Category: Multipolarity

Wang Yi: Uphold World Peace and Promote Human Progress

We reproduce below this important keynote speech by State Councilor Wang Yi at the opening ceremony of the 9th World Peace Forum, Tsinghua University, 3 July 2021.

Distinguished Guests,
Friends,

It is a great pleasure to join you at Tsinghua University for the 9th World Peace Forum. This year marks the first decade of the forum. Over the past ten years, the forum has embraced the trend of the times and focused on the world’s most defining challenges. It has provided a source of wisdom for deeper understanding between China and the world and contributed its fair share to advancing world peace. Its global influence as a platform for exchange of ideas and insights is increasingly growing. At the outset, let me extend warm congratulations on the achievement of the forum and on the opening of its ninth edition.

Just two days ago, we held grand celebrations to mark the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China (CPC). In the important speech made on that occasion, General Secretary Xi Jinping gave a thorough account of the great accomplishments of the CPC leading the Chinese people through the past 100 years of struggle, and made a solemn declaration that China has realized the first centenary goal of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects, and is now marching in confident strides toward the second centenary goal of building a great modern socialist country in all respects. General Secretary Xi reviewed the course of history and envisioned the journey ahead, emphasizing that the CPC always keeps in mind the future of humanity and stands ready to work together with all progressive forces in the world on the way forward.

Throughout the past 100 years, the CPC has remained committed to peaceful development and worked tirelessly to uphold world peace and stability. The Chinese nation cherishes peace, amity and harmony, values that have been honored and carried forward throughout history. The CPC has written on its flag the faith in peace, development and win-win cooperation. From actively promoting an international united front against Fascism during the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression to adopting an independent foreign policy of peace after the founding of New China, and from putting forward the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence to accurately identifying peace and development as the theme of our times, the CPC has unremittingly pursued the path of peaceful development. It has remained committed never to seek hegemony, territorial expansion or spheres of influence, and has achieved development by upholding world peace and promoted world peace through its own development.

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Speech celebrating the 100th anniversary of the founding of the CPC

The following is the main body of a speech delivered by Friends of Socialist China Co-Editor Keith Bennett at a dinner held in West London on Sunday June 27 to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China.

The event was organised and hosted by Third World Solidarity and its Chair, Mushtaq Lasharie, a distinguished political and social activist in Pakistan and Britain. It was attended by a number of prominent members of the Pakistani community in Britain and veteran friends of China from various walks of life.

This coming Thursday, July 1st, marks the Communist Party of China’s centenary.

Whatever your opinions, this is an important occasion. This party has a membership of some 92 million people. Considerably greater than the entire population of the UK. It leads a country of 1.4 billion people. That country is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council and is the world’s second largest economy. By some measures it is already the largest economy. Whether it be international financial crisis, pandemic, climate change or regional hotspots, the management and solution of global problems cannot today be considered separate from the role of China.

To take this snapshot of where China is today is to reflect on the extraordinary journey this country has undergone since some 13 people, representing a little over 50 members, met in Shanghai, a city then under the effective control of foreign imperialists, in conditions of great secrecy and danger, to found the communist party.

With a history of some 5,000 years, China is the world’s longest, continuous and recorded civilisation. Its origins are roughly contemporaneous with the Indus Valley civilisation centred on today’s Sindh province in Pakistan. Many of the world’s great inventions, such as printing, the compass, gunpowder (which the Chinese used for fireworks not for military purposes) and countless others originated from China. If one looks at the last twenty centuries of human history, China was the largest economy in the world for about 17 of them. The other biggest economy was that of an obviously pre-partitioned India. Together these civilisations traded with their counterparts as far as Europe along the ancient silk routes that in considerable measure prefigure today’s Belt and Road Initiative.

However, history does not develop in a straight line but according to a process of uneven development.

Western powers, in time followed by Japan, embarked on a process of colonial expansion, dividing the wealth and riches of the world amongst themselves and fuelling their industrial revolutions.

China, in turn, under the rule of feudal dynasties, fell into a period of complacency, stagnation and decline. It was ripe for picking by greedy, rapacious imperialist powers.

Whilst never completely colonised China became a semi-colonial, semi-feudal country. Bits of territory were snatched away. Unequal treaties were imposed. Imperialist powers enjoyed extra territorial privileges in major cities and elsewhere. The mass of Chinese people endured unimaginable misery.

Perhaps most criminally of all, British capitalists, organised, for example in the East India Company, forced opium onto the Chinese market, leading to terrible problems of addiction for the Chinese and enormous profits for the British.

When a patriotic Chinese official, Lin Zezu, attempted to stamp out this trade in death the British response was war. In the name of ‘free trade’ of course. Two opium wars resulted in bitter defeats for China, not least the loss of Hong Kong. Those in the Conservative Party, and indeed the Labour Party, who continue to speak of Britain’s supposed ‘responsibilities’ towards the people of Hong Kong should do more to reflect on, and repent for, that shameful history.

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Why the CPC’s foreign policy is crucial not only for China but for humanity

We are pleased to republish this article by John Ross, Senior Fellow at Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, Renmin University of China, which originally appeared in English on Learning from China on 11 June 2021.

The 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China (CPC) comes as not only China but humanity faces a fundamental crossroads – as will be seen this is not a rhetorical exaggeration but a literal reality.  On the one hand, with the CPC’s leadership, China’s national rejuvenation has proceeded at an unprecedented pace. Taking simply the economic dimension of this, in 1949 China was almost the world’s poorest country – only two Asian and eight African countries had lower per capita GDPs than China.[i] By 2020 China had not only eliminated absolute poverty and achieved “moderate prosperity” by its own domestic criterion, but it was on the brink of becoming a “high-income economy” by international World Bank standard. For a major country to go in only just over 70 years, a single lifetime, from such poverty to a high-income economy is historically unparalleled.

But simultaneously various international forces are attempting to block China’s development – as seen graphically in the new “cold war” launched against China by powerful US circles. And the international context is that humanity today faces a series of great crises which will inevitably affect billions of people – and the worst of which are capable of eliminating a large part of humanity.

Neither China, nor any other individual country, can by themselves escape the consequences of this. Scientists estimate that well within a decade decisive action must be taken to deal with climate change or humanity faces uncontrollable risks which at a minimum would gravely affect the condition of life of billions of people and in the most extreme developments would gravely threaten human civilization. The threat of nuclear war, devastating human civilisation, still exists. In the shorter term, internationally the Covid19 pandemic is not under control and, in addition to its large-scale loss of life globally, this has produced the greatest international economic downturn since the Great Depression – the World Bank estimates this will push around 100 million people into poverty globally and hundreds of millions will suffer falls in incomes or loss of jobs.

Xi Jinping has repeatedly underlined the inevitable interrelation of China’s domestic situation with this international context in referring to: “this global village of ours, where countries’ interests and future are so interconnected.”[ii] Therefore, from the positive angle: “The Chinese people are well aware that China’s development has benefited from the international community.” [iii] The reverse equally applies – China would be unable to escape the consequences of serious adverse international developments. China’s interaction with the rest of the world, its foreign policy, is therefore of critical importance both globally and for China’s own progress.

In this situation China’s foreign policy shows the continuing development of the CPC. As will be analysed, the CPC’s concept of a community of “common destiny for humanity” is fundamental for dealing with the critical challenges of the coming period of international relations. That this foundation of China’s foreign policy is both based in Marxism, but is also a development of it, shows the dynamic and creativity of the CPC itself.

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Xi Jinping quote on multipolarity

The G7 is meeting with a shared vision of “market democracies” setting the rules of international relations. What this means in reality is the continuation of US-led imperialism. In contrast, China proposes a multipolar world where every country can choose its development path. This is explained by the following quote from Xi Jinping.

Keeping up with the times, one can not live in the 21st century while thinking the old fashion, lingering in the age of colonial expansion or with a zero-sum mentality of the Cold War.

In the face of the profoundly changed international landscape and the objective need for the world to rally closely together like passengers in the same boat, all countries should join hands in building a new type of international relations featuring cooperation and mutual benefit, and all peoples should work together to safeguard world peace and promote common development.

We stand for the sharing of dignity by all countries and peoples in the world. All countries, irrespective of size, strength and wealth, are equal. The right of the people to independently choose their development paths should be respected, interference in the internal affairs of other countries opposed and international fairness and justice maintained. Only the wearer of the shoes knows if they fit or not. Only the people can best tell if the development path they have chosen for their country suits or not.

We stand for the sharing of the fruits of development by all countries and peoples in the world. Every country, while pursuing its own development, should actively facilitate the common development of all countries. There can not be an enduring development in the world when some countries are getting richer and richer while others languishing in prolonged poverty and backwardness. Only when all countries achieve common development can there be better development in the world. Such practices as beggaring-thy-neighbor, shifting crisis on others and feathering one’s nest at the expense of others are both immoral and unsustainable.

Xi Jinping, Follow the Trend of the Times and Promote Peace and Development in the World, 2013