GSI Towards World Peace

On April 21st, the Boao Forum for Asia nnual Conference 2022 was declared open. Chinese President Xi Jinping delivered a keynote speech titled Rising to Challenges and Building a Bright Future Through Cooperation via video link, in which he proposed the Global Security Initiative (GSI) for the first time. Amid great changes and a pandemic unseen in a century, the international situation undergoes profound and complicated evolution, regional security hot spots flare up one after another, and traditional security and non-traditional challenges interact, and especially with the Russia-Ukraine conflict intensified recently, the underlying effects continue to crop up, the issue of international security once more calls for high attention. The proposition of the GSI, beyond any doubt, makes clear the direction of advancement for maintaining world peace and tranquility, and shows the way for human society to a world of lasting peace and universal security.

Core Message of the GSI

The GSI is a complete system of logical rigor, rich in meaning, and its core message manifests in the six commitments put forward by President Xi.

First, it is necessary to stay committed to the vision of common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security, and work together to maintain world peace and security. The world today increasingly becomes a community with a shared future where everyone has a stake. In order to rise to the challenges to global security and achieve lasting world peace and tranquility, it is necessary to establish among all countries the new vision of common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security. This new security vision calls for respect and guarantee of the security of every country, maintaining security in both traditional and emerging domains, promoting security for all countries and for a given region through dialogue and cooperation, and at the same time giving parallel priorities to development and security with a view to achieving lasting security.

President Xi has made outstanding contributions to enriching and developing solutions to global security issues. During his first visit abroad after taking office in March 2013, President Xi expounded his views on world security issues, that in face of global challenges, we need to be united and through working together turn pressure into driving forces and crises into opportunities. “In the face of complex security threats, one country cannot act alone and it is even worse if it is obsessed with military options. The only right choice is to achieve collective and common security through cooperation.” In May 2014, the 4th Summit of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICA) was held in Shanghai, at which President Xi called for actively advocating an Asian security concept for common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security, and he subsequently expounded the view on several other international occasions. At a high-level meeting for extensive consultation and joint construction of a community with a shared future for mankind held in Geneva, January 2017, President Xi called for upholding the principle of joint construction and shared benefit in building a world of universal security. At the 20th Meeting of the Council of Heads of State of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in 2020, President Xi stressed that “we need to safeguard security and stability and build a community of security for us all”. China has put forward a systematic and complete new vision of international security, which is increasingly concurred universally and supported extensively in the international community.

Second, it is necessary to stay committed to respecting the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries, uphold non-interference in internal affairs, and respect the independent choices of development paths and social systems made by people in different countries. In the 1950s, China put forward the five principles including mutual respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, mutual non-aggression, non-interference in each other’s internal affairs, equality and mutual benefit, and peaceful coexistence, known as the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence. Through decades of diplomatic practice, the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence have become basic norms of international relations, playing an important role in promoting the establishment of a new equitable and reasonable international political and economic order. What determines the development path a country takes is its internal affairs, no other countries have the right to interfere or make indiscreet remarks or criticisms. Should any country be apt to outstretch its hand to other countries, wantonly interfere in their internal affairs and pull them onto its own track through coercion and subversion, then there would be no end of troubles between countries, and not to mention global lasting security.

China is both the original advocate and a faithful practitioner of the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence. Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC), President Xi has, in view of profound changes in the international situation and the future and destiny of mankind, put forward important concepts and initiatives such as building a community with a shared future for mankind, constructing a new type of international relations, joint construction of the Belt and Road, and putting it into practice to uphold justice and friendship and pursue shared interests, all of the above inheriting and carrying forward the gist and essence of the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, thus making outstanding contributions to promoting world peace and development.

Third, it is necessary to stay committed to abiding by the purposes and principles of the UN Charter, reject the Cold War mentality, oppose unilateralism, and say no to  group politics and bloc confrontation. The UN Charter prescribes “to maintain international peace and security” in its four purposes, and prescribes “sovereign equality” and “non-intervention in domestic affairs” in its seven principles. These purposes and principles stand for basic principles of contemporary international law and basic norms of international relations. However, some of the countries turn a blind eye to them and are vigorously engaged in unilateralism, hegemonism and power politics, advocating the so called rule-based international order, instigating faction confrontation, and frequently suppressing countries of different social system and values, to the detriment of institutional power of other countries, especially the host of developing countries, and to the detriment of the efficacy and authority of the United Nations.