Interview: China leads by its own example in building a community with a shared future for mankind

"China gives a very good example. It supports the international institutions while it attempts to make peace with other countries and provide a place where people can discuss peace and the future," Martin Albrow, a fellow of the British Academy of Social Sciences, told Xinhua in an exclusive interview.

While expounding on China's views on international affairs at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations in 2013, Chinese President Xi Jinping called for forging a community with a shared future for mankind, where each person has a stake in the other. Since then, the concept has evolved into a vision with global significance, and has been recognized by more and more countries and international organizations.

Albrow told Xinhua that for the vision of shared future to be embraced by even more countries, China should continue to lead by its own example and advance the vision through practice, citing the old adage "practice makes perfect."

He took the achievements China has made in the past decade in ecological and environmental protection as an example. "It's very important that the rest of the world sees that China is promoting its own idea of ecological civilization. It is, in fact, advancing the idea of a green future," he said.

"That's very important for the rest of the world to see that China is doing for itself what it is recommending to others," he added.

Reacting to the misconception about the community with a shared future for mankind, especially in the West, that it is just a utopia, Albrow said the two ideas are not compatible.

"The shared future can't be a utopia, because utopias are fixed. The idea of a utopia is a perfect state of society, which doesn't change," he said. "Utopia never comes. That is not a notion which is compatible with the idea of the continual development of human abilities and technology."

Albrow, author of the book "China and the Shared Human Future: Exploring Common Values and Goals," said the idea of shared future has two dimensions to it.

One is the development of the international institutions which allow countries to cooperate on shared interests. These institutions are very often regional, relating to things such as trade and common security. The other is the global level, which addresses those challenges that affect the future of the globe as a whole.

He hailed the recent progress at the United Nations in protecting ocean life in international waters, as the whole world got together to deal with what is a global issue.

"This (global level) is the more important level. Those challenges are not addressed by simply regional or small group partnerships; these have to be addressed by the whole world, considering the fate of the earth," he said.