Alliance for a responsible, plural and united world

World citizens assembly
Lille – December 2-10, 2001

Regional Group

CHINA

Wang YI and Yu Shuo facilitated the Chinese group that worked on the priorities chosen among the 17 themes that had been kept during the sessions that had taken place two days before. Still using the cartography method, they first chose six priorities, taking into account the present situation of China and its relationships with the world. The participants then talked on the importance of those choices.

On the charter’s writing

1.	To add to the preamble : “Philosophy, art and culture are giving ground day by day in front of material desires. Ethical values are gravely ignored.”
2.	To be added to the seven principles :
·	To restore balance and harmony between men and women, men and society, material life and spiritual life, men and nature.
·	To add to point 4 : the material resources exploitation policy must not merely come under the States. Harmful consequences on the planet must be taken into account because nature belongs to the whole humanity.
·	To add to point 7 : “The world unification must benefit from cultural diversities (…).” “(…) Safeguarding traditional values is as important as the invention of new knowledge.”
·	To add the following point : “It is necessary to teach the young the meaning of co-living, solidarity, responsibility and multi-identity.”

The priorities of China in a world context.

1.	To change society implies that men change their way of thinking.
·	To rouse the awareness to ethics and responsibility and to live it.
·	To give to people the « keywords of human responsibility » by using art and other means so as to replace obsolete concepts.
·	To promote the sense of the acknowledgement of common values within different cultures. This common acknowledgement  is the foundation to understanding, tolerance and peace.
·	To replace the linear and dualistic way of thinking with a rational and complex one.
·	To teach how to understand the intrinsic bond between responsibility and man’s rights. Without man’s rights, responsibility means nothing.

2.	The urgency to reform the educational system
The educational system must not merely be devoted to the transmission of knowledge but it must also arouse the students’ wisdom, intelligence and a capacity to adapt to our society’s mutations.

3.	To reduce the feeling of instability and insecurity due to the contradictions and dilemmas of globalization. For instance: on one hand the entrance of China into the WTO is perceived as a means to regularize Chinese trade and fight bribery and on the other hand it arouses suspicion towards western “imperialism”.

4.    To elaborate a new juridical and ethical system, the foundation of which would be the « human responsibility Charter », to allow the control of world trade, new technologies development and the media.

5.   The context of the modernization of China and its entrance into the WTO sees the agricultural and rural problems increase day by day. 
Been given the importance of rural population, if no political solution to that problem is found, the stability of society is at risk. The GM food production must be limited and controlled not to endanger food security.

1.	Political solutions.
Institutional technical and financial warranties must be found to prevent the dramatic deterioration of the environment (zones : Changbai shan, Changjiang, West, Heilongjiang). The challenge is to restore and guarantee the balance between economic development and environment protection.

7.    To promote the development of civil society thanks to the elaboration of a juridical and institutional framework, the development of citizen awareness, the increase in number of autonomous and determined associations, the increase of the help and assistance to underprivileged populations, by going beyond national boundaries to build a world society.

Suggestions of concrete actions

·	To create an « ethical tax system » on certain products on sale that may offend certain persons : (for example erotic tapes)
·	To launch big civic and trans-national movements according to determined themes : reaforestation on the scale of Asia, to establish a level of reaforestation for each country, movements for water resources saving, artistic exchanges and the development of communication between the children of different countries and so on…
·	To set up a series of symbol of human responsibilities :
1.	To exhibit a sculpture in Lille in memory of the first World Citizen Assembly.
2.	To shoot a report on human responsibilities and distribute it around the globe.
3.	To come up with one directive in one sentence.
4.	To create a prize for human responsibilities (following the model of the Nobel prize for peace and the one for the respect of man’s rights)
5.	To choose a day celebrate human responsibilities (like Labour Day, World Environment Day…) 
·	To create a grant for human responsibilities to back up the following three actions :
1.	Inter-courses exchanges between teachers to promote the responsibility awareness of students.
2.	To publicize books, particularly a school book on responsibility ethics which would be distributed in all schools.
3.	To grant funds for research projects and colloquia to promote and go more into the reflection on human responsibilities.

·	To gather a trans-national group to reflect on the elaboration of a genuine civil society in China. To escape from the China-West dualism and encourage relations with non-western countries.
·	To set up an internet data base on the experience of human responsibilities actions and to set up international groups of experts.
·	To organize meetings to fight the common problems of Asia such as : regional security, water resources management, to solve the problem of GM food, acid rains and land deterioration. To reinforce the dialogue between peoples so as to increase their understanding one another and the cooperation in common researches for solutions.
·	To shortly organize a colloquium on world governance to allow the Chinese participants to exchange experiences regarding water management, the different types of associations, coordinated management of cities, to increase in number the exchanges at different levels between society and governments and so on…
·	To redefine the relationship between the peoples of China and Taiwan, ignoring national antagonisms and the concepts of race and territory in order to establish a cooperation founded on common will and principles.