Combining the Great Strength of the Global South To Build Together a Community with a Shared Future for Mankind

Remarks by H.E. Xi Jinping

President of the People’s Republic of China

At the “BRICS Plus” Dialogue

Kazan, October 24, 2024

Your Excellency President Vladimir Putin,

Colleagues,

I would like to thank President Putin and the Russian government for putting together this “BRICS Plus” Dialogue, and warmly welcome all the leaders joining us today. It is a great pleasure to see old and new friends in Kazan.

The collective rise of the Global South is a distinctive feature of the great transformation across the world. Global South countries marching together toward modernization is monumental in world history and unprecedented in human civilization. At the same time, peace and development still faces severe challenges, and the road to prosperity for the Global South will not be straight. Standing at the forefront of the Global South, we should use our collective wisdom and strength, and stand up to our responsibility for building a community with a shared future for mankind.

—We should uphold peace and strive for common security. We should come forward together to form a stabilizing force for peace. We should strengthen global security governance, and explore solutions to address both symptoms and roots of hotspot issues. Many parties have warmly responded to my Global Security Initiative. Under the Initiative, we have made prominent progress in maintaining regional stability and in many other areas. China and Brazil jointly issued the six-point consensus, and launched the group of Friends for Peace on the Ukraine crisis together with other Global South countries. We should promote early deescalation to pave the way for political settlement. Last July, Palestinian factions reconciled with each other in Beijing, marking a key step toward peace in the Middle East. We should continue to promote comprehensive ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and revive the two-State solution. We must stop the flames of war from spreading in Lebanon and end the miserable sufferings in Palestine and Lebanon.

—We should reinvigorate development and strive for common prosperity. The Global South emerges for development and prospers through development. We should make ourselves the main driving force for common development. We should play an active and leading role in the global economic governance reform, and make development the core of international economic and trade agenda. Since its introduction three years ago, the Global Development Initiative has helped make available nearly US$20 billion of development fund and launch more than 1,100 projects. And recently the Global Alliance on Artificial Intelligence for Industry and Manufacturing Center of Excellence has been established in Shanghai. China will also build a World Smart Customs Community Portal and a BRICS Customs Center of Excellence. We welcome active participation by all countries.

—We should promote together development of all civilizations and strive for harmony among them. Diversity of civilization is the innate quality of the world. We should be advocates for exchanges among civilizations. We should enhance communication and dialogue, and support each other in taking the path to modernization suited to our respective national conditions. The Global Civilization Initiative I proposed is exactly for the purpose of building a garden of world civilizations in which we can share and admire the beauty of each civilization. China will coordinate with others to form a Global South Think Tanks Alliance to promote people-to-people exchanges and experience-sharing in governance.

Colleagues,

The Third Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China made systemic plans for further deepening reform comprehensively to advance Chinese modernization. This will provide more opportunities for the world. Last month, we held in Beijing a successful summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation and announced ten partnership actions for China and Africa to jointly advance modernization. This will instill new energy for the Global South on its way toward modernization.

No matter how the international landscape evolves, we in China will always keep the Global South in our heart, and maintain our roots in the Global South. We support more Global South countries in joining the cause of BRICS as full members, partner countries or in the “BRICS Plus” format so that we can combine the great strength of the Global South to build together a community with a shared future for mankind.

Thank you!