Yearender: Xi's vision for a responsible country

FROM PHILOSOPHY TO REALITY

The Chinese president's signature foreign policy idea is not a pie in the sky, but a beacon for action. Over the past five years, he has undertaken a number of practical measures to make it a reality.

Among them is the flagship Belt and Road Initiative, which he proposed in 2013 with the aim of achieving policy, infrastructure, trade, financial and people-to-people connectivity along and beyond ancient Silk Road trade routes, thus building a new platform for international cooperation to create new drivers of growth.

At the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in May, Xi reiterated that China wants to join the world in building the Belt and Road into a road for peace, prosperity, opening-up and innovation.

Xi has also played a constructive role in improving global governance. Beijing has been pushing for a bigger say for the developing world in key global bodies and dedicated to building a new type of international relations featuring mutual respect, fairness, justice and win-win cooperation -- for all countries.

To maintain world peace, China has been a top contributor to UN peacekeeping missions and steadfastly championing peaceful settlement of hot-button issues worldwide.

David Shambaugh, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said, "China's dramatically increased role in global governance is very positive and one of the most noteworthy aspects of Xi Jinping's foreign policy."

When Xi addressed the Davos forum, the world hailed China as a "rock of stability" amid uncertainties. Now as China forges ahead in line with the ambitious blueprint drawn at the CPC national congress, expectations are running high for the country to make more contributions to world development.

Recent history has eloquently demonstrated that China will never shy away from its due international responsibilities, not to mention that it has set a goal of building an open, inclusive, clean and beautiful world that enjoys lasting peace, universal security and common prosperity.

And in Xi's eyes, being a major country during this new era does not equate to dominating others.

It "means shouldering greater responsibilities for regional and world peace and development," Xi said in his keynote speech at the Boao Forum for Asia Annual Conference 2015.