SEOUL, An annual global peace forum on the southern resort island of Jeju ended its three-day run on Saturday, with participants calling for stronger collective action to tackle climate change, pandemics, security threats and other cross-border challenges.
The three-day Jeju Forum for Peace and Prosperity hammered home the importance of multilateralism amid concerns about an escalating Sino-U.S. rivalry as well as lingering unilateralism, nationalism and protectionism in some quarters of the world.
The forum brought together former and current senior government officials, scholars, experts and civil society members, including former U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, former Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva and former French President Francois Hollande.
For some participants, the main theme of the forum -- "Sustainable Peace and Inclusive Prosperity" -- marked a chastening reminder of the current world beset by acrimonious geopolitical tensions, weak global governance, inequalities and constant threats of arms races.
They pinned hopes on growing international efforts to shore up multilateral cooperation, including the endeavor by the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden who departed from the inward-looking, America-first policy credo of his predecessor, Donald Trump.
"The U.S today is different. America is back again. The Biden administration is building multinational and multilateral networks supported by many countries," Jeju Gov. Won Hee-ryong said during the opening ceremony of the forum on Friday.
However, the common thread running through a series of forum sessions was an emphasis on the need for Washington and Beijing to defuse their increasingly acrimonious rivalry and expand areas of cooperation, particularly on climate change.
"Even amid escalating competition between the two countries, we will have to find room for continued strategic cooperation on critical global challenges in a number of defined areas," Rudd said.
"(Cooperation) should certainly be possible now between the U.S. and China," he said, stressing climate change, pandemics and nuclear arms control as "examples where cooperation will be necessary" for the interests of the two countries and the world.
On the climate change front, participants shared the view that the world should act more urgently and proactively.
"Climate change is steadily worsening with super storms, extreme heat, flooding, fires and droughts -- all expanding both in frequency and intensity," Ban said.
"I firmly believe that we have a generational opportunity to build back better, help synergize climate action and steer our planet and humanity towards a more luminous future with your effort," he added.
Among the hotly debated issues were the equitable distribution of COVID-19 vaccines and how the world can work together to spur economic recovery from the pandemic.
"This year, we see the problem of unfair allocation of vaccines, which is not only is unjust, but it's also going to be delaying the ability of the world to overcome the pandemic," Vejjajiva warned.
Since its launch in 2001, the forum has grown into a regional multilateral dialogue platform for promoting sustainable peace and prosperity on the peninsula and beyond. It became an annual event in 2011 after having been held biennially.
Source: Yonhap News Agency