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E-mail Xinhua, January 21, 2025
BEIJING, Jan. 20 (Xinhua) -- "What has happened to the world and how should we respond?"
Chinese President Xi Jinping first posed this thought-provoking question in 2017. As political and business leaders convene in Davos for the 2025 World Economic Forum (WEF) Annual Meeting starting Jan. 20, the relevance of this question has only grown.
Since 2017, Xi has attended the WEF three times and delivered insightful speeches, offering valuable insights into global challenges and articulating a vision for global development and prosperity.
STRONG ADVOCATE FOR ECONOMIC GLOBALIZATION
Back in 2017, when Xi made the clarion call for economic globalization, the world witnessed a fresh surge of trade protectionism. And over the years, protectionism and economic nationalism have continued to cast a shadow over the struggling global economy.
Meanwhile, the world economy today is also plagued by sluggish growth, rising debt and persistent inflation. For the first time in two decades, the rate of extreme poverty is on the rise. In this context, a crucial question arises: Where should the global economy be heading?
Xi offered China's proposals in the 2017 WEF speech. He stressed the importance of developing a dynamic innovation-driven growth model, a model of open and win-win cooperation, a model of fair and equitable governance, and a balanced, equitable and inclusive development model.
In another speech at the 2022 WEF virtual session, Xi said: "Despite the countercurrents and dangerous shoals along the way, economic globalization has never and will not veer off course."
Over the years, China has consistently translated its proposals into meaningful actions. China-proposed initiatives such as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and the Global Development Initiative have provided fresh impetus to global growth, especially for the vast Global South.
So far, China has established high-quality BRI partnerships with over 150 countries, and backed more than 1,100 projects with about 20 billion U.S. dollars in development funding.
In Cambodia, for example, BRI flagship projects like the Phnom Penh-Sihanoukville Expressway and the Siem Reap Angkor International Airport carry strategic importance for the country, according to Seun Sam, a policy analyst at the Royal Academy of Cambodia.
The projects have helped Cambodia build essential infrastructure that has become the backbone of the Southeast Asian nation's economic growth, Sam added.
Over the years, China has been actively promoting global free trade. As of January this year, China has inked 23 free trade agreements with 30 countries or regions.
As the largest economy in the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), China has played a pivotal role in the agreement's success. Its commitment to trade liberalization and open markets has laid a strong foundation for the partnership.
According to a study conducted by the Asian Development Bank, the RCEP is expected to increase the member economies' income by 0.6 percent by 2030, adding 245 billion dollars annually to regional income and 2.8 million jobs to regional employment.
Moreover, by actively creating development opportunities for Global South nations, China is broadening the scope of economic globalization. In 2024, it joined the Global Alliance Against Hunger and Poverty. A series of new results have been achieved in implementing the six proposals and 10 partnership actions proposed at the 2024 Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation.
"All over the world, we see at the present a trend for global protectionism," said Bernard Dewit, chairman of the China-Belgium Chamber of Commerce. "China's message for keeping open economies should be much appreciated."
MULTILATERALISM MATTERS
As 2025 begins, a ceasefire deal in the Gaza Strip is good news for Baker Soboh, a Palestinian who lost his son during Israeli attacks. "My son was looking forward to the ceasefire and returning to our home in Gaza City even if it means to live on the rubble of our house," Soboh said with grief. "But he was killed."
Apart from the countless miseries in the Gaza Strip, the protracted Ukraine crisis and terrorism in Africa's Sahel region also continue to cast a shadow over the world.
According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Global Trends Report 2024, over 120 million people worldwide had been forcibly displaced by persecution, conflict, violence or human rights violations by May 2024.
"It is war, conflict and regional turbulence that have created this problem, and its solution lies in making peace, promoting reconciliation and restoring stability," Xi pointed out at the 2017 WEF speech.
On Jan. 25, 2021, at the World Economic Forum Virtual Event of the Davos Agenda, Xi called on the world to "let the torch of multilateralism light up humanity's way forward."
"The problems facing the world are intricate and complex. The way out of them is through upholding multilateralism and building a community with a shared future for mankind," he said.
China has actively contributed to global peace efforts through significant initiatives and actions. It played a key role in facilitating the UN Security Council's adoption of its first Gaza ceasefire resolution, delivered multiple batches of humanitarian aid to Gaza, and made notable progress in promoting intra-Palestinian reconciliation.
China and Brazil have jointly issued a "six-point consensus" addressing the Ukraine crisis. Alongside other Global South nations, they launched a "Friends of Peace" platform to help resolve the issue.
"Multilateralism is the only way to ensure a stable world, cooperation and sharing," Mladen Plese, former editor-in-chief of Croatian daily Jutarnji List, told Xinhua, noting that China's contribution to world peace is "immeasurable."
"China is increasingly becoming a key stabilizing force through its advocacy of multilateralism and openness," said Lyazid Benhami, vice president of the Paris Association of French-Chinese Friendship.
COMMUNITY WITH SHARED FUTURE
"There is only one Earth in the universe and we mankind have only one homeland," Xi said at the UN Office at Geneva in 2017.
As the world grapples with shared global challenges such as climate change, poverty and terrorism, it becomes increasingly apparent that the interests of all nations are intertwined. In a recent interview with Xinhua, World Economic Forum (WEF) President Borge Brende said that many risks and challenges facing the world are trans-border. "We are all in the same boat."
China shares this view and takes concrete actions to tackle global challenges. Take its fight against climate change. China has realized that humanity coexists with nature, which means that any harm to nature will eventually come back to haunt humanity.
Therefore, it has long been pursuing green transformation. China has published the "1+N" policy framework for implementing carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals, and put in place the biggest clean power generation system in the world. Official data reveals that the number of new energy vehicles in use in China has continued to increase at a fast pace, reaching 31.4 million by the end of 2024.
"We should make our world clean and beautiful by pursuing green and low-carbon development," Xi said in the 2017 speech at the UN Geneva office.
In fact, to address pressing global challenges, Xi has put forward the vision of building a community with a shared future for mankind, advocated high-quality Belt and Road cooperation, and proposed the Global Development Initiative, the Global Security Initiative and the Global Civilization Initiative.
In a recent interview with Xinhua, Grenadian Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell applauded the global initiatives proposed by China.
Each of these initiatives "demonstrates the fact that significant time and effort is put into addressing and looking at possible solutions and answers to the challenges that we all face at what are clearly difficult times," he said. Enditem
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