Political parties across the world have convened in Beijing in the largest such meeting ever to mull inclusive development and welfare for all.
The unprecedented dialogue which opened Thursday and ends on Sunday is being attended by representatives from more than 300 political parties of some 120 countries.
Guo Yezhou, deputy head of the International Department of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, said the dialogue is being held in response to the parties' request for in-depth discussions on the 19th National Congress of the CPC and some of the main concepts discussed at the congress, such as Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, and building a community of shared future for all.
BETTER WORLD, SHARED FUTURE
The CPC is willing to work with other political parties around the world to promote the building of a community with a shared future for mankind and create a better world, said Chinese President Xi Jinping, who is also general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, while delivering a keynote speech on Friday at the opening ceremony of CPC in Dialogue with World Political Parties High-Level Meeting in Beijing.
Fu Ying, chairperson of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National People's Congress, China's legislature, explained the vision of a "community of shared future", a phrase that has acquired global currency today and has been incorporated into a United Nations Security Council resolution as well.
In an article, Fu said it is the culmination of President Xi's ideas on reforming and improving the existing international order. While voicing it, special consideration was given to developments in the 21st century and their impact on international relations.
"China appears to have a genuine case of wanting to make the world a better place," said Robert Gichimu Githinji, a member of parliament from Kenya. China's history of failure and success has given it the confidence to come up with ideas for making the world a better and more equitable place, Githinji said.
El Sun Oh, a senior fellow with the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, said the high-level dialogue was a platform for the CPC to share its successful ruling-party experience with other political parties, especially those from developing countries, in a more systematic manner and on a large scale.
"China stresses a lot on policy coordination to achieve regional development, and one way of doing so is to build up this sort of inter-party dialogue mechanism, so as to attain the ultimate goal of (a) common destiny for humanity," he added.
"I think this is a shared vision of a world in harmony," said Raphael Tuju, secretary general of Kenya's Jubilee Party, a world where important decisions are taken collectively so that no part of humanity feels left out.
"A world that listens to grievances that sections of humanity may have and finds a solution that offers equity and justice," he emphasized.
For Zarko Obradovic, vice president of the Socialist Party of Serbia, the message of "building a community of shared future for mankind" was that if we wanted to pay attention to the future and our common life, we have to also harmonize our plans.
The Belt and Road Initiative can play an important role in that, he added.
DEVELOPMENT INITIATIVE FOR ALL
Proposed by Xi in 2013, the initiative comprises the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road and aims to build a trade, investment and infrastructure network connecting Asia with Europe and Africa along and beyond the ancient Silk Road trade routes.
It is the first global initiative that absolutely fits into the concept of a community of shared future for mankind, as well as the first concept that has a developmental component relating to such a great number of countries, Obradovic said.
"It will bring huge benefit to mankind," he remarked.
For Jose Luis Robaina, a Cuban expert on Asia studies from the Research Center for International Politics in Havana, the Belt and Road Initiative creates possibilities for development in Latin America as well.
"China has a common destiny not only with Latin America, but with the whole Third World (sic), based on the Chinese concept of common destiny, which has to do with win-win cooperation, or real cooperation," he said.
El Sun Oh called the Belt and Road Initiative one of the many areas where the CPC can work together with political parties from other countries.
Many of the countries along the Belt and Road lag behind in infrastructure, while China has accumulated both capital, technologies and good practices, he said.
"The Belt and Road Initiative calls for better policy coordination. If the CPC can better communicate with the political parties, the initiative will be better advanced and better understood by local people. Thus a community of common destiny will be better achieved," he said.
(Xinhua reporters Yang Ke in Manila, Wang Lili in Singapore, Liu Tong in Kuala Lumpur and Jing Jing in Johannesburg also contributed to this story.)
