World sees shared future a new goal of economic development

BEIJING - With dignitaries flocking to the Swiss resort of Davos from every corner of the globe, the World Economic Forum (WEF) offers a once-a-year opportunity for the international community to debate on how to forge ahead with plans to revive global economy.

The theme of this year's economic jamboree - "Creating a Shared Future in a Fractured World" - echoes Chinese President Xi Jinping's vision of "Building a Community with a Shared Future for Mankind."

Scholars and political figures consider the vision as a guide for the world to pursue future economic development to achieve common prosperity.

A new guiding principle for world development

Michael Moller, director general of the UN Office at Geneva, said this year's WEF theme has "an organic" link to what Xi said.

"It was a new movement and new positioning of China that was extremely welcome at the time when the world was fragmented, when we had many problems of different kinds," he said.

"The rest of the world is coming to follow the president's words last year," he said. "We are seeing more and more renewed international solidarity."

According to British scholar Martin Jacques, a professor at University of Cambridge, China has provided a new possibility, that is, abandoning the law of the jungle, hegemonism and power politics and the zero-sum game and replacing them with win-win cooperation and co-construction and sharing. This is unprecedented pioneering work and a great creation to change the world.

Peter Thomson, president of the 71st session of the UN General Assembly, said building a community with a shared future for mankind "to me is the only future for humanity on this planet."

Vision of community with a shared future

Xi made a keynote speech entitled Jointly Shoulder Responsibility of Our Times, Promote Global Growth at WEF one year ago.

The speech pointed out that in the face of both opportunities and challenges of economic globalization, the right thing to do is to seize every opportunity, jointly meet challenges and chart the right course for economic globalization.

"We should commit ourselves to growing an open global economy to share opportunities and interests through opening-up and achieve win-win outcomes," Xi said.

One day after he made the WEF speech, Xi spoke to an audience at the UN Geneva Office, elaborating his ideas of building a community with a shared future for mankind.

"We should build an open and inclusive world through exchanges and mutual learning," Xi said. "We should make our world clean and beautiful by pursuing green and low-carbon development."

Moller said he had recommended that many people read these two speeches made by President Xi, according to People's Daily, the official newspaper of the Communist Party of China (CPC).

He said the messages contained in the two speeches have clearly presented the world the policy direction of the Chinese government, which means a huge step towards the common goals set by the world.

Actions to promote shared future for mankind

This year at WEF in Davos, Liu He, a senior Chinese official, elaborated the top-level planning of China's economic policy for the next few years.

Liu, a member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and director of the General Office of the Central Leading Group for Financial and Economic Affairs, pledged that China will open wider to the world.

In his speech, Liu stressed the necessity to shift the Chinese economy from a phase of rapid growth to one of high-quality development.

Such a transition, he said, is the context in which China formulates its macroeconomic, structural, reform and social policies in the coming years.

He said China will further integrate with international trade rules and ease market access. China will also substantially open up the services sector, the financial sector in particular, and create a more attractive investment environment.

Over the past year, China has also been working hard to turn the vision of building a community with a shared future for mankind into actions.

In May, 2017, China hosted the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation to expand the circle of friends for the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative.

Over 100 countries and international development organizations including the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund participated in the forum in Beijing.

The Leaders Roundtable of the forum produced a communique which strongly denounced protectionism, saying "we endeavor to promote a universal, rules-based, open, non-discriminatory and equitable multilateral trading system with WTO at its core."

In September, China hosted the ninth BRICS summit in the southeastern city of Xiamen, Fujian province. A declaration issued following the meetings of the five major emerging economies - Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, said: "We emphasize the importance of an open and inclusive world economy enabling all countries and peoples to share the benefits of globalization."

Moreover, the 19th CPC National Congress, held in Beijing in October, set building a community with a shared future for mankind and building a new type of international relations as an overall goal of China's diplomacy.

These endeavors initiated by China have once again demonstrated China's commitment to building an open economy, ensuring free and inclusive trade worldwide and sharing benefits with other countries.