BFA Bringing Certainty to the World

As one of the most influential forum summits in the world today, the Boao Forum for Asia has become a high-level dialogue platform for Asia and the world to build consensus, expand cooperation and seek common development. It has become an international public product that is widely welcomed by the political, business, and academic communities, attracting the attention of the global public in the context of the world’s great changes. Over the past 21 years, the Boao Forum for Asia has enhanced exchanges and cooperation among Asian countries and between Asian countries and other regions of the world, promoting Asian economic integration in which the forum has direct responsibility in helping to discuss design and for sure implement trade agreements, and injecting more new energy into economic globalization. As a representative participating the forum, I have a strong feeling about that.

The Forum Shows the Influence of Asia

Amid great changes unseen in a century and the pandemic, the forum plays a more prominent role. As shown in the main topic “The World in COVID-19 & Beyond: Working Together for Global Development and Shared Future”, the dialogue was centered on building a new vision of post-pandemic Asian development for the world. In the post-pandemic era, it is most urgent for all countries to accelerate economic recovery and growth and restore normal social order. Currently, most Asian countries are trying to find ways to rapidly get rid of the negative impact of the pandemic on their economies, especially the inflation increase, debt issues, and also the rise of unemployment and poverty. As a multilateral dialogue platform based in Asia and open to the world, the Boao Forum for Asia fully respects the sovereignty of all countries, fully listens to their opinions, and strives to prove to the world that Asia is the most dynamic and promising region in the world today.

At the same time, the Boao Forum for Asia also provides the world with Asian solutions for global economic governance. In the face of great uncertainty in the evolution of the international political and economic landscape, strengthening and improving the global governance system is more important and urgent than ever before. To a certain extent, the pandemic has widened the “governance deficit” in global governance, leading to a significant increase in international conflicts and strife of interests, and even zero-sum thinking and the Cold War decoupling system were once rampant. The foundation of trust and cooperation between countries was eroded to a large extent. The Boao Forum for Asia upholds the concept of a community with a shared future, discards the Cold War and zero-sum game mentality, and builds a platform for common development and mutually beneficial development. It has demonstrated the common will of Asian countries to respect differences, pursue commonality and work together for mutual benefit and build an Asian community with a shared future together.

Thanks to the strong and effective governing measures and appropriate relief policies, the Boao Forum for Asia shows the world a new vision of post-pandemic Asia’s development. The market generally expects that most Asian countries will return to their pre-pandemic output levels by the end of 2021. Through sincere exchanges and frank communication online and offline, many of Asia’s development problems are solved or are about to be solved. The “Boao Wisdom” surged on the forum, is not only in the fundamental interests of Asian people but also the common expectation of the international community.

In my view, as years go by the Forum will increase not only its regional importance but also its global relevance. This is a natural consequence of the Asia economic expansions. When the Forum started its operation, the Asia region represented 26% of the world GDP. Today it represents 47.4%, a huge increase in its economic participation. Also, China’s economy expanded. China was the 5th world economy at the beginning of the forum, and now it is the second largest economy in the world in terms of GDP (current prices).

China’s Initiative Offers New Thoughts

In recent years, the international society increasingly benefits from China’s initiatives on world issues. One of the biggest highlights of the annual conference is that Chinese President Xi Jinping put forward the Global Security Initiative for the first time, demonstrating China’s clear and firm attitude toward maintaining global security. Today, humanity has not yet emerged from the haze of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the crisis in Ukraine has followed. The world is facing new security risks. When traditional and non-traditional security issues are intertwined, the outlook of the global security situation is once again full of uncertainties. The Global Security Initiative “oppose[s] the pursuit of one’s own security at the cost of others’ security”, which distinctly opposes the expansion of military blocs to guarantee regional security. Through the Global Security Initiative, China clearly expresses its insistence and opposition - insisting on peaceful solutions through dialogue and consultation, not engaging in double standards, and opposing the abuse of unilateral sanctions and so-called long-arm jurisdiction.

In the face of intensifying geopolitical competition in the world and the increasing possibility of inter-state conflicts, China has proposed a Global Security Initiative to systematically elaborate solutions to world security issues. The concepts and principles advocated by China offer the possibility of solving related problems. The code of the success of the Asian Miracle in the past decades lies in regional cooperation. In the face of Cold War thinking and bloc politics that undermine Asian cooperation, Asia refuses to become a chessboard for big power games, and Asian countries are never pawns of big power confrontation. Asian countries need to build up the existing security cooperation mechanisms to jointly maintain peace and security.