On November 1, Vice-Chairman Feng Wei virtually attended the “2021 International Symposium on Arctic Navigation Safety and Sustainable Development” and delivered remarks on the behalf of CIIDS.

Feng Wei points out that CIIDS is paying more attention to the Arctic governance and its sustainable development with the rising strategic status of Arctic in recent years, and created the Center for Arctic Sustainability Studies last year which has since been focusing on Arctic studies and academic exchanges with commendable research results. CIIDS will increase its support to the Arctic studies and cooperation and help raise the status of Arctic studies within the overall national strategy.

Feng points out that CIIDS was founded by Chairman Zheng Bijian with a group of leading Chinese theorists and strategists as members. CIIDS consistently embraces the doctrine of “China’s peaceful rise” and believes that China can rise peacefully together with a large number of developing countries while the developed countries can peacefully re-develop. CIIDS proposes that China should seek convergence of common interests and build communities of interests with as many countries as possible and in as many areas as possible, and eventually push for building the community of shared future for mankind based on the communities of interests. In the new phase of China’s peaceful development, the concept of “China’s peaceful rise” is being upheld and promoted centering on General Secretary Xi Jinping’s idea of “community of shared future for mankind”. Theoretic and strategic innovations are also needed in the Arctic studies with the aim of building a system of Arctic studies in keeping with the peaceful rise of China and contributing Chinese proposals and wisdom to the Arctic governance and its sustainable development. And we believe it is the historical mission of the Chinese think tanks in the new era to promote for seeking and expanding the convergence of interests among the Arctic stakeholders and building communities of interests in the Arctic governance and sustainable development so as to eventually build a community of shared future for the Arctic based on shared interests.

The symposium was hosted by the People’s Government of Dalian Municipality, China Institute of Navigation and Dalian Maritime University with the CIIDS Center for Arctic Sustainability Studies as co-host. Organizers included Polar Navigation and Safety Research Institute of Dalian Maritime University etc. More than 200 participants at home and abroad, including experts and scholars from central government agencies, universities, research institutes and related think tanks attended the symposium in person or virtually.