CPC Reaches Out to Political Parties in the Developed World

By KONG GENHONG

TODAY the Communist Part of China (CPC) is in contact with over 600 political parties and organizations in more than 160 countries and regions, including many in the developed world. This has become a crucial part of the CPC’s international relations.

Xi Jinping, vice president of China and member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, meets Phil Goff, then Leader of the Opposition and Leader of the New Zealand Labour Party, on June 10, 2010.

Much of the party’s contact with the Western world’s political forces was initiated in the early 1980s, when the CPC began to develop relationships with socialist parties in Europe in an attempt to transcend political differences and achieve understanding. These relationships were built on the principles of independence, equality, mutual respect and non-interference in other countries’ internal affairs. In the mid-1980s, the CPC extended its relations to Western Europe’s right-wing parties.

This century, along with its recent adoption of a scientific approach to development and the goal of creating a “harmonious society,” the CPC has continued to strengthen its relations with international and regional parties. The global financial crisis, in particular, has helped improve its working relations and mechanisms with Western political parties and pushed forward its friendly ties with major party groups in the European Parliament and other European parties. The party diplomacy has played an important role in guiding and shaping state relations.

Since 2010, Chinese delegations representing different levels of the CPC have paid visits to European and American countries to further links face-to- face, and dozens of party leaders and delegations from the developed countries have made the journey to China at the invitation of the CPC. Among them were Tony Abbott, leader of the Liberal Party of Australia, Michael Ignatieff, leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, and Phil Goff, then leader of the New Zealand Labour Party. Other guests included a raft of delegations from such parties as the Christian Democracy Party of Italy, Germany’s Green Party, and the Communist Party of Spain, just to name a few.

The three following regular high-profile exchanges between the CPC and the parties of the UK, the EU, and the U.S. are examples of how interparty relations are contributing to international understanding and cooperation.

China-UK Leadership of the Future Forum

Every year since 2007, the leaders of the CPC and Britain’s Conservative Party, Labour Party and Liberal Democrat Party have come together to participate in the China-UK Leadership of the Future Forum. During these five years, this meeting has evolved into a key instrument of bilateral exchange.

The first forum, held in Oxfordshire, addressed the strategic relationship between China and the West, climate change, environmental protection, energy security and sustainable development. The next year the Forum came to Beijing. On this occasion the two sides compared for their own reference how the two countries approached the issue of development in theory and practice and discussed the relationships between China and Britain and Europe.