Symptoms and root causes of conflicts must be addressed

Editor's Note: The following are excerpts of remarks by Chinese ambassador, Fu Cong, at the United Nations Security Council Open Debate on Peace Building and Sustaining Peace: The New Agenda for Peace — Addressing Global, Regional and National Aspects of Conflict Prevention on Wednesday:

We need to enhance the effectiveness and relevance of conflict prevention, and address both the symptoms and underlying issues, in particular by tackling the root causes of conflict, and strive to translate the international community's shared vision for peace into effective actions to realize lasting peace.

Development should be prioritized. Poverty and underdevelopment are major sources of conflict. Poverty reduction and development must be taken as foundational tasks for conflict prevention.

Effective governance is indispensable for a country to maintain long-term stability and achieve sustainable economic and social development. As countries differ in their national conditions, it is important that they should independently explore a development path that suits their own conditions, improve their governance systems and enhance their governance capacity.

It is only through inclusive development that we can establish the foundation for lasting peace. It is important to enhance access to public services, so that all ethnicities and social groups can participate in and benefit from development, while the special needs of vulnerable groups and regions with development difficulties need to be properly addressed.

Effective conflict prevention requires favorable external conditions. The UN should ensure that it plays its due role in conflict prevention and increase its inputs to promote global development. An open and nondiscriminatory international economic and trade environment should be established so that more developing countries can participate fairly in economic, scientific and technological cooperation and share the dividends of development.

Meanwhile, efforts should be made to promote reform of the international financial architecture, so that it can better meet the needs of developing countries in such areas as financing for development, addressing the impacts of climate change and capacity building.

We should uphold international justice, oppose interference in the internal affairs of other countries, and oppose unilateralism and hegemony. Here, I wish to emphasize that the indiscriminate imposition of illegal unilateral sanctions by some countries in violation of the UN Charter and international law not only exacerbates the economic and social difficulties of the countries targeted, but also sows the seeds for new conflicts and instability. We urge these countries to immediately lift all unilateral sanctions.

Maintaining stable economic growth and continuously creating jobs and wealth is the basis for achieving long-term peace and stability in a country and among countries. Only by enhancing people's sense of gain can we realize the common aspiration for an end to conflict.