The Shanghai Cooperation Organization has created a new model for regional cooperation and made new contribution to peace and development in the region, Chinese President Xi Jinping said in a speech at the 18th Meeting of the Council of Heads of Member States of the SCO in the coastal city of Qingdao, in east China's Shandong Province, on Sunday.
In five days, the SCO will celebrate its 17th birthday. Xi said the organization has made "a remarkable journey and important achievements," Xinhua reported.
"Over the past 17 years, guided by the SCO Charter and the Treaty on Long-Term Good Neighborliness, Friendship and Cooperation Between Member States of the SCO, we have forged a constructive partnership featuring non-alliance, non-confrontation and not targeting any third party," Xi said.
"In doing so, we have achieved a major breakthrough in the theories and practices of international relations, created a new model for regional cooperation, and made new contribution to peace and development in our region," he said.
Today, the SCO stands as a comprehensive regional cooperation organization that covers the largest area and population in the world. Its members account for about 20% of the global economy and 40% of its population, he said.
With its ever rising international influence, the SCO has become an important force for promoting global peace and development and upholding international justice and fairness, Xi added.
"The SCO enjoys strong vitality and momentum of cooperation. This, in the final analysis, is attributed to the Shanghai Spirit, a creative vision initiated and followed through by the SCO that champions mutual trust, mutual benefit, equality, consultation, respect for diverse civilizations and pursuit of common development," he said.
Call for Unity
At the end of his speech, Xi gave a five-point proposal for the organization:
- to build up strength of unity and mutual trust
- to strengthen the foundation for shared peace and security
- to build a powerful engine to achieve common development and prosperity
- to forge closer ties through cultural and people-to-people exchanges
- to expand partnership networks of international cooperation.
Xi said China will set up a 30-billion-yuan ($4.7 billion) special lending facility within the framework of the SCO Inter-bank Consortium to build a SCO community with a shared future with a view toward an inclusive world that enjoys lasting peace, shared security and common prosperity.
"In terms of per capita income, the G7 countries are richer, but the combined size of the SCO economies is bigger and their population is much bigger—half of the world's population."
China has sought to downplay concerns that the Shanghai grouping is a way for Beijing to project its strategic influence abroad. The Global Times, a Communist Party newspaper, said Sunday in a commentary that unlike western organizations like NATO and the G7, which seek to "consolidate the global economic order that is favorable to the western world," the Shanghai Cooperation Organization is inclusive.
It is "not a tool for geopolitical games, seeking hegemony or engaging in international confrontation," the paper said.
Influential and Authoritative
A press communique was issued at the end of SCO meeting held on Saturday and Sunday.
Member states emphasized that the SCO has seen continuously expanding potential for cooperation after the accession of India and Pakistan, and has become a unique, influential and authoritative regional organization, the communique said.
SCO members support the mediation of conflicts in Afghanistan, Syria, the Middle East and the Korean Peninsula, as well as other regional conflicts under the framework of widely-acknowledged norms and principles of international law, it said.
The member states pointed out that it is very important to continue the implementation of the Iran nuclear deal, the document said.
The 2019-2021 program of cooperation for combating terrorism, separatism and extremism, approved at the summit, will further promote pragmatic cooperation among member states in this respect, it added.
In the communique, SCO member states also stressed the significance of improving the global economic governance system, consolidating and developing the multilateral trade mechanism with the World Trade Organization at its core, and building an open world economy.
Kyrgyzstan has taken over the SCO rotating presidency, and the 19th SCO summit will be held in Kyrgyzstan next year, the communique said.
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