5. Underlines the importance of encouraging China’s commitment to tackling climate change and other environmental issues by reinforcing an EU-China partnership in this field and emphasises the need to ensure that both EU and China adhere to their respective commitments under the Paris Agreement; stresses the importance of the EU implementing a carbon border adjustment mechanism; notes that over the past three decades China has tripled its carbon emissions and it is now emitting 27 % of the world’s greenhouse gases; stresses the need to ensure coherence between China’s announced global ambitions in the fight against climate change and the environmental impacts of its investment strategies at home and overseas; calls on the Chinese Government to refrain from exporting its coal capacity to third countries, notably in the framework of the BRI; 6. Calls for result-oriented Human Rights Dialogues to be held on an annual basis and evaluated regularly and calls for a solid benchmarking of the progress made in bilateral dialogues more generally to ensure that these exchanges produce genuine positive outcomes for human rights and human rights defenders in China; asks for the benchmarking results and any progress, stagnation or deterioration to be discussed in a transparent manner; requests that human rights be regularly raised at the highest political level, both at EU-China Summits and at Member State level; calls, furthermore, for a shadow human rights dialogue, involving EU and Member State diplomats, the Chinese diaspora, free and independent NGOs, academics and lawmakers, aimed at forging a better understanding of the Chinese system and devising better strategies to influence human rights progress in China; underlines that these Human Rights Dialogues need to include, but must not be limited to, the following issues: media freedom and freedom of the press, the rights of minorities, including in the regions of Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia and Tibet, and free access to these regions including for diplomats and journalists, the situation of Hong Kong, freedom of speech, labour rights, the right of assembly, freedom of religion or belief, and the state of the rule of law in China in general; welcomes the appointment of a new EU Special Envoy for the Promotion of Freedom of Religion or Belief Outside the Union, and calls for the new Special Envoy to be actively involved in supporting the plight of all religious groups and entities, including Muslims, Christians and Buddhists, facing persecution in mainland China and Hong Kong; calls for the relevant EU institutions to use these Human Rights Dialogues to bring up individual cases; remains deeply concerned about the continuing detention of Swedish citizen and publisher Gui Minhai; urges an intervention by the EU and the Member States at the highest level to secure the immediate and unconditional release of all political prisoners; expresses concern about systemic human rights violations in China and condemns all cases of arbitrary arrests and suppression of the free flow of information and freedom of expression; 7. Calls for the EU to engage in dialogue with China on possible ways to improve, in a transparent manner, initial response capabilities for infectious diseases that have the potential to develop into epidemics or pandemics, including recognition, risk-mapping and early warning systems to ensure better global preparedness to respond to pandemics; calls further on China to allow an independent and transparent investigation into the origins and spread of SARS-COV-2; 8. Supports the expansion of contacts between peoples on both sides as well as mutual student exchange visits, but encourages the Member States to better monitor the impact of Chinese Government interference in academic freedom;