Yearender: Seven decades after UN's birth, China acts up to its new vision for a better world

Starting this October, visitors to the famed Palais des Nations, home of the United Nations Office of Geneva (UNOG), could see a new landmark titled "Rebirth," a sculpture composed of 193 stones, with each one representing a UN member state.

"The 'Rebirth' literally and artistically sets the principles of the United Nations in stone, but leaves a solution open to all of us," UNOG Director General Michael Moller said upon the artwork's inauguration on Oct. 24, the UN's 70th founding anniversary.

Actually, roughly a month earlier, in a speech at UN headquarters in New York, Chinese President Xi Jinping presented to UN member states a fresh solution in that regard, envisioning a new type of international relations featuring win-win cooperation, renewing China's commitment to the purposes and principles set in the UN Charter.

As the world's first major country to set win-win cooperation at the core of its diplomatic posture, China is doing something unprecedented to live up to the United Nations' founding goals.

"Being a major country of the modern era without any tradition of colonialism, China is bound to play an increasingly important global role," said Ahmed Wali, chairman of the Egypt-China Friendship Association.

COOPERATION, NOT CONFRONTATION

Tasting fish and chips and a pint of Greene King IPA with British Prime Minister David Cameron in a pub in southeast England, Xi enjoyed a local specialty in his October visit to Britain.

The leaders of the two countries, dressed casually in suits but tieless, could be seen sipping their ales, with hunting guns seen hanging on the bare brick wall behind them, at The Plough, an establishment close to Chequers, the prime minister's country house retreat about 66 km northwest of London.

A month earlier, Xi and another Western leader -- U.S. President Barack Obama, also had a casual moment in Washington: the pair shed their ties and strolled out of the West Wing and across Pennsylvania Avenue to Blair House, U.S. presidents' official guest house.

Obama's national security aide Ben Rhodes called it an opportunity to "put aside the talking points and actually get a window into one another's world view."

Such unprecedented interaction between Chinese and Western leaders reflects Xi's idea of building a new type of international relations, in particular, a new model of the ties between China and world's other major nations based on cooperation instead of confrontation.

On China-U.S. ties, Xi called on the world's two largest economies to read each other's strategic intentions correctly and manage their differences properly and effectively. He also proposed that the two countries unswervingly boost win-win cooperation and extensively foster friendship between the two peoples.

Just as Harvard professor Joseph Nye said, with the right choices, conflict is not inevitable between the two leading global players.

Cybersecurity has been a longstanding thorny subject between China and the United States and a key factor that had held bilateral ties back from reaching their full potential.

But in a major breakthrough in this area, the two countries convened earlier this month in Washington their first ever ministerial dialogue on cybersecurity, as a follow-up to a bilateral anti-hacking agreement signed in September. A hotline will also be set up for the joint fight against cybercrimes.

The latest development fully indicates that Beijing and Washington are capable of turning their differences into cooperation.

"Confrontation and military alliance are hallmarks of the Cold War, and China's vision of new-type international relations calls for the opposite," said Wu Xinbo, director of the Center for American Studies at Fudan University.

PARTNERSHIP, NOT ALLIANCE

While expounding the vision of the new type of international relations at the annual UN General Assembly high-level debate in September, Xi suggested that the international community build partnerships, in which countries treat each other as equals, engage in mutual consultations and show mutual understanding.

"We should forge a global partnership at both international and regional levels, and embrace a new approach to state-to-state relations, one that features dialogue rather than confrontation and seeks partnership rather than alliance," he said.

"'Paternshp' is one of the most frequently used words in Chinese diplomatic glossary since the mid-1990s. The ideal and practice of the concept proves that China is an advocator and propeller for world peace, development and cooperation," said Sun Jinxin, a researcher with China Foreign Languages Publishing Administration.

According to Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, China has established various forms of partnerships with more than 70 countries and five regional organizations.

In 2015, the China-Russia comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination is moving forward and developing in depth as the cooperation between the two countries in various areas such as trade, investment, agriculture, infrastructure construction, people-to-people exchanges and local-level ties, has been further enhanced.

However, as Fu Ying, chairperson of the Foreign Affairs Committee of China's 12th National People's Congress, said, China has no interest in a formal alliance with Russia, nor in forming an anti-U.S. or anti-Western bloc of any kind.

"Beijing hopes that China and Russia can maintain their relationship in a way that will provide a safe environment for the two big neighbors to achieve their development goals and to support each other through mutually beneficial cooperation, offering a model for how major countries can manage their differences and cooperate in ways that strengthen the international system," she said.

Addressing the opening ceremony of a summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation earlier this month in South Africa, Xi proposed that the two sides lift their ties to a comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership and join hands to usher in a new era of win-win-cooperation and common development.

In order to turn the proposal into results, the Chinese president announced 10 major plans to boost bilateral cooperation.

Hailing the plans, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari said China is a strategic and dependable partner in his administration's determination to change the direction and content of governance in the country.

Su Ge, president of the China Institute of International Studies, said that forming partnership instead of alliance is China's main attitude while forging the new type of international relations. Like-minded countries could be partners, so could the nations at odds with each other, as they will definitely find common interests, he added.

GROW TOGETHER, NOT ALONE

Xi's proposal of constructing a "community of common destiny for mankind" demonstrates China's aspiration to help create a world beneficial to all, and it in particular calls on the more developed economies to be more conscious of their responsibilities and be more attentive to the needs of the less developed countries, said Peter J. Li, an expert on international relations at the University of Houston.

Adhering to that belief, China's economic diplomacy in 2015 focused on advancing the Belt and Road initiative and promoting the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB).

In a written interview with the Wall Street Journal in September, Xi said the AIIB is established mainly as a response to the need of Asian countries for infrastructure development and their aspirations for further cooperation.

With the introduction of the Belt and Road initiative and the AIIB, China provides countries along the silk routes with opportunities to improve their connectivity, thus opening broad markets for Asian and European countries, said Benito Lim, political science professor of Ateneo de Manila University in the Philippines.

Meanwhile, China, the world's largest developing country, has earnestly fulfilled its policy commitments to South-South cooperation regarding climate change to support fellow developing countries.

Noting that South-South cooperation is set to play a bigger role in promoting the collective rise of developing countries and generating robust, sustained, balanced and inclusive growth of the world economy, Xi raised a four-point proposal for expanding South-South cooperation in the new era during the High-Level Roundtable on South-South Cooperation co-hosted by China and the Untied Nations in late September.

"In China's view, South-South cooperation creates a win-win situation because you are helping yourself when helping others, and by helping solve the world's problem China will also solve the problem of its own," said Pang Zhongyin, a professor of International Relations at Renmin University of China.

Phyllis Johnson, founding director of Southern African Research and Documentation Center in Zimbabwe, called China's proposal for common development "a holistic development strategy for the improvement of the socio-economic situation of developing countries and to facilitate South-South cooperation, but also for peace and security."

For example, she said the Belt and Road initiative is rooted in the belief that poverty fuels conflict, while development can sustain peace. Endi