Top legislator Wu
Bangguo yesterday called for stronger multilateral cooperation
in the spirit of mutual respect, mutual trust and common
development.
"To realize lasting peace and sustainable development in human
society, members of the international community have to cooperate
with one another fully and make concerted efforts," Wu said in a
speech delivered at the Second World Conference of Speakers of
Parliaments at the UN headquarters.
Wu, chairman of the National People's Congress (NPC)
Standing Committee, is among speakers from more than 150 countries
and regional parliamentary organizations attending the three-day
conference, which opened in New York Wednesday.
"Mutual respect is a prerequisite for multilateral cooperation,"
Wu said. "We should respect the diversity of world civilizations
and promote democracy in international relations on the basis of
respecting and treating each other as equals."
"Countries, big or small, strong or weak, rich or poor, are all
equal members of the international community and thus all deserve
respect in the world."
"Big countries should respect small ones, strong countries
should help weak ones, and rich countries should assist poor ones.
There should be mutual respect for independence, sovereignty and
territorial integrity," Wu said.
He said that China opposes the bullying of the small, weak and
poor by the big, strong and rich, and that people of all countries
are entitled to independently choose a social system and a path of
development in accordance with their own national conditions.
"No country has the right to interfere with the choice of the
people of other countries," Wu said.
He?added that mutual trust is the guarantee of multilateral
cooperation.
"In multilateral cooperation, we should safeguard and expand our
common interest, properly address each other's concerns through
consultations on an equal footing in the spirit of mutual
accommodation, and have more dialogues to increase our mutual
understanding and trust," he said.
"To counter traditional and non-traditional threats to security,
we need to foster a new security concept featuring mutual trust,
mutual benefit, equality and coordination."
"We should always settle disputes through dialogue and
cooperation, and should not resort to the use or threat of force at
the slightest provocation. We should get rid of Cold War thinking
and broaden the converging points of our common interests,
notwithstanding the differences in social systems and ideologies,"
Wu said.
"The international community needs to turn its ear more often to
developing countries, defend their legitimate rights and interests,
and push the world economy toward balanced and steady development
and a win-win scenario for the benefit of all."
"Developing countries, on the other hand, need to take
acceleration of development and improvement of people's livelihood
as their prime task, draw on the fruits of world civilizations in
the light of their own national conditions, and keep building their
capacity for self-development," Wu said.
Participants attending the three-day conference, a follow-up to
the first gathering five years ago, are expected to deliberate on a
report on parliamentary involvement in international affairs, a
progress report on meeting the Millennium Development Goals, and a
report on parliaments' contribution to democracy.
Wu said the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), the world's
biggest, longest-standing and most influential international
organization of parliaments, needs to reinforce its substantive
interaction and coordination with the UN and to establish between
them an even closer working relationship.
"China's NPC is ready to join parliaments of other countries in
making full use of this important stage of the IPU to carry out all
forms of multilateral cooperation in a sustained endeavor to build
a peaceful, prosperous and harmonious new world," Wu added.
(Xinhua News Agency September 8, 2005)