08
Dec
On November 30 through December 3, 2017, CPC in Dialogue with World Political Parties High-level Meeting was held in Beijing. Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the Communist Party of China and President of China, attended the opening ceremony in the Great Hall of the People and delivered a keynote speech titled “Working Together towards a Better World”. The meeting invited leaders of nearly 300 political parties and organizations from more than 120 countries all over the world. Themed “Working Together towards a Community with a Shared Future for Mankind and a Better World: Responsibilities of Political Parties”, the meeting had extensive and profound dialogues and exchanges in the form of plenary and breakout sessions. I, as one of the few representatives of Chinese scholars, had the honor to attend the meeting and made a comment at the fourth breakout session.
The High-level Meeting is the first multilateral diplomatic activity held in China after the recently concluded 19th CPC National Congress, the first time for the CPC to hold such a large-scale and high-level meeting in the history of external exchanges and the first meeting of its kind in the history of political parties worldwide. It is a pioneering undertaking in the history of CPC’s foreign relations, in the development history of political parties worldwide and even in the history of international relations. After listening carefully to and studying General Secretary Xi’s speech, I truly feel the global significance of the theme of the meeting—“Building a Community with a Shared Future for Mankind” in combination with my observation and experience at the meeting.
First of all, that the meeting was successfully convened and held fully shows the international community’s affirmation of the brilliant achievements made by the Chinese people under the leadership of CPC, and reflects that political parties in the international community have widely recognized and are willing to learn from China its development model and governance experience. It is known that despite the short time it took to prepare for the meeting, leaders and representatives of nearly 300 political parties in the world attended the meeting, including parties in power and those out of power, left-wing parties, and right-wing ones, as well as long-history large parties and those with a short history. Leaders of these political parties came not simply for just listening to the report to the 19th CPC National Congress, but for actively participating in dialogues at all levels. I was quite impressed by two facts. The one was they all wholeheartedly appreciated and affirmed the CPC for hosting the meeting and its significance in their speeches, with such affirmation beyond the expectation of Chinese scholars like me. In the group discussion I participated in, many foreign party leaders delivered a speech which took longer time than as scheduled. This is mainly because they highly praised the significance of the meeting, the importance of Xi’s speech at the opening ceremony and China’s development achievements at the beginning of their speeches. The other was these representatives were active in various sessions. In particular, at the “CPC and the World in the New Era” seminar held on the morning of December 2, so many foreign party representatives raised questions in the link of interaction that the seminar which was scheduled to end at 12:00 finally came to an end at 12:20, before a great many representatives had a chance to raise a question. Questions they raised were broad and specific, for example, the reform of state-owned enterprises inChina, legal protection for private economy, the role of think tanks in China’s decision-making, etc.
Secondly, the meeting represents a new model of inter-party exchanges for all political parties in the world. In the history of political parties worldwide, inter-party exchanges take place mainly in the bilateral mode, and multilateral exchanges and even multilateral party organizations do exist, but all among political parties of the same nature, such as the First International, the Second International and the Communist International in the history, the Com in form after the World War II, and the currently active Socialist International, which is an international party organization consisting of Socialist Party, Social Democratic Party, Labor Party and other political parties that champion democratic socialism. CPC in Dialogue with World Political Parties High-level Meeting, which informs breaks out of the past model of bilateral dialogue and differs from those institutionalized party organizations in the history, is a multilateral dialogue in the framework of China and the world, which is especially reflected in the four breakout sessions. In each breakout session, only a Chinese scholar spoke and commented while other seven speakers, all are party leaders or former dignitaries, not only elaborated their own opinions but also commented opinions of others in a warm atmosphere on the platform provided by the host. In content, political parties, despite differences in value and ideology, gathered together for rational discussions, which indeed represented the openness, inclusiveness, and confidence of the CPC. As Xi's speech at the opening ceremony goes, "As the largest party in the world, the CPC must behave in a way commensurate with this status". The way commensurate with this status, in my opinion, refers to the tolerance, courage, and broad-mindedness of the CPC, and its commitment to "rejuvenation of the Chinese nation and peace and development of mankind". Reviewing the past, China kept a low profile in both national diplomacy and inter-party exchanges for quite a long time after the collapse of the former Soviet Union and tremendous change to East Europe; today,China is more mature and confident in the diplomacy.
Thirdly, the success of the meeting indicates inter-party exchanges might show more unique advantages than interstate communications. Interstate interactions tend to be subject to sovereignty and interests, and the history of international rations contains too many conflicts based on sovereignty and interests. Despite interstate conflicts and cooperation nowadays, domestic factors must be considered at first for a country to make its foreign policies. There might be conflicts among different types of political parties in their exchanges, but these conflicts are mostly ideological and value-based. Inter-party exchanges are advantageous in that different political parties can reach a conceptual consensus, laying divergence of interests between two specific countries aside. With respect to how to reach a conceptual consensus, Xi suggested in his speech at the opening ceremony “developing a new model of party-to-party relations, in which political parties seek common grounds while shelving differences, respect and learn from one another, based on the new model of international relations”. As long as these principles of inter-party exchanges are observed and there are no ideological biases, there are grounds for dialogues and communications between political parties of different ideologies. Actually, I truly felt in this meeting that conceptual differences between political parties of different types and from different countries were not that great as we have imaged, to the extent that they expressed similar opinions on issues commonly concerned by the international community, such as conception of history, immigration, corruption, anti-terrorism, environmental protection, equity, responsibilities of political parties, conduct of politicians and the relationship between political parties and people, in their elaboration of respective party history, political status of the party at home, party programme and ideas. Leaders of some political parties also expressed some opinions some way from foreign policies and ideas of their governments. These are the advantages of inter-party exchanges.
Fourthly, the main reason why the meeting could attract so many party leaders is that the theme of the meeting, "Working Together towards a Community with a Shared Future for Mankind and a Better World: Responsibilities of Political Parties", is greatly inclusive and appealing, apart from that they are interested in China's development achievements and mode. Generally, a political party cares about domestic politics in its own country and how it can take power and stay in power. Xi said that "political parties play a key role in the political life of a country and is a major force promoting the progress of human civilization" and "people all over the world should uphold the idea ‘all under the heaven are of one family', embrace and understand each other, seek common ground while reserving differences and work together to build a community with a shared future". In this age of globalization when global problems are increasing day after day, any country or political party that remains isolated and closed and refuses to have any voice in, expressing any opinion on or seeking any solution to these problems will be abandoned by the history and its people. The best solution to these problems is to "build a community with a shared future for mankind", establish the global vision and the perspective of human concern and community. As indicated by Xi in his speech, "the old-school winner-takes-all mentality and beggar-thy-neighbor approach would not only block the doors of others but also barricade one's own path. They would erode a country’s own roots for growth, and impair the future of whole humanity”. In the several-day meeting, party leaders from different countries expressed their identification and resonance with Xi’s idea of “a community with a shared future for mankind” in public and private occasions. This is not because that the idea was proposed by the top leader of the CPC, but that in their opinion, the idea initiated by Xi presents a completely different logic of response to core problems in today’s world and is widely inclusive and highly practical. It is believed that following the meeting, the idea of a community with a shared future will have a greater global influence and more and more people, political parties and countries in the international community will focus on and study the issue. This also raises the voice of the CPC and the Chinese Government in the international community.
Fifthly, the meeting also indicates
that the path and development mode whereby the Chinese people promote the
modernization drive under the leadership of the CPC has been highly recognized.
The brilliant development achievements the Chinese people have made with the
CPC at the helm unconsciously push these party leaders, with problems and
dilemmas in the development of their own countries in mind, to focus on the
Chinese mode and show interest in the Chinese experience. Although Xi made it
clear that China would neither "import" foreign modes nor
"export" the Chinese mode and would not require other countries to
copy the Chinese approach, we can share CPC's experience in party construction
and governance. The meeting was held after the 19th CPC National Congress, for which the
main reason was to introduce and share the CPC's experience in governance with
the international community. Therefore, the issue of development became a core
concern of all political parties present at the meeting. In this meeting of
leaders of political parties of different ideologies, no one criticized the
ideology or idea of another or advocated traditional Western values such as
freedom, democracy, and equality; instead, they envisaged the development of
different countries and of mankind, the role of political parties in the
development and their responsibilities in building the community with a shared
future for mankind, indeed reflecting the identification of the international
community with the achievements the Chinese people have made in modernization
under the leadership of the CPC and the mode the Chinese have employed in the drive.
(The author is Director of Center for Research on World Economy and International Politics, National Academy of Development and Strategy, RUC and Associate Dean and professor of School of International Studies, RUC)
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