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Xi Jinping at UN: China Will Never “Invade or Bully Others”

  • Xi Jinping at the UN General Assembly:

    Xi Jinping at the UN General Assembly: "We need to advocate peace, development, equity, justice, democracy and freedom, which are the common values of humanity, and reject the practice of forming small circles or zero-sum games." | Photo: Twitter @socialist_china

Published 22 September 2021
Opinion

The Chinese president elaborated on the guiding principles for international relations, urging to strengthen solidarity and promote “win-win cooperation in conducting international relations.”

During his address at the United Nations General Assembly, China's President Xi Jinping pledged that his country would never "seek hegemony" by attacking other countries. He emphasized the role of China in the global arena as a "builder of world peace, a contributor to global development, defender of the international order and provider of public goods."

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"China has never and will never invade or bully others, or seek hegemony," said Xi Jinping in his statement delivered via video at the general debate of the 76th session of the UN General Assembly.

The Chinese president elaborated on the guiding principles for international relations, urging strengthening solidarity and promoting "win-win cooperation in conducting international relations."

About recent developments in the Central Asian region, such as the hasty withdrawal of U.S. and NATO forces from Afghanistan, which brought the return of Taliban rule to the country, Xi said they evidenced that "military intervention from the outside and so-called democratic transformation entails nothing but harm."

"We need to advocate peace, development, equity, justice, democracy and freedom, which are the common values of humanity, and reject the practice of forming small circles or zero-sum games," Xi said.

The remark appeared to address tensions triggered by the formation of alliances such as the "Quad" grouping, comprising Australia, the US, India and Japan, which is due to meet at leader level in Washington on Friday. It also seemed to reference the recently-forged AUKUS pact. While the announcement of the trilateral security alliance, comprising Australia and the United Kingdom and the United States, did not mention China by name, it referred to regional security concerns that they said had "grown significantly."

Beijing denounced the three-way security pact, which aims to offset China's assertiveness in the contested South China Sea, as "extremely irresponsible" and "narrow-minded." The alliance risked "severely damaging regional peace… and intensifying the arms race", said Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian.

Xi Jinping ended his remarks at the UN General Assembly by stressing that one country's success does not necessarily imply another country's failure, suggesting that the global arena was big enough to accommodate "common development and progress of all countries."

In his debut speech at the United Nations, Xi's address came as U.S. President Joe Biden said that democracy would not be defeated by authoritarianism, in a perceived nod at China. However, he avoided pointing directly to the world's second-largest economic power.

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