China and Britain have agreed to strengthen their cooperation in key security areas, including justice dispensation, law enforcement, and legal affairs, during the first high-level security meeting attended by high-ranking officials in Beijing on Monday.

The dialogue was presided over by Wang Yongqing, secretary general of the Commission for Political and Legal Affairs of China's Communist Party, and Mark Lyall Grant, national security advisor to British Prime Minister David  Cameron.

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Officials from the two nations discussed several important terrorism-related issues during their dialogue, including cybercrime, the fight against terrorism, organized crime, illegal migration, human smuggling, border issues, and other security problems.

The dialogue is an offshoot of the October 2015 China-UK joint declaration to establish a 'strategic partnership for the 21st century.' The security dialogue is considered an important framework to facilitate collaboration between the two countries on security issues.

Communique

In a joint communique released after the talks, China and Britain vowed to strengthen their bilateral cooperation to fight terrorism as the international community faces serious challenges in its counter-terrorism efforts.

"In the face of ever more serious challenges for the international community in fighting terrorism, it is in both sides' interests to develop their bilateral cooperation in counterterrorism," the communique said.

The two countries have also agreed to expedite the establishment of cooperation mechanisms as well as employ effective measures to protect their citizens, economic trade, and security interests.

The communique also said the two parties will call on their respective lawmakers to pass laws that will effectively punish terrorists and seize whatever assets they have in banks.

Experiences

Wang and Grant exchanged ideas on dealing with terrorists, both international and homegrown, and agreed to do all things possible to thwart terrorism including cutting off their finances.

According to the communique, China and Britain are committed to putting a stop to cyber intellectual property theft, cyber terrorism, espionage, and confidential business information theft by not supporting or abetting these crimes.

"It is agreed that both parties will strengthen cooperation in the field of law enforcement in order to prevent and combat the use of the internet to incite, recruit, finance and plan terrorist activities," the communique added. 

TagsChina-Britain Security Dialogue, joint communique, terror issues, cybercrime, terrorism, Security Issues, china