Chinese envoy urges deepening mutual trust, building global partnerships

UNITED NATIONS, May 4 (Xinhua) -- China's permanent representative to the United Nations on Wednesday called on the international community to deepen mutual trust and build partnerships.

"We should firmly anchor our belief in the concept of a community with a shared future for mankind, practice true multilateralism, deepen mutual trust, and promote and build global partnerships," Zhang Jun told the Security Council Open Debate on Peacebuilding and Sustaining Peace: Futureproofing Trust for Sustaining Peace.

Zhang underscored that the world is now "beset with a serious trust crisis." Behind the various complex issues is a series of intersecting and deteriorating deficits in development, peace, security, and governance, as well as the long-standing deficit in trust.

"Nothing undermines more easily the political trust between countries than blowing hot and cold or breaking promises in international relations, playing around with and not respecting the agreements that they signed, and willfully going back on and hollowing out the political commitments they made," he said.

"Nothing damages more easily the mutual trust in the area of security than forming exclusive military blocs, stirring up regional tensions, and seeking absolute security for oneself at the expense of the security of other countries ... Nothing causes more easily the loss of trust in the international system than disregarding the authority of the UN Charter and applying double standards and selective application of international law," he added.

Such behaviors and mentality run counter to the efforts to deepen mutual trust and build lasting peace as well as global development and progress, he said.

Major countries, Zhang noted, should take the lead in standing up for integrity, cooperation, and the rule of law, uphold mutual trust, peaceful coexistence, and win-win cooperation, pursue broad-based consultations, and lead by example in building a solid foundation of trust for the international community to create conditions for lasting peace.