Community with a shared future a key focus of work related to foreign affairs

This aerial photo taken on Sept 10, 2023 shows a view of Zhangjiang area of the China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone in East China's Shanghai. [Photo/Xinhua]

This is an editorial from China Daily.

The Central Conference on Work Relating to Foreign Affairs that concluded in Beijing on Thursday demonstrates the great significance the top decision-makers attach to effectively managing external uncertainties and risks as the country pursues high-quality development.

To that end, as the conference stressed, the country should put Xi Jinping Thought on Diplomacy in practice in a more agile way to appropriately manage the opportunities and risks in China's relations with major players on the world stage, stabilize the country's neighborhood, and advance its pragmatic cooperation with the underdeveloped countries to promote the building of a community with a shared future for mankind.

It can be said that China has overcome tremendous difficulties on all the diplomatic fronts over the past year. In doing so, it has guaranteed a generally stable external development environment for the nation. Upholding the spirit of mutual respect, seeking common ground while reserving differences and seeking win-win cooperation, China has pursued friendly exchanges and cooperation with the rest of the world.

Thanks to that, there is an increasing convergence of interests with other countries and this is leading to the formation of a network of global partnerships featuring equality, openness and cooperation. These in turn can lay a solid foundation for the building of a community with a shared future that the country has envisioned and proposed.

In making remarkable contributions to the world's common development, peace and stability through the advancing of Belt and Road cooperation, actively upholding justice and fairness in international affairs, including peaceful settlement of the Ukraine-Russia and Israel-Palestine conflicts through negotiations, and by exercising considerable restraint and composure in the face of repeated provocations on issues related to its core interests, China is setting a good example of how to be a good member of such a community.

To advance the building of such a global community, China is also working with other countries to realize reform of the global governance system to make it more inclusive and impartial. To expedite this, China has put forward development, civilization and security initiatives, which reflect its global governance philosophy and advocate for a shared commitment to openness and inclusiveness instead of seclusion and exclusion, to international law instead of might makes right, to consultation and cooperation instead of conflict and confrontation, and to progressing with the community spirit of the times instead of stagnating with a zero-sum mentality.

These propositions chart a course for improvement of the global governance system to make it more fit for purpose in a rapidly changing world full of uncertainty. China's efforts to push forward the reform of the global governance system are not intended to reinvent the wheel. Rather, they aim to make it possible for all countries and peoples to coexist peacefully and mutually supportively.