After the successful conclusion of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC), China’s presidential diplomacy began to make a splendid appearance on the international stage, opening a new journey of mutual integration and achievement between the development of China and the world.
On November 18, the 29th APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting was held in Bangkok, Thailand. Chinese President Xi Jinping delivered a speech titled Shouldering Responsibility and Working Together in Solidarity to Build an Asia-Pacific Community with a Shared Future. He put forward four proposals for building an Asia-Pacific of peace and stability, common wealth, clean and beautiful and mutual help. These ideas have contributed ‘Chinese wisdom’ to building a Asia-Pacific community with a shared future and creating a new glory in Asia-Pacific cooperation.
For more than 30 years, the Asia-Pacific region has generally maintained peace and stability, regional cooperation has flourished, and economic strength has leaped rapidly. During this period, the Asia-Pacific region has withstood risks such as financial crisis, lifted more than one billion people out of poverty, and ridden on the wind of economic globalization to create the ‘Asia-Pacific miracle’ that attracted attention across the world.
On the other hand, the world has entered a new period of turmoil and change. Both geopolitical tensions and the evolving economic dynamics have exerted negative impact on the development environment and cooperation structure of the Asia-Pacific. At this time, China is taking practical actions to demonstrate its firm confidence in building and feed-backing the Asia-Pacific, and bringing more opportunities for Asia-Pacific with high-quality economic development.
The high level and relevant statement in President Xi’s speech is highly in line with the common expectations of the region and the international community. China’s successful experience in playing a constructive role in the Asia-Pacific region has injected strong confidence and momentum for world peace and stability, development and prosperity. It has also drawn a blueprint for the future of friendship and cooperation between China and other countries, including Afghanistan, and pointed the way for joint development.
China and Afghanistan should follow a path of peaceful development. The Asia-Pacific, once a ground of big power rivalry and a place fraught with international disputes, suffered so much from conflicts and wars. It is precisely because the Asia-Pacific was freed from the shadow of the Cold War and benefited from a peaceful and stable environment, that this region have been able to embark on a fast track toward modernization and create the ‘Asia-Pacific miracle’ of decades of rapid growth.
As an ancient Chinese sage observed, A review of the past may offer a clue to what will happen in the future. We should uphold international fairness and justice and build the China-Afghanistan relations of peace and stability. It is an important inspiration from the mutual respect, solidarity and cooperation among Asia-Pacific countries, as well as an important cornerstone for the future development of China-Afghanistan relations.
Similarly, Afghanistan has been suffering from war for the past 20 years. The reconstruction of nation, recovery of social economy and restoration of people’s lives are all in urgent. At present, the global security situation has become increasingly severe. Regional security hot spots have emerged one after another. Traditional and non-traditional security issues have complexly intertwined. The number of global instability and risk points have significantly increased.
Under the critical situation, China has always respected Afghanistan’s independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity, the independent choices made by the Afghan people, and the religious beliefs and ethnic customs. Meanwhile, China is willing to adhere to the common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security concept with Afghanistan, attach great importance to reasonable security concerns of each other, and cooperate to combat terrorist forces entrenched in Afghanistan and neighboring countries. China is also willing to work together with Afghanistan to participate in global governance, promote the international order to a more just and reasonable direction, and provide a strong guarantee for regional and world peace and stability.
China and Afghanistan should follow a path of openness and inclusiveness. President Xi Jinping pointed out that history has proven time and again that only openness, inclusiveness and win-win cooperation are the right way forward for humanity. However, since this year, as the Ukraine crisis continues and world economic growth slows, unilateralism, trade protectionism and anti-globalization have risen globally.
The abandonment of convergence with the world has not only led to expensive costs for many countries themselves, but has also had an obvious negative impact on the development of global integration. In front of the historical trend of global investment and trade liberalization, trade protectionism is a way to drink poison to quench thirst, rather than a viable way to nourish the economy and achieve development.
Afghanistan is now at a critical stage of restarting its economic engine. We believe that once start to catch up on the road to modernization and accelerate to follow up the surge of the world economy globalization, Afghanistan will be able to completely remove the haze of backwardness and poverty and find a unique development path that is most appropriate.
As President Xi Jinping emphasized at the APEC Meeting, ‘China is committed to putting in place new systems for a higher-standard open economy, and continue to share our development opportunities with the world.’ China has always pursued open regionalism, strengthened coordination on macroeconomic policies with Afghanistan and other neighboring countries, forged more closely linked regional supply and industrial chains, promoted trade and investment liberalization and facilitation, so as to achieve inter-regional linkage development.
China will stay committed to peace, development, cooperation, and delivering mutual benefit. China will continue to provide Afghanistan with advanced international public products such as the BRI Initiative and the Global Development Initiative, and will help the Afghan people truly achieve long-term peace and stable development.
China and Afghanistan should follow a path of solidarity. We two countries are living together in the big garden of Asia with common interests and security, and increasingly becoming a community of destiny with both honor and lose. We have experienced the hot and cold wars, vicissitudes and sorrows, and we know that peace is precious and development is hard-earned.
Over the past decades, Asia has generally maintained stability and sustained rapid economic growth. All of us have worked hand in hand and overcome difficulties and obstacles, stayed together as one big family. We have met challenges head-on in solidarity, defused various risks and navigated the surging tides of the global economy. Through cooperation, we have forged a sense of community, which has laid a solid foundation for steady progress.
Currently, Asian economies has entered a crucial stage of post-epidemic recovery. The economies in our region are confronted with disrupted supply chains, strained food and energy supply, growing inflationary pressure and other difficulties. At the same time, the rise of cold war mentality and hegemony poses a challenge to Asia’s openness and inclusiveness. History tells us that bloc confrontation cannot solve any problem and that bias will only lead to disaster.
At this juncture, China and Afghanistan should also strengthen cooperation, support each other, and help each other to promote the Asian economy at the forefront of the world economic recovery. We need to make sure that development is for the people and by the people, and that its fruits are shared among the people, and we should unite and overcome the difficulties together.
‘The wise are free from doubts, the benevolent from anxiety, and the brave from fear.’ China will stay committed to building a community with a shared future for mankind, promoting our friendship with Chinese ideas, advancing our cooperation with Chinese contributions, and gathering our consensus with Chinese wisdom. It is believed that with our joint efforts, the tree of China-Afghanistan community of shared future, which is peaceful, open and solid, will flourish even more in the future!
