China’s Embrace of the UN Post-2015 Development Agenda

Since the 1990s, the United Nations has issued three agendas for global development cooperation. China’s attitude toward these agendas has also undergone three phases: from cautious passivity at first, to active yet restrained involvement, and to fully embracing them. On January 1, 2016, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) replaced the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) as the primary goals for global development cooperation in the next 15 years. But there are substantial differences between the SDGs and MDGs, which will inevitably exert significant impacts on China’s domestic development and its involvement in international cooperation. In its response, China should carefully examine its strengths and constraints before making a comprehensive national strategy for sustainable development, so as to advance domestic structural reforms and facilitate its commitment to the implementation of the SDGs. Meanwhile, China should actively push forward international collaboration in line with its opening-up policy, including South-South and South-North cooperation, as well as new mechanisms for trilateral cooperation. All these efforts will contribute to the establishment of new global partnerships for common development and the fulfillment of the SDGs.