Samia and Xi Jinping share deep conviction in multilateralism

President Samia Suluhu Hassan addressing the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). PHOTO | STATE HOUSE

By George Muntu

Last week, Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan and Chinese President Xi Jinping made important statements at the General Debate of the 76th United Nations

General Assembly. The two statements have lots of things in common, such as call for enhanced international support for developing countries, equitable distribution of Covid-19 vaccines, and concerted efforts to address climate change. For me, the most striking common feature of the two great statements is the deep conviction in multilateralism.

The fact that President Samia chose to attend the UN General Assembly as her first trip outside Africa speaks volumes of her conviction and faith in multilateralism, while President Xi Jinping has stressed China’s firm support to multilateralism on a number of international occasions, including the 75th and 76th UN General Assembly, the World Economic Forum Virtual Event of the Davos Agenda, the 13th BRICS Summit, and the 21st Meeting of the Council of Heads of State of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).

As President Samia rightly pointed out, the onset of Covid-19 has given to all of us a lesson that we are deeply intertwined, and that unilateralism will not get us anywhere when it comes to challenges that transcends our national borders. She called for concerted efforts to address the devastating situation that 71 million people, mostly in the developing world, who got out extreme poverty are pushed back because of the pandemic.

Similarly, President Xi Jinping said in his statement that we must improve global governance and practice true multilateralism. To mitigate the severe impacts of Covid-19 pandemic on the world economy, President Xi proposed a Global Development Initiative, which includes six pillars, namely prioritization of development in global macro policy agenda, people-centred approach, benefits for all, innovation-driven development, harmony between man and nature, and result-oriented actions.

When explaining “benefits for all”, President Xi said, “We should care about the special needs of developing countries. We may employ such means as debt suspension and development aid to help developing countries, particularly vulnerable ones facing exceptional difficulties, with emphasis on addressing unbalanced and inadequate development among and within countries.”

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China has matched words with deeds. By May this year, China has signed debt suspension agreements or reached relevant consensus with 19 African countries, including Tanzania. Under the framework of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), China has waived repayment of the interest-free loans that matured at the end of 2020 for 15 African countries, which makes China the biggest contributor to the G20 Debt Service Suspension Initiative.

President Xi stressed in his statement the need to make vaccines a global public good and ensure vaccine accessibility and affordability in developing countries. He reiterated that China will strive to provide a total of two billion doses of vaccines to the world and donate 100 million doses of vaccines to other developing countries by the end of this year, in addition to donating 100 million US dollars to COVAX.

These proposals and pledges coincide with President Samia’s call for equitable distribution of Covid-19 vaccines. She said, “It is indispensable that countries with surplus Covid-19 vaccine doses share them with other countries”, and “it is our humble request that patent rights on Covid-19 vaccines should be waived for developing countries so that they can afford to produce the vaccines.”

Currently, two African countries, Egypt and Morocco, have signed agreements with Chinese pharmaceutical companies to locally manufacture Sinovac and Sinopharm vaccines respectively. It was reported last week that China’s Sinovac Biotech is in talks with Numolux Group for setting up a vaccine production facility in South Africa so as to get the vaccines out for the people in Africa as soon as possible. Considering the good relations between Tanzania and China, I see no hurdles in political will for the two countries to conduct similar cooperation.

At present, under the pretext of returning to multilateralism, some countries often claim to uphold the “rules-based international order”. In fact, they are imposing their own will and standards on others and replacing universally accepted international laws with rules formulated by a few countries.

It is against this backdrop that President Xi calls for true multilateralism, by which he means the international system with the UN at its core, the international order underpinned by international law, and the basic norms governing international relations underpinned by the purposes and principles of the UN Charter. To practice true multilateralism, countries in the world should strengthen the role of the UN in global governance, not weaken it.

As firm believers and strong advocates of true multilateralism, Tanzania and China should guard against the unilateral actions in the name of multilateralism, such as establishing military alliances targeted at a specific country and imposing economic sanctions together with allies on a sovereignty state on the excuse of “promoting democracy and protecting human rights”.