China’s concept of building a community with a shared future for mankind charts course for world

2021-07-09 10:31:08 | Author:Web editor: Hongyu, Liang Jun | Source:en.people.cn2021-07-07

What is happening in the world and how should we respond? Facing unprecedented challenges such as climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic, the whole world is asking itself this question.

Photo shows a section of the Beijing-Urumqi Expressway. The expressway linking Beijing and Urumqi, capital of northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, is over 2,700 km in length and facilitates exchanges along the Belt and Road. (Photo/Cai Zengle)

China’s proposition is to build a community with a shared future for mankind, a concept first put forward by Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2013, which charts the course for the development of the world and the future of humanity, according to Chen Xulong, a professor at the School of International Relations at the University of International Business and Economics.

China will not only strive to realize the Chinese Dream of national rejuvenation, but also work with the rest of the world to realize the dream of a world of enduring peace and common prosperity, Chen explained.

Chen’s view was echoed by Wang Wen, executive dean of the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies of Renmin University of China. While growing anti-globalization, extremist populism, and pessimism continue to run rampant around the world, the concept has become a beacon for the world and mankind, Wang told People’s Daily Overseas Edition.

Photo taken on June 5 shows the cargo ship WIDE INDIA docking at Dapukou dock of the Ningbo-Zhoushan port in Ningbo, east China’s Zhejiang province. The ship will be loaded with 1,502 TEUs and leave for countries along the Belt and Road, including Singapore and Nigeria. (People's Daily Online/Yao Feng)

“The concept transcends the boundaries of race, culture, state and ideology, providing a new perspective for thinking about the future of mankind,” Wang said.

Amid the raging COVID-19 pandemic, China also proposed the building of a global community of health for all and a community of life for man and nature, further enriching the concept of a community with a shared future for mankind.

China has also put the vision into practice through the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) proposed by the country in 2013, which has evolved into the world’s most popular public good and biggest cooperation platform.

Citing an expert, BBC said the concept of a “community with a shared future for mankind” is not a castle in the air, but is an idea that has been made highly practical through the support of specific programs such as the BRI.

For example, China has been accelerating the development of a “Silk Road of Health” since 2020. It has sent medical supplies to over 120 BRI partners to help them fight against the pandemic and provided more than 400 million doses of finished and bulk vaccines to over 90 countries, most of which are BRI partners. China has also started vaccine production in BRI participating countries.

A medical worker administers a dose of COVID-19 vaccine developed by China to a woman in Phnom Penh, Cambodia on June 1. (Photo/Xinhua)

Since the outbreak of the epidemic, China-Europe freight trains, dubbed a “steel camel fleet”, have undertaken the sacred mission of opening up a “cargo lifeline”, shipping a total of 94,000 tons of anti-epidemic supplies consisting of 11.99 million items to Europe.

China is working to help bring about a sustainable global economy through its open and inclusive development, as well as Belt and Road cooperation, Wang Wen said, adding that the country is the second largest economy and the biggest engine for global growth, which makes the building of a community with a shared future for mankind more feasible.

The concept has also been well received by the international community. It was incorporated into a UN resolution in February 2017 and was later written into important documents of the UN General Assembly, Security Council and Human Rights Council, as well as other international organizations.

Jacob Mardell, a scholar, pointed out in a commentary published in online news magazine The Diplomat that the concept of “community of common destiny”, through win-win cooperation, embodies a new type of international relations. The new model is being set up against the “old model” of international relations, which is associated with Western powers. Whereas the “community of common destiny” is premised on “win-win” relations, the old model is governed by “zero-sum” thinking.

A freight train leaves for Moscow, capital of Russia, from Wuyishan city in southeast China's Fujian province. (Photo/Yang Danping)

If there is a political dimension of the term “community of the same destiny”, that dimension is to try to find a new way to avoid confrontation, try to find a new way to avoid division in the international community that we all learned in the Cold War years, said Forbes on its website.

China has put forward the concept of a community of a shared future for mankind, which transcends the traditional boundaries of Western thought divided by country, race, history and religion and becomes a possibility for a new vision of future human development, BBC said, citing a Chinese expert on international issues.

In light of the global pandemic, the global community must take collective ownership of the grand vision, said Robert Lawrence Kuhn, a renowned U.S. expert on China, adding that the pandemic dramatically demonstrates the global critical significance of “shared future” thinking.

The vision urges the nations of the world to act for the common good of humanity, and it is vital for our turbulent times, Kuhn noted.

In the post-pandemic era, promoting the building of a community with a shared future for mankind is the remedy for the pandemic shock, Wang Wen said.