Xi's speech at G20 summit injects new, strong momentum into global solidarity, cooperation

BEIJING - Chinese President Xi Jinping's proposals on global COVID-19 campaign and economic recovery are of great significance and have demonstrated China's responsibility as a major country, foreign experts and scholars have said.

Speaking highly of Xi's speech via video link at the 16th Group of 20 (G20) Leaders' Summit on Saturday, they said Xi's remarks have injected new and strong momentum into global solidarity, cooperation and development.

Bertrand Badie, an international relations specialist at the Paris Institute of Political Studies, strongly agreed with Xi's proposal of working in solidarity to combat COVID-19, saying that to prevail over the pandemic, building a global immunity barrier is indispensable, which "requires the strengthening of multilateral institutes, in particular the World Health Organization," and "cannot be just an initiative of a single country."

Noting that China has played a positive role in promoting global economic recovery and multilateral trade development, Badie said "in order to face global crisis and threats, it is very much necessary to strengthen inclusive multilateralism."

The Global Vaccine Cooperation Action Initiative proposed by Xi is very important and timely, said Igor Shatrov, head of the expert council of Russia's Strategic Development Fund, noting that as the COVID-19 pandemic is still grim, coordinated efforts of the international community are needed.

B. R. Deepak, chairperson of the Center of Chinese and Southeast Asian Studies at the New Delhi-based Jawaharlal Nehru University, also lauded the Global Vaccine Cooperation Action Initiative, saying that the pandemic needs to be "combatted by all nations together by formulating a coordinated approach, sharing information, reposing faith in multilateral institutions."

According to Evandro Carvalho, a Brazilian professor at the Getulio Vargas Foundation, an economic think tank, the vaccine cooperation initiative proposed by Xi is of great importance as it will provide strong support for developing countries to get vaccines.

Volker Tschapke, honorary president of Germany's Prussian Society, said that China has provided vaccines to more than 100 countries and international organizations, including many developing countries, which shows China's practice of multilateralism.

Xi talked about green development in his speech and reiterated China's carbon peak and neutrality goals on the multilateral stage, setting an example for the world, he said.

"It is in everyone's interest to build a new model of society, (which is) no longer against living things, but in peaceful coexistence with nature and which the Chinese president has called 'ecological civilization,'" said Elisabeth Martens, a Belgian biologist.

"It is in the field of PPE (personal protective equipment) and vaccines where China has done an excellent job of helping other countries and other people to build the defenses to COVID," said Stephen Perry, chairman of Britain's 48 Group Club.

Praising Xi's vision of building a community with a shared future for mankind as a "sound philosophy," he said that addressing global challenges such as the pandemic, climate change and terrorism requires the attention and participation of every country as well as cooperation on a multilateral basis.