LONDON, May 15 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Ambassador to the United Kingdom (UK) Zheng Zeguang has called for greater confidence and open-mindedness in advancing mutually beneficial, two-way science and technology cooperation between China and the UK.

Speaking at the 2025 Sino-UK Entrepreneur Forum in London on Wednesday, Zheng said both countries have a solid sci-tech foundation and enjoy unique strengths.

"We can very well learn from each other," Zheng said.

He noted that China is home to approximately 400,000 high-tech enterprises and ranks second globally in the number of unicorn companies. The country boasts the world's most comprehensive range of academic disciplines and the largest talent pool. Additionally, China leads in several key innovation metrics, including the number of top 100 global innovation clusters, full-time equivalent R&D personnel, high-impact research papers, and PCT international patent applications.

Highlighting the benefits of past collaboration, Zheng pointed out that 24.8 percent of China-UK co-authored academic papers in the last five years had a citation impact twice the global average. He also cited China's sharing of moon dust samples retrieved by the Chang'e-5 mission with seven institutions across six countries as an example of international cooperation.

However, Zheng warned that misconceptions about China and political interference continue to hinder further collaboration.

"Some in the UK continue to view China through an outdated lens. They hold on to their ideological biases, overstretch the concept of national security, and try to disrupt China-UK sci-tech exchanges," the ambassador said.

He acknowledged the broader challenges facing global scientific collaboration, including unilateralism, trade protectionism, and tariff conflicts.

"We must uphold true multilateralism and champion international sci-tech exchanges. We must firmly oppose decoupling, the severing of the global industrial and supply chains and 'small yard with high fence', and say no to any exclusive blocs or arrangements, bilateral or multilateral," he said. "This is what is needed for sci-tech innovation and governance and for the advancement of human civilization."

Zheng urged both countries to build on the momentum of recent high-level dialogues - including strategic, economic and financial, energy, health, and military discussions.

"I believe these dialogues will create a more favorable political and policy environment for exchanges and cooperation in AI and other areas," he said.■