Beijing Review: Service For a Better World

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Apr 26, 2024, 04:24 ET

BEIJING, April 26, 2024 /PRNewswire/ --

"What do you want to be when you grow up?"

To serve not war and annihilation, but peace and reconciliation

"Us children in Palestine do not grow up."

This snippet comes from a conversation between a reporter and a child in the war-torn Palestinian enclave that is the Gaza Strip in 2023.

Even today, the agonies of war are very much alive, haunting countless innocents in their nightmares.

"To serve not war and annihilation, but peace and reconciliation." This is part of a quote by German-Swiss poet and Nobel Laureate Hermann Hesse (1877-1962).

On January 18, 2017, Chinese President Xi Jinping stated this in a keynote speech at the United Nations Office in Geneva, in which he called on the international community to build a world of lasting peace and common security.

Currently, regional security flashpoints flare up one after the other. Bloody conflicts erupt frequently. Unilateralism and protectionism are on the rise. Traditional and non-traditional security threats are deeply intertwined. According to a report by the Institute for Economics and Peace, an Australian think tank, in 2022, global armed conflict casualties had reached the highest level in nearly 30 years.

What is wrong with our world? And what can or must we do? In response to these pressing questions, on April 21, 2022, at the opening ceremony of the Boao Forum for Asia Annual Conference, President Xi first proposed the Global Security Initiative (GSI).

The GSI outlines how countries can achieve common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security. It offers Chinese expertise and solutions to address global security challenges.

Over the past two years, the GSI has already begun to show tangible results. In March 2023, Saudi Arabia and Iran agreed to resume diplomatic relations in a deal brokered by China. The agreement ended almost seven years of hostilities between the two longtime regional rivals. This historic rapprochement has also encouraged the Middle Eastern countries to address and resolve many regional conflicts.

In response to the Ukraine crisis, China in February 2023 issued a 12-point document, stressing China's objective and impartial stance on the issue and highlighting its commitment to facilitating dialogue and negotiation for resolving the crisis.

On the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, China has called for the implementation of the two-state solution and a larger, more authoritative and more influential peace conference. The two-state solution calls for the creation of a Palestinian state living in peace with Israel with East Jerusalem being its capital.

The country contributes more troops to United Nations peacekeeping missions than any other permanent member of the UN Security Council.

All these efforts demonstrate China's commitment to safeguarding global peace.

However, we still have a long way to go before humanity achieves lasting peace, and all countries should join hands in the pursuit of this common goal.

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SOURCE Beijing Review