According to the leader, “hegemonism” is not in Beijing’s essence.
President Xi Jinping has stated that China will continue to pursue an autonomous foreign policy while establishing a common future for all people. In his words, Beijing is “on the right side of history.”
Xi said that “hegemony is not in China’s DNA; nor does China have any motivation to engage in major-power competition” in a speech prepared for the BRICS Business Forum in South Africa.
Xi, who is in Johannesburg for the 15th BRICS conference, spoke with Cyril Ramaphosa, the president of South Africa, on Tuesday. However, the Chinese president was not present at the BRICS Business Forum that day; Wang Wentao, Beijing’s minister of trade, read the address.
Xi stressed that China would continue to pursue a peaceful and autonomous foreign policy with the goal of “building a community with a shared future for mankind.” His final statement was, “Our door is wide open to anyone who wants to engage in cooperation with us.”
The Chinese leader declared that his country “stands firmly on the right side of history” and that it is in everyone’s best interest to advance just causes.
All members of the global community must be encouraged to live in prosperity and progress, but, according to Xi, “some country, obsessed with maintaining its hegemony, has gone out of its way to cripple the EMDCs (emerging markets and developing countries).” Xi was apparently referring to the US.
Any attempts to restrain developing nations would be “futile,” he claimed, and “the collective rise of EMDCs represented by BRICS is fundamentally changing the global landscape.” Xi also mentioned that over the past 20 years, EMDCs had contributed up to 80% of global growth.
Xi argued that the BRICS group, which presently consists of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, should be enlarged. He said: “I am delighted to notice that over 20 nations are knocking on the door of BRICS. China wants additional nations to join the BRICS collaboration framework.
Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, spoke to the BRICS summit on Wednesday via video link and said that his country was “against any hegemony [and] the notion of exceptionalism promoted by some nations.”
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The establishment of a multipolar, really just, and law-based world order is what members of BRICS are working towards, according to the Russian president.
