The second International Forum on Democracy: The Shared Human Values was held in Beijing from March 22-23. Hundreds of guests from over 100 countries and regions worldwide, including representatives from international organizations, gathered to discuss the essence of democracy.
Combining online and in-person participation, the forum centered around five main themes: "Democracy and Sustainable Development," "Democracy and Innovation," "Democracy and Global Governance," "Democracy and the Diversity of Human Civilization" and "Democracy and the Path to Modernization."
Attendees agreed that democracy is a shared value of all humankind, and that it can be realized in many forms. Participants also praised China's unique approach to democracy and its contribution to the political advancement of humankind.
Li Shulei, a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and head of the Publicity Department of the CPC Central Committee, addressed the forum.
He said that democracy, as a shared value of humankind, is a universal pursuit for countries to achieve modernization and serves as the foundation for building a community with a shared future for humanity.
He emphasized that China has always upheld the principle of putting people first and steadfastly promoted whole-process people's democracy, striving to develop democracy during its modernization process.
Du Zhanyuan, president of China International Communications Group, noted that democracy takes different forms in different countries and should be tailored to fit each country's specific circumstances and cultural background.
"China's whole-process people's democracy is rooted in the soil of excellent traditional Chinese culture," he said, adding that this has given rise to a new form of political civilization for humanity.
Du also criticized attempts to use democracy as an excuse for creating division and confrontation, and encouraged collaboration to advance global civilization.
Yukio Hatoyama, former Japanese prime minister, expressed concern over the trend of Western countries creating value-based conflicts. He stated that values themselves are not the problem, but if democratic and human rights values are overly emphasized in diplomacy, it will inevitably lead to discrimination and the exclusion of countries with different values. This has resulted in regionalization of the world and could even lead to economic irrationality and harm global prosperity, he said.
"We must continue to fight against these trends. For this, I believe that the essential element is the spirit of fraternity. Fraternity is based on mutual respect, mutual understanding, mutual assistance, self-reliance and coexistence," he noted.
Abhisit Vejjajiva, former prime minister of Thailand, said that every country needs to address its own limitations and restrictions to be more truly democratic, taking into account their unique cultural and historical background.
He added that countries should come up with democratic standards and ideals that are agreed upon multilaterally, and that international organizations and the international community should play a constructive role, rather than using democracy as a dividing line to create camps of democratic countries against one another. He regarded this as the most realistic and effective way to promote democratization globally.
Jeffrey Sachs, a professor at Columbia University, noted that there is no single model of good governance that can be applied universally, since every country has its own political culture that will "shape its political institutions."
According to the Democratic Practices and Modernization in China Global Survey 2022 released during the forum, respondents from the 23 countries surveyed generally agreed with the statement that "each country has different national conditions and is at its own development stage, and, therefore, should choose democracy and modernization models that suit its own conditions," with an average approval rate of 94.3%.
The forum was hosted by the Publicity Department of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council Information Office, and co-organized by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, China Media Group and China International Communications Group.
