China’s UN speech offers guidance and hope for a stable world

by Admin (Posted on September 27, 2022September 27, 2022)

By Allawi Ssemanda.

On Saturday 24^th, China’s State Councilor who doubles as Foreign Minister Wang Yi delivered speech to the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) at UN headquarters in New York.

In the 21 minutes address, Wang told world leaders that today, the world is faced with multiple challenges; “COVID-19 has kept resurfacing, global security faces uncertainty, global economic recovery is fragile and unsteady and various risks and crisis are emerging,” he stressed.  Wang went ahead explaining that “changes unseen a century, are accelerating.” This, he argued has seen “the world has entere a new phase of turbulence and change.”

Despite painting a grim picture of the current situation, Wang explained that the world continues to move toward multipolarity, deepening of economic globalization and interconnectedness and interdependence of countries and that increased people’s calls for progress and cooperation among countries getting louder, these are good signs of hope.

To address current challenges the world is facing, State Councilor Wang Yi explained that China is ready to take lead. He then advanced six key areas the world should focus on to ensure that together, the world builds a community with a shared future for mankind.

Stressing importance of peace for the future of international community, Wang emphasized the need to uphold peace and opposing wars. Quoting China’s president Xi Jinping, Wang Yi explained “turbulence and war can only open pandora’s box. And he who instigates a proxy war can easily get himself burned.” Further, he called for peace stressing that “pursuing one’s absolute security can only undermine global strategic stability. We must address differences by peaceful means and resolve disputes through dialogue and consultation.”

Compared with China’s Global Security Initiative which emphasizes common comprehensive cooperative and sustainable security, respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of others, abiding by the principles of UN charter, taking seriously security concerns of others among others, this idea will help in addressing global challenges that are security related.

Secondly, explaining that development is key for one’s wellbeing, Wang emphasized the need to support development efforts and end poverty globally. “Development holds the key to resolving difficult issues and delivering a happy life to our people,” noted Wang. He also stressed importance of working together. “We should place development at the centre of international agenda and forge a global development partnership and see that everyone in every country benefit from fruits of development in equitable way,” emphasized Wang.

If analysed, the above resonates well with China’s proposed global development initiative (GDI) which was introduced by president Xi in September 2021. GDI outlines China’s vision in context of global development efforts. It aims to support developing countries in poverty alleviation, public health, and other issues, while putting people at centre of development.

Thirdly, Wang called for an open world economy and inclusiveness while upholding, multilateral trading system like the World Trade Organization (WTO). Quoting president XI, Wang underscored importance of openness explaining that to achieve human prosperity and advancement, the world should oppose exclusion. “Protectionism can only boomerang and decoupling and supply‑chain disruptions will hurt everyone,” explained Wang.

Wang called for global cooperation and opposing confrontation. “Our best strategy is to stick together and the only way forward is through win-win cooperation,” Wang noted. While acknowledging that it’s understandable and natural countries to have misunderstandings, it should not be a reason for confrontation stressing that through dialogue, such can be addressed. He stressed the need to “increase mutual understanding on basis of equality and respect. We should engage in dialogue, consultation, and win-win cooperation and reject conflict, coercion and zero-sum game. We should jointly reject group politics and block confrontation.”

Closer analysis of this view advanced by Wang Yi is that with cooperation, dialogue, respect for one another, cold war mentality and countries rejecting group politics and block confrontation, challenges such as conflicts that threaten global security can be avoided.

Further, Wang Yi mentioned strengthening solidarity, and opposing division as another way world can confront global challenges. Using analogy of passengers on the same ship, he described countries world-over as passengers. “Countries around the world are like passengers on the same ship who share a common stake. All of us should pull together to navigate the ship through storm toward a bright future. Our world must embrace diverse cavillation in order to make continuous advances and mankind must pursue an inclusive path in order to achieve modernization,” stated Wang Yi. He emphasized that democracy and human rights should not be used as tools to achieve political ends.

Wang underscored the need for fairness, equity and oppose bulling which he stressed all go against UN charter. Wang emphasised that “mutual respect and equity of all countries, big and small is a primary principle of UN charter.” He stressed that all international issues should be handled by all and in equal and respectful manner stressing that no country should be tolerated to abuse its power to bully other sovereign countries.

Regarding Ukraine-Russia crisis, Wang Yi called for urgent peace talks to resolve the conflict and expressed China’s full support for all efforts conducive to its peaceful resolution and emphasized the need for all parties to keep the crisis from “spilling over” and protect the legitimate rights and interests of other developing countries. Wang observed that a few countries have arbitrarily imposed unilateral sanctions affecting other countries’ interests.

On Taiwan question, Wang Yi emphasized that Taiwan has been an “inseparable part of China’s territory since ancient times”, and stressed that its “One China” policy has become a basic norm of the international relations and a consensus of the international community. Wang emphasized that Beijing would continue to work for the peaceful reunification with sincerity, but warned that, to realize this goal, it will combat separatist activities with the firmest resolve and take the most forceful steps to oppose external interference.  “Any move to obstruct China’s reunification is bound to be crushed by the wheels of history,” noted Wang.

In conclusion, despite the world entering a “new phase of turbulence and change” as Wang observed, the six points Wang advanced can help as discussed above. This is largely due to the fact that much of today’s challenges are security related and Wang’s six points if analysed broadly, they tackle security concerns issues. Above all, the six points emphasise the need to respect and uphold to the principles of UN charter. Therefore, China’s address to world leaders during 77^th UNGA offers leadership and hope for sustainable global security.

Allawi Ssemanda is a senior research fellow at Development Watch Centre.

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