A senior Chinese official has called for multilateralism to better maintain world peace, stressing that multilateralism is the sole solution to the world's problems.

Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wang Yi made the appeal at the 14th Ministerial Conference of the 116-member Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), which opened Thursday morning in Durban, a coastal city in South Africa.

Wang, who was attending the one-day NAM meeting as an observer, said China maintains that the establishment of a new international order which is fair and rational, the realization of democracy and rule of law in international relations and the promotion of multi-polarization represent the only way to facilitate the development of multilateralism.

The war on Iraq, he said, once deepened the suspicion of the international community over the effectiveness of multilateral cooperation.

"Unilateralist behavior, represented by the pre-emptive strategy, deals a blow to the collective security mechanism, posing one of the most severe challenges to multilateralism in the 21st century," he told the meeting of foreign ministers.

Wang called for a strengthening role of the United Nations, saying the world body, at the core of the international multilateral mechanism, is the best venue to exercise multilateralism.

"A bigger role of the United Nations and a better international multilateral mechanism will be the most important embodiment of strong multilateralism," he explained.

The Chinese official also emphasized the importance of the extensive participation and equal status of developing countries in promoting multilateralism.

"Without extensive participation and equal status of the vast majority of the developing countries, we can by no means realize democracy in international relations or a fair and rational international order, let alone stronger multilateralism," he said.

The 14th NAM ministerial conference, with the theme "Challenges for Multilateralism in the 21st Century," came at a time when the threat of large-scale international terrorism and made it clear that multilateral cooperation is the only way to grapple with transnational challenges of global peace and security, and when progress on the development goals, agreed to at major international conferences over the past years, needs to be accelerated.

Almost all major issues around the world, such as Israel's construction of a separation barrier in the West Bank, will be considered by the participants.

Other specific topics to be discussed at the meeting include post conflict peace-building activities, terrorism, peaceful settlement of disputes, North-South dialogue, South-South cooperation, external debt, and food security.

A statement, called the Final Document, will be adopted at the end of the meeting, putting forward NAM's positions on the issues.

NAM, the largest political grouping outside the United Nations, mainly consisting of developing countries, originated in a 1955 meeting of 29 Asian and African countries, at which heads of state discussed issues of common concern including colonialism and the influence of the West.

The principles of the movement, including "respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all nations," and "settlement of all international disputes by peaceful means in conformity with the United Nations Charter," remain valid more than 40 years later.

China is one of the 29 participants of the 1955 Asia-Africa Conference in Bandung, Indonesia, which led to the establishment of NAM in 1961. It became an observer to NAM in 1992.

Source: Xinhua