Pursing Peace through Global Governance

Kleber D. P. Cevallos

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Pursing Peace through Global Governance

Kleber D. P. Cevallos

Dean of the Centre of Security and Defense of IAEN, Ecuador

On behalf of Ecuador, I would like to extend my sincere greetings to our Chinese friends and thank you very much for inviting me to attend today's event. I will never forget the warmth and friendliness of our Chinese friends.

The Centre of Security and Defense of IAEN of Ecuador aims to promote peace, development and the active participation of various countries in global security governance. Throughout Ecuador's history, it is clear that Ecuador, like China, respects peace. Ecuador's Constitution also clearly states, "Ecuador is a peaceful country, which ended all kinds of old armed conflicts decades ago." At present, our borders are clearly delimited, and our army has only the purpose of defending and maintaining peace and development. Therefore, we support the total elimination of nuclear weapons worldwide, which is a basic condition for ensuring world security.

Global security governance should be seen as an important component of global governance. In the context of globalization, the current global security governance has not yet formed fixed principles. We should realize that the interdependence of countries and international organizations requires a mechanism that transcends traditional ideological differences to address common problems and challenges facing the world, such as climate change, terrorism, organized crime, illegal immigration, ethnic hatred, religious contradictions, social inequality and poverty, etc. Such a cooperation mechanism should have several basic principles, such as full respect for the sovereignty of various states, non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries and national self-determination.

During my visit to China, I was fortunate to learn about a series of concepts put forward by China, and I am very interested in them, such as a "community with a shared future for humankind" and establishment of a "balanced and harmonious" relations between countries and between man and nature. Starting from several thousands years of history and wisdom, the Chinese people point out that we live in the same "global village", which is very important for us to live together in the only home planet. All countries should actively create an environment for peaceful coexistence and attach great importance to the protection of ecology. Nowadays, various countries in the world are interdependent and international relations are becoming more and more complex. We all need such basic values. Nuclear weapons are the ultimate product of the arms race and the greatest threat to global security. Preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons should be a common commitment of whole mankind.

Another important achievement of my visit to China is to witness the development achievements of China in the past 40 years of reform and opening up. Thirteen years ago, I had the privilege of visiting China. The changes in China over the years are amazing. The Chinese model fully shows that there is more than one way to modernization. The developed countries succeeded in the early stage of globalization. These countries hawked to us the only model of capitalist development, calling it an unchangeable truth, without taking into account the different characteristics of each nation and the different situations of each country. China has achieved a virtuous circle of rapid economic growth in the past 40 years, but unlike the traditional development model, China has fully considered its own potential, value and history.

At present, the world admires China while China's rivals fear China, not because China has grown rapidly into the world's second largest economy, but because China has made the "impossible" a reality. An important feature of China's progress is through peaceful means rather than through weapons and war. China makes full use of its civilization potential and geostrategic advantages in foreign economic and trade cooperation, and pursues the principle of "non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries". It is very simple to prove that since China's reform and opening up, the military industry has developed at a much slower pace than other industries.

Latin America is very different from China in history and culture. Even so, China's experience is still worth learning by Latin America. Especially for Ecuador, China's experience gives us new hope for future development. There is no large-scale war among Latin American countries, which is our important advantage, and we should make good use of it. I believe that a Latin American era is coming, but it has not yet been on full swing, and we still face some problems. In this context, the Chinese government has given us a lot of help in the past ten years and has become a strategic ally for the region. This position would be further strengthened, and our Latin American countries should also solve their internal problems in a more intelligent way so as to achieve leapfrog social, economic and political development.

The integration of Latin American countries into the world pattern is an important condition for our development. We need to find our own way, resist foreign pressure and interference, and oppose the establishment of more military bases. We should deepen strategic relations with countries that works on establishment of a new international order. China is a key country in the new international order-building, and we should regard China as an ally of global security governance. Such a new international order should be based on peace and should completely abandon nuclear weapons. Latin America should see that we can overcome poverty, inequality and other chronic diseases without a need of an arms race and achieve economic modernization.

(Edited excerpt of the paper to the observance event in Nanjing 2018)