The Communist Party of Ireland attended, at the invitation of the Communist Party of China, a high-level dialogue between the CPC and Political Parties from across the world. General Secretary of the CPC and President of the People’s Republic of China, Xi Jinping, attended the meeting and delivered a key-note speech.
The key theme of Xi’s speech was modernisation. The current global context is one of a widening wealth gap between North-South, ecological collapse and the dangers of power-politics. Xi called for an alternative to the New Cold War mentality and instead proposed focusing on people-centred development, saying that “people are the creators of history.”
He said that China was focused on assisting developing countries to industrialise and instead of expansion, China is interested in promoting global prosperity.
In total, representatives from nearly 500 political parties attended the dialogue. Several national leaders, such as Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua, Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela and Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa addressed the meeting following Xi’s speech. Other speakers supported the need for multipolarity and an end to US imperialist control and denial of sovereignty to countries attempting their own path to development.
The CPI was the only Irish political party in attendance. A number of fraternal Communist Parties attended the dialogue.
