At around 11 am on March 23, 2013, all eyes were on the podium at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations as the world attentively awaited an important speech that was to be delivered.
It was Xi Jinping’s first important speech during his first overseas trip after he was elected as the Chinese president. The speech was highly anticipated and drew worldwide attention.
“It is a world where countries are linked with and dependent on one another at a level never seen before. Mankind, by living in the global village in the same era and on the same Earth where history and reality meet, has increasingly emerged as a community of common destiny in which everyone has in himself a little bit of others,” he said.
This major concept of human beings having “a community with a shared future for mankind” proposed by Xi soon grabbed international headlines and was quickly spread to all parts of the world through extensive media reports.
In what seems like an instant, one decade has passed since the momentous speech, and the decade has been marked by numerous and significant changes.
As the world today is undergoing profound changes unseen in a century, the historical trend of peace, development, and win-win cooperation has gathered an unstoppable momentum. The prevailing trends of global multipolarity, economic globalization, and greater democracy in international relations are irreversible. Meanwhile, the world is being confronted with complex and intertwined traditional and nontraditional security challenges with damaging hegemonic acts, domination and bullying. There is a long and tortuous way to go for the global economic recovery. Countries around the world are deeply concerned and eager to find a lasting solution to mounting crises through cooperation.
The world has gained a more profound understanding that peace, development, cooperation, and mutual benefits make the world vibrant while bullying, division, conflict, and confrontation only lead nations into strife and chaos.
The world today is also full of uncertainty. Human beings must overcome the fog of hegemonism, the prevailing Cold War mentality, the employment of zero-sum game tactics, the notion of the inherent superiority of certain civilizations, and other forms of interference, and veer away from this turbulent course of history as soon as possible. The concept of “building a community with a shared future for mankind” proposed by Xi is the ideological beacon charting this course.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres once said the UN is willing to join China in promoting world peace and development, and in realizing the goal of building a community with a shared future for mankind.
A vision to future
Chinese President Xi Jinping put forward a major global concept in his speech at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations, calling for joint efforts to build a community with a shared future for mankind, on March 23, 2013. Photo: Xinhua
Truth can only be made clearer through the test of time. The great value of the concept of “building a community with a shared future for mankind” has been repeatedly validated over the last decade because of its insight into reality and a forward-looking vision for the future.
Only with insight can we see the times clearly.
Xi noted that we should expand our global vision and develop keen insights into human development and progress trends, respond to the general concerns of people from all countries, and play our part in resolving the common issues facing humankind.
Historically, the world has never been more connected than it is now, and human beings have never been more interdependent as they are today. If the Suez Canal is blocked, Europeans will run out of coffee to have with their breakfast; a severe rainstorm in Southeast Asia will increase the prices of computer hard drives in Latin America; thousands of parts for an airplane are manufactured by companies in dozens of countries; when an earthquake hits a country, news and pictures of the natural disaster can spread all over the world in a few minutes; and now the novel coronavirus disease has forced the entire world to fight together.
As we are all members of the global village and we belong to a community with a shared future for mankind, it is impossible to solve problems arising from such interconnectivity by severing links. All human beings must be seen as one in order to find the right way to deal with such problems.
A vision is the key to the future.
Xi has repeatedly used a “ship” as a metaphor to portray the future of mankind, when he virtually addressed the 2022 World Economic Forum, stating that “facts have shown, once again, that amid the raging torrents of a global crisis, countries are not riding separately in some 190 small boats, but are rather all in a giant ship on which our shared destiny hinges.”
In the last decade, the world has experienced dramatic changes and the road has been fraught with difficulties. Against this backdrop, the vision of “building a community with a shared future for mankind” is becoming more forward-looking when we consider how mankind has worked together to defeat the COVID-19 pandemic, when the UN Climate Change Conference achieves positive outcomes, and when the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) creates many “national landmarks,” “livelihood projects” and “monument of cooperation.”
As Stephen Perry, chairman of Britain’s 48 Group Club, said in 2020, “Coronavirus [disease] is a global crisis that no country is immune from. It has proved that building a community with a shared future for mankind is the only right choice to win the battle.”
History has proved once again that nearsightedness leads nowhere and selfish interests lead only to bad results. “Building a community with a shared future for mankind” is the only way to overcome the rapids in the treacherous waters of history.
World of great harmony
Local spectators celebrate the inauguration of the Mombasa-Nairobi Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) in Mombasa, Kenya, on May 31, 2017. Photo: VCG
Throughout the ages, people at home and abroad have shared their yearning for a better world. The idea of “a community with a shared future for mankind” continues to resonate because its approach emphasizes “commonality.”
Pursuing the concept of “Datong,” or “a world of great harmony,” is the main aim.
“We should jointly promote the building of a community with a shared future for mankind, and work together to build an open, inclusive, clean, and beautiful world that enjoys lasting peace, universal security, and common prosperity,” Xi said in relation to the vision of an ideal world. This is a clear blueprint for a community with a shared future for mankind, and a contemporary version of the ideal of “great harmony” for mankind.
Over the last decade, Xi has visited more than 70 countries on the five continents during his more than 40 overseas trips, hosted and attended a series of important multilateral diplomatic activities, proposed the BRI, the Global Development Initiative, the Global Security Initiative, and the Global Civilization Initiative, and promote a new type of international relations with win-win cooperation, all of which have enriched the vision of “a community with a shared future for mankind” and created specific ways to achieve the said vision.
This has offered China’s solution to the changing world, times, and history, and gained broad international consensus.
“It’s mankind’s common ideal to build a world in which there are no disputes, every country enjoys development, and every person lives happily,” Yasuo Fukuda, former Japanese prime minister, said at the Boao Forum for Asia (BFA) in April 2018. “To realize this ideal, political leaders in the world need to show great foresight, point out the development direction, and make their best efforts to turn the vision into a reality,” he said.
“China’s initiative to build a community with a shared future for mankind is based on such a vision and it is hoped that all countries will join hands to realize the goal,” he noted.
Facing together is an effective way to solve problems.
In China’s eyes, to truly pursue world peace, we need dialogue and consultation, and to truly benefit the global population, we should build a shared future.
As Xi said, prejudice, discrimination, hatred, and war can only cause disaster and suffering, while mutual respect, equality, peaceful development, and common prosperity represent the right path to be taken.
Over the last decade, the universal values of peace, development, fairness, justice, democracy, and freedom have gained increasing popularity. Building an open, inclusive, clean, and beautiful world that enjoys lasting peace, universal security, and common prosperity has become an increasingly common pursuit for more and more countries.
The international community clearly realizes that there is no such a thing as a superior state, nor a one-size-fits-all model of national governance, nor an international order dominated by a single country. A united world － not a divided one － that is peaceful and not volatile is what serves the common interests of mankind.
The initiative of building a global community with a shared future was initiated by China, but promoted by all.
The concept of “building a community with a shared future for mankind” proposed by Xi is extremely important, Pakistani President Arif Alvi said on March 15, 2023, adding that only by working together can countries around the world address the challenges they face, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change, and poverty.
China, under the leadership of Xi, has established a better image in the world and is leading the world in a good direction, Alvi said.
Beneficial global thoughts
An aerial view of the Chinese-built Peljesac Bridge in Croatia on July 26, 2022. Photo: VCG
The charm of thought often reflects one’s great personality. The idea of “building a community with a shared future for mankind” has gained increasing popularity among the people because it reflects Xi’s spirit as the leader of a major country and a world-class leader with the aim to benefit the world while deeply caring for its people.
This spirit offers great wisdom for the benefit of the world.
“All countries should rise above differences such as nationality, culture, and ideology, to build a community with a shared future for mankind and jointly build our shared planet,” Xi has said on numerous occasions internationally while extending a sincere invitation to the rest of the world. “All countries are welcome to board the train of China’s development,” “Our aim is to turn the Chinese market into a market for the world, a market shared by all, and a market accessible to all,” “Development is real only when all countries develop together,” he said.
The facts speak for themselves. The BRI has become a quality international public goods jointly built by all parties and shared by the world.
The China-Europe freight train line, so far, runs more than 65,000 trains, making it an “iron caravan” connecting Asia and Europe. The China-Laos railway can transform Laos from a landlocked country into a land-linked hub that connects the wider region. The Chinese-built Peljesac Bridge in Croatia fulfilled the Croatian people’s dream of connecting their northern and southern territories.
This sentiment also encapsulates the Chinese’s leader’s “people first” philosophy.
Even when China was poor, it tightened its belt to help its African brothers build this [Tazara Railway] railway, Xi said when he held talks with visiting Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan in Beijing on November 3, 2022. “Now that China is more developed, it is better placed to act on the principle of sincerity, real results, amity, and good faith, to help our African friends achieve common development, and to build a stronger China-Africa community with a shared future in the new era,” he noted.
From the Tazara Railway to Addis Ababa-Djibouti Railway, and Mombasa-Nairobi Standard Gauge Railway (SGR), from the China-Cambodia Friendship Poverty Alleviation Demonstration Village Project to the provision of 1,000 training quotas for poverty alleviation at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization to various countries, sincerity and real actions all bear witness to China’s initial sincerity in seeking development with the world.
“Most of the world has said this is really how we want to move forward… China and its development, and its willingness to share that development has created a new opportunity for the world,” said William Jones, Washington bureau chief of the US publication Executive Intelligence Review.
China’s success story of poverty alleviation has given “a different direction to history,” Jones said.
By relying on independence, putting people and their lives first, peaceful development, openness, inclusiveness, and solidarity, instead of war, colonialism, and plunder, the Chinese people have blazed a new path to modernization, which is different from the Western mode.
The Chinese path to modernization has inspired many other countries, especially developing ones, to figure out a new path to modernization. The Chinese people hope and believe that as more countries in the world embark on the path to modernization, the dream of a community with a shared future for mankind will come true eventually.
Right path serves common interests
Students learn to use Chinese calligraphy brushes during an event themed “Chinese Charm” at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations in Moscow, Russia, on March 3, 2023. Photo: Xinhua
The world belongs to people from all countries, and the future of the world must be in the hands of all people. Why has the concept of “building a community with a shared future for mankind” profoundly influenced the world? Because it encourages openness, goodwill, and innovation to achieve common goals.
This right path best serves the common interests of the vast majority of people in the world.
Xi stressed that to have a community with a shared future for mankind is not to replace one system or civilization with another. Instead, it is about countries with different social systems, ideologies, histories, cultures, and levels of development coming together for shared interests, shared rights, and shared responsibilities in global affairs, and creating the greatest synergy for building a better world.
In the last decade, the concept has brought joy along the Mombasa-Nairobi SGR thanks to faster and smoother travel instead of the cries of the refugee camp; it has brought about the opening of new factories in industrial parks around the world rather than enterprise collapse in the wake of Western-proposed “decoupling”; it has transformed certain land-locked countries into land-linked hubs, prevented some countries from being sadly made into “chess pieces.”
Martin Jacques, a senior fellow of politics and international studies at Cambridge University, said that China has carried out unprecedented work at home and abroad, and offered “a new possibility” to the world.
This right path encourages active participation.
In the last 10 years, the concept of “building a community with a shared future for mankind” has been written into the resolutions or declarations of the United Nations, BRICS, and other international organizations many times over: At the bilateral level, China has resonated with many countries in the face of complicated global issues; at the regional level, the building of several communities with a shared future has enjoyed steady promotion; at the global level, communities of global development, human security, human health, and human and natural life, communities with a shared future in cyberspace, a community with a shared future in nuclear security, and a community with a shared future in the ocean have emerged.
The Global Development Initiative proposed by Xi has received positive responses and support from more than 100 countries and international organizations, including the United Nations, and about 70 countries have joined the Group of Friends of the Global Development Initiative.
Recent Saudi Arabia-Iran talks in Beijing had achieved important outcomes, which are a testament to the successful practice of the Global Security Initiative, which has been praised and supported by more than 70 countries, and was unanimously welcomed by the international community.
Xi introduced the Global Civilization Initiative at the CPC in Dialogue with World Political Parties High-Level Meeting on March 15, 2023, which was warmly endorsed by the participants and resonated widely with the international community.
The BRI has transformed from a blueprint proposed one decade ago to a reality today, turning into effective development for countries and tangible benefits for countless people. So far, it has seen the participation of more than three-quarters of the world’s, attracting trillion dollars of investment, forming more than 3,000 cooperation projects, creating 420,000 jobs for countries along the BRI route, and lifting tens of millions of people out of poverty.
Chinese and Saudi staff members of Yanbu Aramco Sinopec Refining Company exchange views at the company’s factory in the western Saudi Arabian city of Yanbu, on November 27, 2022. Photo: Xinhua
It has been a decade since the concept of “building a community with a shared future for mankind” was proposed. The world has seen the power of ideas and heard the echoes of history – only when destiny is shared will the world have a brighter future.
People want to live comfortable lives, to have friends and wine in every place they go, to have a happier future for their children that’s better than they have today. No one wants to survive in uncertainty, poverty, and backwardness, to grow up in a land shrouded in hostility and intimidation.
“Building a community with a shared future for mankind is an exciting goal, and it requires efforts from generation after generation,” Xi addressed the United Nations Office in Geneva, Switzerland, on January 18, 2017.
How can we take responsibility for our children and give them a better future?
The world’s tomorrow depends on our decisions today. We believe that as long as we uphold goodwill and communicate sincerely, even the biggest conflicts can be resolved and even the thickest ice can be broken. We look forward to realizing harmonious coexistence and win-win cooperation among countries, passing on the flame of peace from generation to generation.
Chinese people are ready to cooperate with the people of the world, to always be on the right side of history and on the side of the progress of human civilization, and to walk hand in hand on the path to peace and development.
(Global Times)
