Chinese socialism offers a profound guideline as to how diverse countries might open the road to socialism. Speech to the Symposium on “The Communist Party of China and the Building of a Community with a Shared Future for Mankind”, hosted by the Chinese Embassy in London. 22 August 2023.
Your Excellency Ambassador Zheng Zeguang,
Dear Comrades,
First, on behalf of Friends of Socialist China, and the three of us attending today, allow me to thank you and the other comrades from the Chinese Embassy for your presentations and remarks, as well as for your invitation and kind hospitality, along with our best wishes to all friends of China here today.
Allow me also to take this opportunity to pay tribute to and remember our dear friend and comrade Isabel Crook, who passed away in Beijing on Sunday at the remarkable age of 107. Personally honoured by President Xi Jinping in September 2019 with China’s highest award for foreign citizens, Isabel devoted her life to China’s revolution and socialist construction, to the development of China’s foreign language teaching in particular, and to the cause of the international communist movement. We have lost a truly remarkable person.
Following as it does our recent visit to China at the invitation of the party International Department, today’s symposium is another step in deepening our understanding and appreciation of the great strides being made in Chinese socialism under the banner of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for the New Era and with Comrade Xi Jinping as the core of the Central Committee and the entire party.
Delivering the report to the 19th National Congress of the Party on October 18, 2017, Comrade Xi pointed out:
“China champions the development of a community with a shared future for humanity and has encouraged the evolution of the global governance system. With this we have seen a further rise in China’s international influence, ability to inspire, and power to shape; and China has made great new contributions to global peace and development.”
On October 16, 2022, delivering the report to the 20th Congress, he noted:
“We have taken a clear-cut stance against hegemonism and power politics in all their forms, and we have never wavered in our opposition to unilateralism, protectionism, and bullying of any kind. We have improved China’s overall diplomatic agenda and worked actively to build a global network of partnerships and foster a new type of international relations… All this has seen us win widespread international recognition. China’s international influence, appeal, and power to shape have risen markedly.”
The successive development of the Belt and Road Initiative, the Global Development Initiative, the Global Security Initiative, and the Global Civilization Initiative are the building blocks and manifestation of this approach. They embody and represent the building of the party as the world’s leading force for peace and progress, remaining true to its original aspiration, summing up both theory and practice, and forging ahead in the new era.
Indeed, there is one leader and one statesman in the contemporary world who is clearly advocating a comprehensive and holistic programme embodying such common human values as peace, development, fairness, justice, democracy, and freedom.
On March 15 this year, I, along with other comrades here, was privileged to participate in the online ‘CPC in Dialogue with World Political Parties High-level Meeting’ and to hear President Xi Jinping unveil the Global Civilization Initiative, the latest of his programmatic initiatives designed to realize a community of shared future for humanity.
As President Xi noted:
“All civilizations created by human society are splendid. They are where each country’s modernization drive draws its strength and where its unique features come from. They, transcending time and space, have jointly made important contributions to humanity’s modernization process. Chinese modernization, as a new form of human advancement, will draw upon the merits of other civilizations and make the garden of world civilizations more vibrant.”
Countries, the Chinese President explains, need to keep an open mind in appreciating the values of different civilizations and they should refrain from imposing their own values or models on others and from stoking ideological confrontation.
This represents a fundamentally different concept and approach from that practiced by the various colonial and now neocolonial powers for the last more than 500 years, up to and including the present. However, it fully accords with the sentiments and interests of the vast mass of developing countries and their peoples, who constitute the overwhelming majority of humanity, and who are the inheritors of great, ancient and time-honoured civilizations.
Moreover, it also accords with the objective interests of the great majority of the population in every country, including our own, whether developing or developed.
Such existential threats to humanity as impending climate catastrophe, zoonotic pandemics, and nuclear annihilation, along with numerous other challenges cannot be solved simply behind national barriers or with a ‘beggar my neighbour’, ‘winner takes all’ or ‘zero sum’ mentality. Nor can all peoples’ need for peace and development be realised in this way.
As Comrade Xi Jinping pointed out, from the 19th party congress onwards, socialism with Chinese characteristics offers a new option for those countries that wish to rapidly develop their economies while maintaining their independence. This is an important example of the contribution of Chinese wisdom and Chinese experience to the quest for sustainable solutions to the problems facing humanity and it offers a profound guideline as to how diverse countries might open the road to socialism.
Thank you for your attention.