. At the City of London Corporation we are very supportive of the financial reforms taking place in China, and I look forward to reading more about developments in this area over 2019. The comments by State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi are a welcome addition to this first edition of the paper, and show the Chinese government’s support for China’s leading English language newspaper.

China Daily is based in the Square Mile and is a good friend of the City of London Corporation. Let me wish you the best of luck in this new venture.

Peter Frankopan, author of the international best-seller The Silk Roads: A New History of the World and a professor of global history at Oxford University

Congratulations on the global issue of China Daily; sounds like a good idea!

I read FM Wang’s speech and would say: Foreign Minister Wang is quite right to say that the world is going through a series of profound changes. Change is troubling and unsettling, as it forces us to think and experience things with which we are unfamiliar. This is one reason for the uncertainty and confrontation we are seeing in so many places at the moment.

But change also produces opportunities for better understanding of each other. Mutual respect, and the ability not just to listen to and respect, but also learn from the views of others is more important than ever. Let us hope 2019 becomes a year of renewed co-operation. We do not need to look too far in history to see what happens when disagreement and suspicion are allowed to become normalized.