China commits to building closer SCO community with shared future

BEIJING -- President Xi Jinping will attend the 23rd meeting of the Council of Heads of State of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) via video conference from Beijing on Tuesday.

As the first intergovernmental organization named after a Chinese city, SCO today stands as a comprehensive regional cooperation organization that covers the largest area and population in the world.

Over the years, China has been firmly upholding the Shanghai Spirit and is ready to chart the way forward and work with other SCO members to build a closer community with a shared future.

EVOLVING CORE VALUES

At the landmark Qingdao summit of the SCO in 2018, Xi called on countries involved in the regional bloc to work closely to build an SCO community with a shared future, enriching the Shanghai Spirit which champions mutual trust, mutual benefit, equality, consultation, respect for diverse civilizations and pursuit of common development.

"We owe SCO's remarkable success to the Shanghai Spirit. And we will continue to follow its guidance as we forge ahead," Xi said.

In the Qingdao Declaration, the SCO members embraced "building a community with a shared future for humanity" their most important political consensus and the goal for their future efforts.

Last year in Samarkand, an important town on the ancient Silk Road, Xi summarized the successful experience of the SCO, namely, upholding political trust, mutually beneficial cooperation, equality, openness and inclusiveness, and equity and justice. These five points fully embody the Shanghai Spirit, he said.

Amid the complex international situation and constantly evolving global challenges, Xi's vision has also been enriching the connotation of the Shanghai Spirit.

From putting forward China's view of "a global community of health for all," "an indivisible security community" and "a global development community," to proposing the Global Development Initiative and Global Security Initiative, Xi has been promoting the steady and long-term progress of the SCO along with the common development of mankind.

With a long history of exchanges, similar development tasks and a closely linked future, countries on the Eurasian continent have joined hands to build an even closer SCO community with a shared future, injecting vigorous impetus into regional and global development.

Under the Shanghai Spirit, they have carried out comprehensive cooperation, safeguarding energy security and food security, stabilizing and diversifying supply chains, as well as combating climate change, among others.

In 2022, leaders of the SCO member states adopted the Comprehensive Plan for the Implementation of the SCO Treaty on Long-Term Good-Neighborliness, Friendship and Cooperation for 2023-2027, drawing a blueprint for future collaboration in the next five years.

SCO Secretary-General Zhang Ming said that the SCO has brought together countries from different regions, with different traditions and development paths thanks to the Shanghai Spirit, which has become a source of life and endless force propelling the group's development.