China’s Wang Yi calls on Global South to make voice heard in changing world order

Name: Chinese foreign minister Qin Gang ousted after month-long absence
Uploaded: 2023-07-26T09:49:17.000Z
Duration: 1 min 58 s
Description: Chinese foreign minister Qin Gang ousted after month-long absence

Call from Communist Party foreign affairs chief at Brics meeting in South Africa comes as Beijing names him to replace Qin Gang as foreign minister

China is a ‘natural member’ of the Global South, Wang Yi says, in clear reference to US efforts to have it placed on developed countries list

2-MIN READ2-MIN

Wang Yi (second left), with senior Brics officials (from left) Nikolay Patrushev of Russia, Khumbudzo Ntshavheni of South Africa, India’s Ajit Doval and Celso Luiz Nunes Amorim of Brazil, in South Africa’s Johannesburg on Tuesday. Photo: Xinhua

Zhao Ziwen

Published: 5:49pm, 26 Jul 2023Updated: 7:33pm, 26 Jul 2023

China’s top diplomat and newly reappointed Foreign Minister Wang Yi has called on the Global South to “expand their voice” in a changing world order, and “support each other on issues of mutual core interests and major concerns”.

“[The Global South] needs to be united and cooperative, advocate the principle of common cause and shared responsibility … [and] support the United Nations in playing an active role in international affairs,” Wang told a Brics group meeting in Johannesburg on Tuesday, using the collective term for developing countries and emerging economies.

The call from Wang, who heads the ruling Communist Party of China’s foreign affairs commission, came as Beijing named him as foreign minister in place of Qin Gang, who took on the role in December but has not been seen in public for more than a month. Qin had succeeded Wang, who had held the post since 2013.

01:58

Chinese foreign minister Qin Gang ousted after month-long absence

“[We] should oppose hegemony and power politics,” Wang said during Tuesday’s meeting, which was attended by national security officials from Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, the emerging economies after whom the informal Brics bloc is named.

China is a “natural member” of the Global South and “will always be a member of the developing world family”, Wang said, in a clear reference to persistent US efforts to have the world’s No 2 economy placed on the developing countries list.

Wang and the other Brics officials are in South Africa’s financial capital for a series of meetings ahead of a leaders’ summit next month. Chinese President Xi Jinping is expected to lead a large business delegation to what will be the first in-person Brics summit since the coronavirus pandemic.

Wang’s remarks come as Brics members face a more divided global security situation, amid unprecedented US-China rivalry and Russia’s continued military operations in Ukraine.

04:00

Brazil’s President Lula meets with Xi, seeks to expand trade, Chinese investments and talk Ukraine