Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi made a speech at the 69th United Nations General Assembly on September 27, 2014. The words ‘peace’ and ‘justice’ featured extensively among his words.

Today’s world needs peace and justice. This year marks the centenary of the outbreak of World War I, and next year will be the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II. Peace and development are the dominant themes of the times, but the world is far from stable. There are many complicated factors thwarting world peace. Issues such as the arms race, terrorism, and cyber security are intertwined, and hegemony, power politics and new interventionism seems to be thriving once more. It remains an arduous task to safeguard world peace and justice.

Confronted with such problems and challenges, China is taking action. As a great power benefiting from rising strength and international influence, China is shouldering more responsibility. It will not copy the Western mode and therefore will not constantly resort to force and sanctions. Following its own peaceful path of development, China is trying to redress the scales and uphold justice. Multilateral diplomacy is a key part of its diplomacy. The UN serves as a critical platform for China to take on its responsibilities in the international community.

Wang also outlined four principles to defend peace: treat each other as equals; be open and inclusive; pursue mutually beneficial cooperation, and uphold justice.

Equality is an important principle to China. China holds that whether a country is big or small, strong or weak, rich or poor, its core interests should be respected, including independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity and the right to choose its own social system and path of development. Under the principle of equality, no country should ever be allowed to seek its own security at the cost of the security of other countries. In recent years, a number of countries have done extensive damage to others under the pretext of 'serving international law’. China demands that there should be no double standards in applying international law.

Wang laid out five principles for dealing with incessant international conflict - seeking political solutions; accommodating the interests of all parties; promoting national reconciliation; upholding multilateralism, and supporting regional organizations in resolving local problems.

This article was edited and translated from 《和平与正义背后的中国担当（望海楼）》, source: People's Daily Overseas Edition, Author: Hua Yisheng