Your Excellency Foreign Minister George Gerapetritis, 

Excellencies, Colleagues,

I thank Greece, as Chair of the Forum for 2025, for convening today’s meeting.

Back in 1997, China and Greece together launched the Ancient Civilizations Forum to promote dialogue and cooperation among civilizations. Over the years, the Forum has grown from strength to strength, and has won wide recognition from the international community.

World civilizations complement and inspire each other, and the global village is diverse and colorful, making human society an indivisible community with a shared future. Today, amid profound global changes unseen in a century, we should all the more value the significant role of civilizations and join hands in promoting inter-civilization dialogue and mutual learning.

In 2023, President Xi Jinping solemnly put forth the Global Civilization Initiative, which calls for upholding the common values of humanity, emphasizing both heritage and innovation, and strengthening international people-to-people exchanges and cooperation. The Initiative has provided a fresh perspective and a new approach for the international community to reassess the essence of civilizations.

China believes that we should seize the 80th anniversary of the UN as an opportunity to reaffirm our commitment to and redouble our efforts in promoting exchanges and mutual learning among civilizations. I wish to highlight four points:

First, the responsibility for cultural inheritance as well as inclusiveness and common progress. We not only need to carry forward our own civilizations, but also promote and defend the diversity of civilizations, and respect the development paths chosen by people of different countries.

Second, dialogue as a bridge to maintain international peace and stability. We believe that greater efforts should be made to safeguard multilateralism, and encourage all parties to solve international disputes and hotspot issues through dialogue and negotiations.

Third, cooperation as the driving force for world development. We need to promote the exchanges and sharing of technologies, such as artificial intelligence, to facilitate countries around the world in their pursuit of common development and global modernization.

Fourth, a greater role of the Forum for dialogue among civilizations. We should further promote practical cooperation within the Forum and, at the same time, seek greater synergy between the Forum and other multilateral mechanisms, so as to further expand its appeal and impact.

Excellencies, Colleagues,

Earlier this month, President Xi Jinping launched the Global Governance Initiative, calling on countries to work in concert for a more just and equitable global governance system. China will join hands with all countries to explore ways to reform and improve global governance, and together forge a brighter future of peace, security, prosperity, and progress.

Thank you.