Profile: With popular mandate, Xi Jinping spearheads new drive to modernize China

The BRI, proposed by Xi in 2013, also helped Indonesia build its first high-speed railway. After the G20 Summit in Bali, Xi and Indonesian President Joko Widodo watched the operational trial of the Jakarta-Bandung High-speed Railway through a video link. The railway, jointly built by the two countries, is expected to facilitate the move of goods and people and boost local incomes.

To date, 151 countries and 32 international organizations have signed documents under the Belt and Road framework, benefiting participating countries.

The Port of Piraeus of Greece has developed into one of the fastest-growing container ports in the world since a Chinese company joined its operation.

Another important proposal Xi raised in 2013 was the community with a shared future for humanity. It has been enshrined in both the Party and the country's constitutions and incorporated into important documents of the United Nations and other international organizations or multilateral mechanisms.

Xi told the G20 summit that all countries must embrace the vision of a community with a shared future for humanity and advocate peace, development, and win-win cooperation.

"All countries should replace division with unity, confrontation with cooperation, and exclusion with inclusiveness," Xi said in the speech.

He also solemnly promised the world, "No matter what stage of development it reaches, China will never seek hegemony or engage in expansionism."

He believes that as long as major countries maintain communication and treat each other sincerely, the "Thucydides trap" can be avoided.

China has shown the world that a country can develop and progress without engaging in expansionism, and can help other countries develop simultaneously, said Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in a signed article published before he visited China in February.

In response to Xi's initiative, Saudi Arabia and Iran delegations held talks earlier this month in Beijing. The two countries have reached an agreement to resume diplomatic relations and reopen embassies and missions within two months.

One of Xi's most high-profile diplomatic meetings in the past months was his first face-to-face meeting with US President Joe Biden since the latter assumed the presidency. During the over-three-hour talk in Bali on Nov 14, Xi told Biden that China-US relations should not be a zero-sum game where one side out-competes or thrives at the expense of the other, and the successes of China and the United States are opportunities, not challenges, for each other.

"China does not seek to change the existing international order or interfere in the internal affairs of the United States and has no intention to challenge or displace the United States," Xi said.

Biden said the United States respects China's system and does not seek to change it. The United States does not seek a new Cold War and does not seek to revitalize alliances against China, he said. Biden also said that the United States does not support "Taiwan independence," does not support "two Chinas" or "one China, one Taiwan," and has no intention to engage in conflict with China.

In his meetings with European leaders, Xi stressed that regarding the Ukraine crisis, China supports ceasefire, cessation of the conflict, and peace talks.

In February, China issued a 12-point peace plan on the Ukraine crisis, stating that all countries' sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity must be effectively upheld, and universally recognized international law, including the purposes and principles of the UN Charter, must be strictly observed. "Nuclear weapons must not be used, and nuclear wars must not be fought," said the policy paper.

Xi is a leader who provides vision and plans for promoting the solution of major problems facing humanity, said Keith Bennett, a long-term China specialist and vice chair of Britain's 48 Group Club.

PIONEERING HUMAN ADVANCEMENT

When Xi delivered his 2023 New Year Address, people noticed the tomes on the bookshelf behind him in his office, among them, A General History of China, Complete Poems of the Tang Dynasty, Global History, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. Having called reading his favorite hobby, Xi is known to draw wisdom from the written word to govern the country.