Nation's participation in global governance contributes to peace

China's experiences in national governance, which have come from the process of building itself into the world's second-largest economy through peaceful development, will contribute to world peace and prosperity with the country's active participation in global governance, analysts said.

Interactions between the country's practices in national governance and its involvement in global governance will help it modernize its system and capacity for governing, which is a key item on the agenda of the ongoing Fourth Plenary Session of the 19th Communist Party of China Central Committee starting on Monday, they said.

Liu Hongsong, a professor at the School of International Relations and Public Affairs of Shanghai International Studies University, said in an article that advancing the building of a community with a shared future for mankind, an overarching goal for global governance proposed by President Xi Jinping, is a solution China has contributed to improving the global governance system based on its experiences in national governance.

Since the 18th CPC National Congress in November 2012, China has been endeavoring to actively participate in global governance as the international system is increasingly challenged by protectionism, isolationism and unilateralism.

Through multilateral platforms such as the Group of 20, the country has contributed its wisdom and solutions to many global issues, including reform of international financial institutions such as the International Monetary Fund, promoting trade liberalization and investment facilitation, implementing the United Nations' 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, investing in infrastructural connectivity and enhancing international cooperation on climate change.

The solutions are, to a large extent, backed up by its experience and the outcomes of national governance, and have good prospects for addressing similar global issues, Liu said, adding that that was the reason they won international acclaim.

The governance experiences and concepts that China has drawn from its economic construction and reform practices over decades provide good references and support for solving many problems the world is facing, Liu added.

Meeting needs in new era

Xi, who is also general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, is a firm advocate of improving the country's governance system and capacity to meet development needs in the new era.

He called for "modernization of the country's system and capacity for governance", a phrase he first used at the Third Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee in November 2013. It has been dubbed the country's "fifth modernization", following the comprehensive updating of agriculture, industry, national defense and science and technology. It also constitutes an exploration of national governance in the modern sense.

While stressing the importance of improving systems and capacity for national governance, Xi on many occasions also underlined the need for better capacity for global governance given the complex and profound changes in the international landscape.

While presiding over a group study session of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee on global governance in September 2016, Xi said that as the international balance of power has shifted and global challenges are increasing, global governance system reform has emerged as a "trend of the times".

China must work to make the international order more reasonable and just to protect the common interests of China and other developing countries, he told officials. "We must improve our ability to participate in global governance, and in particular, our ability to make rules, set agendas and carry out publicity and coordination", he said.

Xi used the group study session to lay out the principles for China to participate in global governance, said Chen Xiangyang, a researcher of international politics at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations.

China needs to pool its efforts to manage its own affairs well and also should actively participate in global governance and shoulder international responsibilities within the reach of its capabilities, Chen said, describing the discussion at the group study session.

The G20 Hangzhou Summit, held in the capital of Zhejiang province in 2016, presented China with an opportunity for the first time to comprehensively explain its philosophy on economic global governance.

Chen said that by leveraging the opportunity to set the agenda for the summit, the country introduced new initiatives and guided the summit to produce a series of pioneering, pacesetting and institutional outcomes. In that way, China's participation in global governance opened a new chapter.

The summit highlighted development issues in global macroeconomic policy coordination, unveiled a framework of global multilateral investment rules and introduced green finance to the G20 agenda.

Sharing vision

During his state visit to France in March, Xi proposed a vision of global governance featuring extensive consultation, joint contributions and shared benefits at a global governance forum and called for addressing the governance deficit using the principle that global affairs should be settled by the people of different countries through consultations.

Yang Jiechi, a member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and also director of the committee's Office of the Foreign Affairs Commission, said in a signed article in Qiushi, the flagship journal of the committee, that China has been guiding the direction of reforms of the global governance system through its participation in the process.

In recent years, China has intensified its concrete efforts to participate in global governance by initiating platforms for international cooperation such as the Belt and Road Initiative, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the Silk Road Fund.

Chi Fulin, president of China Institute for Reform and Development based in Haikou, Hainan province, said the country should expand high-level opening-up and further advance reforms to adapt to international rules so as to take the initiative in the process of global governance.

Chi also suggested that the BRI could play a bigger role in global governance while promoting connectivity and international cooperation in production capacity.

British scholar Martin Jacques, author of the book When China Rules the World and a senior fellow at Cambridge University, called the BRI an idea on the grandest of historical stages that could be carried out only by China. He spoke in a video interview on people.cn, the website of People's Daily.

"The present international order is fragmenting, losing its authority and legitimacy. But there is nothing to replace it. BRI has the potential to offer another kind of world, another set of values, another set of imperatives, another way of organizing, another set of institutions, another set of relationships," Jacques said.

"It offers an alternative to the existing international order. The present international order was designed by and still essentially privileges the rich world, which represents only 15 percent of the world's population. The BRI, on the other hand, is addressing at least two-thirds of the world's population. This is extraordinarily important for this moment in history," he added.

China's success story in poverty reduction also provides the world, especially developing countries, an effective way of governance in alleviating poverty and improving people's livelihoods through strong leadership and unified efforts. China's impoverished population in rural areas declined by around 753 million from 1978 to 2018, more than twice the entire population of the United States.

"China's progress in poverty reduction has global significance. China alone accounts for three-quarters of the reduction in global poverty from the 1980s to today," said Victoria Kwakwa, World Bank vice-president for East Asia and the Pacific, in a speech at the 2019 China Poverty Reduction International Forum in Beijing this month.