Together for a New Chapter in BRICS Cooperation

Remarks by H.E. Xi Jinping President of the People's Republic of China At the Plenary Session of the BRICS Brasilia Summit

Brasilia, 14 November 2019

Your Excellency President Jair Bolsonaro,

Your Excellency President Vladimir Putin,

Your Excellency Prime Minister Narendra Modi,

Your Excellency President Cyril Ramaphosa,

It gives me great pleasure to join you in this meeting in Brasilia. Let me first thank President Bolsonaro for the kind invitation and gracious hospitality.

This is my third visit to Brazil in ten years. Stepping once again on this land of vibrancy, I am deeply impressed by its vastness and natural endowment, by the friendly people, and by the great promise the country holds.

We are meeting at a time when crucial developments are taking place in the world economy and international landscape. A burgeoning round of technological revolution and industrial transformation has created more opportunities for countries across the globe to achieve leapfrog development. Meanwhile, the unstoppable rise of emerging markets and developing countries has injected strong impetus to the reform of the global economic governance system. Nevertheless, there are also causes for concern: rising protectionism and unilateralism; greater deficit of governance, development and trust; and growing uncertainties and destabilizing factors in the world economy.

Faced with profound changes rarely seen in a century, major emerging markets and developing countries like us must grasp the trend of the times. We must respond to the call of our people, and shoulder our responsibilities. We must remain true to our unwavering commitment to development and strengthen solidarity and cooperation for the well-being of our people and for the development of our world.

- Let us work to foster a security environment of peace and stability. Our world has yet to achieve full peace. As we speak, tensions continue in regional security situations; hotspot issues keep emerging; traditional and non-traditional security threats are interwoven. Challenges of a global nature are becoming more prominent.

We need to take it our aim to safeguard peace and development for all; we need to uphold fairness and justice and promote win-win results; we need to base our efforts on international law and widely recognized norms of international relations; we need to champion and put into practice multilateralism. It is important that we uphold the purposes and principles of the UN Charter and the UN-centered international system, oppose hegemonism and power politics, and take a constructive part in settling geopolitical flash points. We can use BRICS mechanisms, including the meetings of our ministers of foreign affairs/international relations and high representatives for security issues, the working groups on counter-terrorism and cybersecurity, and the regular meetings among our permanent representatives to multilateral institutions, to maintain close strategic communication and coordination and speak in one voice for a more just and equitable international order.

- Let us pursue greater development prospects through openness and innovation. Development is what really matters to all. Many of the world's problems are rooted in unbalanced and inadequate development. We must therefore seize the opportunities that come with reform and innovation. We need to deepen the BRICS Partnership on New Industrial Revolution, and strive for more productive cooperation in such fields as trade and investment, digital economy, and connectivity. These efforts will surely lend impetus to economic growth and high-quality development in our five countries.

At present, economic globalization is encountering setbacks, which reveal, to a certain degree, the flaws existing in the global governance system. We the BRICS countries need to play our role as responsible major countries. We need to advocate extensive consultation, joint contribution and shared benefits in global governance, and push for reform of the global economic governance system. We need to stand firm against protectionism, uphold the WTO-centered multilateral trading system, and increase the voice and influence of emerging markets and developing countries in international affairs. We need to prioritize development in the global macro policy framework, follow through the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Paris Agreement on climate change, and promote coordinated progress in the economic, social and environmental spheres.