Give Full Play to People-to-people Diplomacy Maintain Peace and Promote Development ---The 30-year development course of the Chinese People's Association for Peace and Disarmament

Give Full Play to People-to-people Diplomacy Maintain Peace and Promote Development
---The 30-year development course of the Chinese People's Association for Peace and Disarmament

On October 30th， 2015， the meeting in commemoration of the 30thAnniversary of Founding of the Chinese People's Association for Peace and Disarmament （CPAPD for short）was convened in Beijing. Mr. LI Yuanchao，Chinese Vice President and Member of the Political Bureau of the CPCCC attended the Commemoration and delivered an important speech. Mr. HAN Qide， Vice President of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference （CPPCC for short）， President of the CPAPD， and Mr. WANG Jiarui， Vice President of the CPPCC and Minister of the International Department of the CPCCC， were also present at the meeting.

LI Yuanchao pointed out that the CPAPD had done well in holding high the banner of peace and making enormous effective efforts in the past 30 years. During this process， the CPAPD never forgets to exert its feature of people-to-people diplomacy and unite forces for peace. At current stage， the Chinese people are working hard to realize the two centennial goals and the Chinese dream of great national rejuvenation. The above goals cannot be achieved without peaceful international environment or a stable international order， and must be accompanied by understanding，support and help from peoples across the world. LI Yuanchao further raised his expectations for the CPAPD as an organization that can continuously give unique features to people-to-people diplomacy. He hoped that the CPAPD can take opportunities to widely publicize China as a peace-loving country and its notion of peace. Besides， LI Yuanchao added that the CPAPD should further promote China's firm belief in realizing peace and development and the road China sticks to. It is expected that the CPAPD serves as a good promoter of China's peaceful development and helps create a favorable international environment for realizing the Chinese dreams.

Ever since the founding in 1985， the CPAPD has always stuck to its objectives and received widespread recognition from theinternational community. It has actively conducted the peaceful people-to-people diplomacy and been designated as the United Nation's （U.N. for short） Peace Messenger in 1986. The CPAPD also enjoys Consultative Status with ECOSOC and Associative Status with DPI of the U.N.

I. The CPAPD serves as an important tie connecting China with other countries by establishing extensive and intimate network with international friends.

The CPAPD bases its work on neighboring countries and focuses its exchanges and cooperation on leading peace institutes and think-tanks in major countries of Europe or the United States， and other developing countries. The CPAPD also selects to participate in NGO activities under the U.N. framework and has established exchanges in flexible and various forms with more than 300 NGOs and research institutions in about 90 countries. It is righteous to say that the CPAPD has played an active role in connecting China and the world through building a wide and close network of friends and the channel of people-to-people communication.

Ever since， the CPAPD has attached great importance to the project of Making Friends and gradually expanded its own “Friends Circle” across the globe. From 2011 to 2015，while still basing its work on neighboring countries， the CPAPD took concrete steps of Making Friends and started to tilt the exchange program towards developing countries in Africa and Latin America， and peace organizations in a few European countries. The CPAPD has received 251 friends of 18 delegations， covering 54 countries in the past 5 years. Through persistent friends-making efforts， the CPAPD has established solid contacts with a group of friendly organizations and people， which all lead to remarkable working effects.

II. The CPAPD closely follows the trend of international security and actively promotes China's peaceful diplomacy.

The CPAPD has always been fertile in producing influential research papers. The CPAPD closely focuses on the trend of international， regional and nuclear security， and conducts structural research on people-to-people diplomacy and international NGO activities， etc.. In the past few years， the CPAPD updated its research agenda with the times and added new topic such as “security challenges facing the Belt and Road Initiative”to its research programs. Besides， the CPAPD also actively stepped out for cooperation with think-tanks across the globe， and often invited scholars and experts from home and abroad to explore and discuss about international situation. For more than two decades， for example， the CPAPD-Chinese Scientists Group has continued its communication in disarmament with American Academy of Science； the CPAPD has successively convened the PIIC International Security Conference for 14 editions. The CPAPD has become one of China's key security institutes due to the persistent and effective work it has accomplished on security research.

The CPAPD takes full advantage of various multi-lateral and bi-lateral platforms such as the U.N.， and actively promotes China's policies such as the active defense，no-first-use of nuclear weapons and peaceful solution of international disputes. The CPAPD advocates the complete prohibition and thorough destruction of nuclear weapons， and the countries with the largest nuclear arsenal should take the lead in effective reduction of their arsenals The CPAPD appeals to prevent the weaponization of and an arms race in outer space. Besides， it points out that international community should give up the nuclear deterrence based on the first use of nukes and abandon the zero-sum and cold war mindsets. The CPAPD also continues to strengthen its publicizing capacity， for the production of its quarterly journal PEACE grows from the initial few hundred copies to more than 1000 now，which are mailed to more than 100 countries and regions.

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III. The CPAPD becomes an important platform to unite peaceful forces by actively promoting its brands

Together with China Association for Science and Technology and other organizations， the CPAPD has continuously convened the U.N. International Week of Science and Peace for 26 years ever since 1988. Former CPC and national leaders such as Jiang Zemin， Yang Shangkun， Li Peng and Qiao Shi had all sent their inscriptions for the previous events. People who had participated in these events amounted to more than 100 million，among whom were mainly scientists， students and entrepreneurs. In recent years， the CPAPD actively echoed the call from the U.N. and successfully organized 6 annual national events of the Commemoration of the International Day of Peace since 2009. The CPAPD's efforts have won the attention from both home and abroad. China's national leaders such as Li Yuanchao， Wang Yang， Wang Gang and Han Qide have all participated in the Commemoration events， and UN's Secretary General， Mr. Ban Ki-moon has sent his congratulatory message on video each year for this event. These two brand annual events that the CPAPD is dedicated to building have already become an important platform of spreading peaceful concepts and uniting peace-loving people under the banner of peace.