Participants at the dialogue which included scholars, Security experts, diplomats, Newspaper Columnists, and Journalists reached a meaningful consensus that the dialogue was timely and meaningful contribution to understanding the key issues and content of president Xi Jinping’s proposal for a Global Security Initiative at this year’s edition of the Boao Forum for Asia, and further stressed that China’s Initiatives on global issues are well-thought out, profound and usually consultative with the intention to build the broadest consensus of all stakeholders.
The participants at the dialogue agreed the Global Security Initiative which followed similar proposal in 2021, when president Xi Jinping proposed the Global Development Initiative (GDI) were meaningful and strategic responses to the critical challenges of the time and deserve the broadest global dialogue across all stakeholders with a view to generate more international wisdom to give it richer content and even global ownership.
The experts at the dialogue expressed optimism that the core content of the Initiative approximates to the concerns of countries around the world to entrench dialogue and consultation as a criteria to identify early threats to security and take proactive measures and stance to contain and manage it.
President Xi Jinping’s emphasis on staying “committed to a vision of common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security” were upheld by participants as central to any meaningful and collective approach to security issues and participants agreed to a key proposal of the GSI” to oppose unilateralism and say no to group politics and block confrontation”, while staying “committed to respecting the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries, abiding by the purposes and principles of the UN charter…, uphold the principle of indivisible security, build a balanced effective and sustainable security architecture and oppose the pursuit of one’s own security at the cost of other’s security.”
Furthermore, the participants shared President Xi Jinping’s vintage aphorism that “countries around the world are like passengers aboard the same ship who share the same destiny. For the ship to navigate the storm and sail toward a bright future, all passengers must pull together. The thought of throwing anyone overboard is simply not acceptable”.
On the security situation in Nigeria and the Sahel, the participants at the dialogue described it as “dire and desperate” and attributed the worsening situation as consequence of NATO’s military action in Libya in 2011, when the western military alliance in its unilateral so called “responsibility to protect” escalated the crises, undertook action that effectively overthrew the legitimate government and plunge the country into chaos with no effective central or any government at all at any level. The country’s heavy military armory fell apart, funneling weapons to all assorted insurgents and criminals and consequently plunging countries in the sub-region of the Sahel-Mali, Burkina Faso, Chad, Niger, Nigeria into circles of deadly conflict with armed criminals orchestrating banditries, kidnappings. Participants at the dialogue believed that without the flow of weapons and military instructors from the collapse of Libyan government triggered by the intervention of the U.S led military alliance, NATO, the security situation in the Sahel and Nigeria would not attain its current desperate situation. The dialogue participants therefore, unanimously resolved that — The security situation in the Sahel and Nigeria of the West Africa subregion would have been less volatile and intractable had there been a negotiated settlement of the then Libyan conflict, as proposed by the Africa Union (AU) but was vehemently opposed by the Western military alliance, NATO, which desperately insisted on military action to overthrow the Libyan government.
—That the conflict in the Sahel and Nigeria has taken enormous toil on livelihood obstructing meaningful economic activities like farming, fishing and other productive endeavors.
—That China’s Initiative on a collective and indivisible security framework is very vital to conflict prevention and could boast early warning system, with the view to engage all prospective stakeholders in a consultative arrangement that would prevent security breakdown.
—That countries within the Sahel are enjoined to fully identify with the Global security initiative, build a framework of collective and indivisible security architecture within the sub-region and engage substantially with relevant actors and stakeholders in generating consensus on conflict prevention and management.
—That China should endeavor to mainstream its global initiatives on security and development to the multilateral framework of the United Nations system in an effort to boost collective security and mainstream it, to the national security priority of members’ states and other relevant actors in the international system.
Lastly, participants expressed appreciation to the Center for China Studies for hosting the dialogue and urged for more support for the Center to enable it to deepen its research on important issues of the moment through instituting a dialogue, and urged the Chinese embassy in Nigeria to continuously extend her hand of partnership in an effort to bring to the public domain, such important and vital initiatives of China on issues of global governance and collective security.
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