Close dialogue is paving way for finding solutions to shared challenges, tasks

The Communist Party of China and political parties around the world are increasing their interactions, paving the way for dialogue to better tackle common challenges and tasks such as fighting the COVID-19 pandemic, the global economic recovery and co-building the Belt and Road.

Leaders, officials and experts said foreign parties are closely tracking why and how the CPC and China have achieved a number of successes, while Beijing has also kept an open mind on learning from the outside world.

The CPC maintains regular contact with more than 560 political parties and organizations in over 160 countries.

Since last year, promoting global cooperation in the fight against COVID-19 and fast-tracking economic recovery have been two major subjects of the CPC's dialogues with foreign counterparts and yielded positive feedback from the international community, officials and experts said.

Technology, such as video conferencing, has allowed Party representatives to hold meetings with counterparts spanning the globe, from South Africa to Turkey to the Pacific region.

"The Party cares about the future of humanity, and wishes to move forward in tandem with all progressive forces around the world," Xi Jinping, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, Chinese president and chairman of the Central Military Commission, said in a speech marking the CPC's centenary on Thursday.

Song Tao, head of the CPC Central Committee's International Department, has on multiple occasions expressed the readiness of the Party and the country to embark on greater exchanges with the rest of the world, including countries along the routes of the Belt and Road Initiative, for mutual learning.

At a meeting last month with diplomats from Arab countries, Song noted that China-Arab relations have seen robust growth despite headwinds over the past two years. Both sides share a strong desire to embark on exchanges, learn from each other, and support one another in key areas, setting an example of South-South cooperation, Song said.

Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, former Brazilian president and founder of Brazil's Workers' Party, said, "China has evolved in an extraordinary way, and I hope that other countries will follow the example of China.

"China over the last 30 years has achieved extraordinary economic growth. Economic growth is felt not by international reserves, but by the quality of life that the people of that country are achieving," he said in a video recorded for Chinese media.

Juha-Pekka Vaisanen, chairman of the Communist Party of Finland, said leadership, planning and a lot of motivation had been behind China's rapid economic growth and eradication of absolute poverty.

Political party leaders from Pacific island countries told the CPC during a video dialogue in May that they are ready to maintain close contacts, further exchange experiences on governance, give full play to interparty diplomacy and boost cooperation in areas such as the COVID-19 fight, trade and infrastructure.

Sam Nujoma, the first president of Namibia, said interparty exchanges are an effective way to promote peace and development and improve global governance.

Beijing's vision of building a community with a shared future for mankind and fostering a new type of international relations "has broadened and deepened the concept and practice of multilateralism in the new era, and gained high acclaim and wide support from the international community", Xinhua News Agency quoted Nujoma as saying.

Guo Yezhou, deputy head of the International Department of the CPC Central Committee, said that the Party will work further to institutionalize platforms such as the high-level dialogue between the CPC and the world's political parties.

Chea Munyrith, planning and project director of the Civil Society Alliance Forum in Cambodia, said the CPC attaches great importance to exchanges with other political parties, and cooperates with its counterparts in developing countries on an equal footing.

The CPC is leading the cooperation, and the progress of the international community and China's cooperation with many countries in different fields has been reinforced constantly while interparty cooperation has been carried out smoothly, he told People's Daily in a recent interview.

Major boost

Experts said that in recent years, interparty diplomacy and dialogue have given a major boost to China's international communications and public relations campaigns on topics such as economic development, co-building the Belt and Road and championing sovereign rights and national interests.

Kou Liyan, a researcher at the World Political Party Institute of the International Department of the CPC Central Committee, said, "The CPC makes friends in the world …by seeking common ground while shelving differences; it pursues exchanging ideas, respecting each other, boosting bonding, learning from each other and making progress together."

Exchanges of ideas also help build and maintain a strategic communications network and dialogue channels for the country, which optimizes the environment for further development of relations between China and the world, Kou wrote in a recent article.

"This network is led by the institutional, signature high-level dialogues with the world's political parties," Kou noted, adding that inter-party dialogues also include those with ruling parties and those on specific themes, such as poverty alleviation.