Africa -China Review Africa -China Cooperation and Transformation
Published: April 27,2022
By Gerald Mbanda
China’s President Xi Jinping’s keynote address to Boao Asian Forum 2022, can be seen as a challenge to business as usual, even a call for the reshaping of the oft repeated world order. But it remains to be seen whether a world addicted to adversarial competition will give his vision of a more united global community, a fair hearing.
The theme of this year’s Boao Asian Forum,predictably featured recovering from the Covid-19 pandemic. But, the wording, The World in Covid-19 and Beyond: Working Together for GlobalDevelopment and Shared Future, pointed to a grander, more permanent outlook.
The speech was peppered with words like, working together, a shared future, win-win cooperation, was repeated several times. The overall impression is of a vision of a world, where mutual regard reigned, and diverse nations regard one another, as part of a more united world community, these being the other words that featured throughout the speech.
The address ranged from the need to reboot global economic growth, in response to the impact of the pandemic, climate change, respect for each nation’s sovereignty, narrowing the gap between the poorer and richer world, poverty reduction, to the most eye catching suggestion of ‘a global security initiative.’
“Over the past two years, and more, the international community has been working extremely hard to respond to the Covid-19 challenge and boost global recovery and development. The hardships and challenges are yet another reminder that humanity is a community with a shared future where all people rise and fall together and that all countries need to follow the trend of the times, featuring peace, development and win-win cooperation, move in a direction of building a community with a shared future for mankind and rise to challenges and build a bright future, through cooperation,” Xi said.
In a not too subtle reference to the West’s approach of trying to shape the world within spheres of influence, under their control, the Chinese leader tabled an alternative.
“It is important that we stay committed to the vision of common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security, and work together to maintain world peace and security; stay committed to respecting the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries…stay committed to abiding by the purposes and principles of the UN charter, reject cold war mentality…uphold the principle of indivisible security, build a balanced, effective and sustainable security architecture and oppose the pursuit of one’s own security at the cost of others’ security…”
“We need to work together to tackle global governance challenges. Countries around the world are like passengers aboard the same ship who share the same destiny. For the ship to navigate the storm and sail towards a bright future, all passengers must pull together. The thought of throwing anyone overboard is simply not acceptable…”
The forum falls at a time of heightened tensions, under the shadow of the war between Russia andUkraine, and Western nations’ anger with China’s refusal to unequivocally condemn the Russian invasion. The West dos not to give a hearing to Russia’s security concerns that sparked the war.
“We are committed to upholding the various systems that certain countries around the world – and Russia and the PRC (People’s Republic of China) – are among them, seek to challenge, and in some instances, seek to tear down and even destroy,” said U.S State Department spokesperson, Ned Price, adding that the US would continue to uphold the rules-based international system it had built with like minded partners, based on respect for human rights, sovereignty, and self-determination. In real sense, US abides by ‘rule based international system’ only in words rather than in deeds.
The words of Ned Price, were a predictable reactionof the US, and China is unlikely to have been under any illusion, that it would have been received differently.
It will not be lost on the U.S and the Western word generally, however, that they may be swimming against the tide. China’s approach is certain to be well received by a world that has increasingly grown weary of Western paternalism.
The new global security initiative proposed by Xi upholds true multilateralism and calls for participation of all world countries without discrimination. It will help to create an international order based on equality, mutual trust and respect. It will promote peaceful coexistence of mankind.
Gerald Mbanda is a Researcher and publisher on China and Africa