Under One Heaven

In the China Story Yearbook 2014: Shared Destiny, we take as our theme a concept emphasised by Xi Jinping, the leader of China's partystate, in October 2013 when he spoke of the People's Republic being part of a Community of Shared Destiny, officially translated as a Community of Common Destiny. The expression featured in Chinese pronouncements from as early as 2007 when it was declared that the Mainland and Taiwan formed a Community of Shared Destiny. Addressing the issue of China's relations with the countries that surround it at the inaugural Periphery Diplomacy Work Forum held in Beijing on 24 October 2013, Xi Jinping further developed the idea when he summed up the engagement between the People's Republic and its neighbours by using a series of 'Confucian-style' one-word expressions: positive bilateral and multilateral relationships were to be based on amity, sincerity, mutual benefit and inclusiveness.