Ren Hongyan

Chi­na Am­bas­sador Ex­tra­or­di­nary and Plenipo­ten­tiary to T&T

This year marks the 80th an­niver­sary of the vic­to­ry in the Chi­nese Peo­ple’s War of Re­sis­tance against Japan­ese Ag­gres­sion and the World An­ti-Fas­cist War. At this im­por­tant and mem­o­rable mo­ment, all peace-lov­ing coun­tries and peo­ple around the world should re­mem­ber his­to­ry, ho­n­our the fall­en he­roes, cher­ish peace, and look to the fu­ture.

Look­ing back on the his­to­ry, we should re­mem­ber the tremen­dous sac­ri­fices made by our pre­de­ces­sors. World War II, ig­nit­ed by mil­i­taris­tic and fas­cist forces, brought un­prece­dent­ed cat­a­stro­phe to hu­man­i­ty, forc­ing ap­prox­i­mate­ly two bil­lion peo­ple from over 80 coun­tries and re­gions, in­clud­ing Chi­na, in­to its tur­moil. As the main East­ern bat­tle­field of the World An­ti-Fas­cist War, the Chi­nese Peo­ple’s War of Re­sis­tance against Japan­ese Ag­gres­sion last­ed the longest—span­ning 14 years from 1931 to 1945.

It pinned down the largest num­ber of en­e­my forces, con­sis­tent­ly en­gag­ing around one mil­lion main troops of the Japan­ese Army, at times ac­count­ing for over 90% of its to­tal strength.

Chi­na al­so paid the heav­i­est price: ac­cord­ing to in­com­plete sta­tis­tics, more than 35 mil­lion Chi­nese mil­i­tary per­son­nel and civil­ians were killed or wound­ed dur­ing the war, with di­rect and in­di­rect eco­nom­ic loss­es ex­ceed­ing US$600 bil­lion.

In this great War of Re­sis­tance against Japan­ese Ag­gres­sion, the Com­mu­nist Par­ty of Chi­na (CPC) was the first to put for­ward the propo­si­tion against Japan­ese ag­gres­sion, ini­ti­ate the strug­gle, pro­mote the for­ma­tion of the Chi­nese unit­ed front, pro­pose and ad­here to the im­ple­men­ta­tion of to­tal re­sis­tance against ag­gres­sion by the whole na­tion, play­ing a piv­otal role. The back­stage bat­tle­field opened up by the CPC, af­ter the war en­tered a strate­gic stale­mate stage, held back and re­sist­ed 58% to 75 per cent of the Japan­ese in­vad­ing forces, mak­ing out­stand­ing con­tri­bu­tions to the ul­ti­mate vic­to­ry of the war, as well as to the fight for na­tion­al lib­er­a­tion and the de­fence of world peace.

Look­ing back on the his­to­ry, we should safe­guard the in­ter­na­tion­al sys­tem with the Unit­ed Na­tions at its core. Af­ter the war, to pre­vent hu­man­i­ty from be­ing plunged again in­to the abyss of con­flict, Chi­na, along with oth­er peace-lov­ing coun­tries, joint­ly dis­cussed the es­tab­lish­ment of the Unit­ed Na­tions and for­mu­lat­ed the UN Char­ter. Chi­na be­came the first coun­try to sign the UN Char­ter.

The found­ing of the Unit­ed Na­tions laid the cor­ner­stone of the post-war in­ter­na­tion­al or­der, cre­at­ed an im­por­tant plat­form for safe­guard­ing world peace and pro­mot­ing de­vel­op­ment among na­tions, and opened a new chap­ter in build­ing peace and seek­ing com­mon de­vel­op­ment.

Over the past 80 years, the Unit­ed Na­tions has with­stood the test of time in the ever-chang­ing in­ter­na­tion­al land­scape, sup­port­ing the sta­bil­i­ty and pros­per­i­ty of the world, en­sur­ing the ba­sic pat­tern of over­all peace, and pro­mot­ing the con­sid­er­able progress of hu­man civil­i­sa­tion.

The re­turn of Tai­wan to Chi­na was an­oth­er sig­nif­i­cant achieve­ment of the vic­to­ry in World War II. The Cairo De­c­la­ra­tion and the Pots­dam De­c­la­ra­tion clear­ly stip­u­lat­ed that Tai­wan, the ter­ri­to­ry Japan stole from the Chi­nese, should be re­stored to Chi­na, legal­ly con­firm­ing Chi­na’s sov­er­eign­ty over Tai­wan.

In 1971, the Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly adopt­ed Res­o­lu­tion 2758 with an over­whelm­ing ma­jor­i­ty, which clear­ly states that there is on­ly one Chi­na in the world, Tai­wan is a part of Chi­na, not a coun­try. The es­tab­lish­ment of the Unit­ed Na­tions, in­clud­ing Tai­wan’s re­turn to Chi­na, con­sti­tut­ed an im­por­tant part of the post-war in­ter­na­tion­al or­der and must be firm­ly de­fend­ed.

Look­ing back on his­to­ry, we should cher­ish the glob­al trend of peace and de­vel­op­ment. Our world to­day is liv­ing through ac­cel­er­at­ing changes un­seen in a cen­tu­ry.

Changes in the world, in our times and in his­to­ry, are un­fold­ing in ways like nev­er be­fore. The glob­al deficits in peace, de­vel­op­ment, se­cu­ri­ty and gov­er­nance con­tin­ue to widen un­abat­ed. Cer­tain coun­tries have been en­gaged in pur­su­ing their own in­ter­ests at the ex­pense of oth­ers and prac­tic­ing pow­er pol­i­tics, dis­tort­ing the truth of World War II his­to­ry, smear­ing Chi­na’s his­tor­i­cal achieve­ments, and at­tempt­ing to set their own rules to over­ride the will of oth­er coun­tries, thus un­der­min­ing the in­ter­na­tion­al sys­tem with the Unit­ed Na­tions at its core and hin­der­ing the cause of peace and de­vel­op­ment.

Chi­nese Pres­i­dent Xi Jin­ping point­ed out that the most valu­able les­son that the vic­to­ry of the war has left us is that we must unswerv­ing­ly fol­low the path of peace­ful de­vel­op­ment. The Chi­nese na­tion has al­ways loved peace and has al­ways re­mem­bered the pro­found suf­fer­ing brought by war. Its be­lief in pro­mot­ing world peace and de­vel­op­ment re­mains un­wa­ver­ing.

To this end, Pres­i­dent Xi Jin­ping has suc­ces­sive­ly put for­ward the con­cept of the com­mu­ni­ty with a shared fu­ture for mankind and the Glob­al De­vel­op­ment Ini­tia­tive, the Glob­al Se­cu­ri­ty Ini­tia­tive, as well as the Glob­al Civil­i­sa­tion Ini­tia­tive.

We have joined hands with the vast num­ber of coun­tries in the Glob­al South to safe­guard in­ter­na­tion­al fair­ness and jus­tice, prac­tice true mul­ti­lat­er­al­ism, be builders of mul­ti­lat­er­al mech­a­nisms, ad­vo­cates of mul­ti­lat­er­al con­cepts, and pro­mot­ers of mul­ti­lat­er­al co­op­er­a­tion, and build an equal and or­der­ly mul­ti­po­lar world and an in­clu­sive eco­nom­ic glob­al­i­sa­tion, en­abling dif­fer­ent coun­tries, eth­nic groups and so­cial class to share the fruits of peace and de­vel­op­ment, and pro­mote hu­man civil­i­sa­tion to­wards a brighter fu­ture.

Look­ing back on the his­to­ry, Chi­na and Trinidad and To­ba­go (T&T) should move for­ward hand in hand. Both coun­tries have suf­fered from colo­nial and im­pe­r­i­al op­pres­sion in the past and have made brave re­sis­tance.

T&T not on­ly made sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tions to the vic­to­ry of World War II as an im­por­tant lo­gis­tics base for the Al­lied forces, but al­so be­came one of the first Caribbean na­tions to gain in­de­pen­dence af­ter the war. For a long time, it has stood up for the vic­tims of Eu­ro­pean colo­nial ac­tiv­i­ties as a pi­o­neer in the glob­al an­ti-colo­nial move­ment.

T&T ac­tive­ly par­tic­i­pates in in­ter­na­tion­al co­op­er­a­tion with­in the frame­work of the Unit­ed Na­tions, vig­or­ous­ly pro­motes South-South co­op­er­a­tion, and, es­pe­cial­ly as a found­ing mem­ber of the Cari­com, has played a lead­ing role in ad­vanc­ing re­gion­al in­te­gra­tion.

Sim­i­lar his­tor­i­cal ex­pe­ri­ences have shaped the shared moral pur­suits of Chi­na and T&T, mak­ing both coun­tries deeply cher­ish the val­ue of main­tain­ing in­de­pen­dence and pro­mot­ing peace­ful de­vel­op­ment.

Learn­ing from the his­to­ry, Chi­na is will­ing to work with T&T to safe­guard the in­ter­na­tion­al sys­tem with the Unit­ed Na­tions at its core, the in­ter­na­tion­al or­der based on in­ter­na­tion­al law, and the ba­sic norms gov­ern­ing in­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions based on the pur­pos­es and prin­ci­ples of the UN Char­ter, and to pro­mote the im­ple­men­ta­tion of the three ma­jor Glob­al Ini­tia­tives.

Chi­na will up­hold the spir­it of the Silk Road of “peace and co­op­er­a­tion, open­ness and in­clu­sive­ness, mu­tu­al learn­ing and mu­tu­al ben­e­fit,” and the con­cept of civil­i­sa­tion of “equal­i­ty, mu­tu­al learn­ing, di­a­logue and in­clu­sive­ness,” while join­ing hands with T&T to pro­mote high-qual­i­ty con­struc­tion of the Belt and Road, and deep­en prac­ti­cal co­op­er­a­tion be­tween the two coun­tries in econ­o­my, trade, cul­ture, ecol­o­gy, se­cu­ri­ty, new en­er­gy, Ar­ti­fi­cial In­tel­li­gence and oth­er fields.

To­geth­er, we will strive to build an even clos­er Chi­na-T&T com­mu­ni­ty with a shared fu­ture and keep the tree of friend­ship be­tween the two coun­tries ever­green.