On December 10, 2025, an article titled “Bring Together ‘Her Power’ for a Bright Future” by H.E. Lu Xu, Chinese Ambassador to Malawi, was published in the Nation and Daily Times, sharing the essence of the keynote speech delivered by Chinese President Xi Jinping at the opening ceremony of the Global Leaders’ Meeting on Women, as well as introducing China’s new progress on women’s development. The following is the full text of the article:

On October 13th, the Global Leaders met at Beijing in aim of promoting gender equality and expanding women empowerment. 

The summit carried an additional layer of historical significance: It is on the landmark occasion of the 30th anniversary of the Fourth World Conference on Women held in Beijing, where the  Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action was adopted, embedding gender equality into the agenda of modern times and galvanizing the like-minded into unwavering pursuit of that goal.

President Xi Jinping delivered a keynote speech at the summit, pointing out that the greatest respect for human civilization is to create a new form of civilization, in which women’s all-round development plays an essential part. He also highlighted China’s role as the major advancing force in this regard, and gender equality and women development as integral components of Chinese modernization.

The century-long journey of the Communist Party of China (CPC) is also a journey of women for liberation and development. From the first-time presence of women at the First National Congress of the CPC, to the first publication of the women’s journal by the Party, the CPC has secured historic achievements in the cause of women’s development through years of hard work. Today, Chinese women make up 43 percent of the total employed population, and represent one third of the workforce in new business forms such as digital trade and e-commerce. In frontier technologies such as artificial intelligence, women represent nearly half of the talent. 

On the new journey of Chinese modernization, hundreds of millions of women are writing a splendid history. The accomplishment, happiness and security enjoyed by women in China has reached an unprecedented height, where the average life expectancy of women has been to 80.9 years, maternal and child health to the level of upper-middle-income countries, free and equal access to high education secured, and 690 million women claimed moderate prosperous standard of living.

Besides, China actively provides support for global women’s development, and earnestly fulfills its obligations under international conventions such as the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. China has extended tangible support to women across developing countries. More than 100 specialized training programs have been conducted for women and children in the Global South. Projects such as the “Spring Bud” and the “Water Cellar for Mothers” have been carried out constantly, improving the livelihood of millions of women globally.

Meanwhile, complex challenges still hamper women’s all-round development globally. Gender equality remains a lofty yet arduous task, while deep-rooted problems such as violence and starvation still persist. Over 600 million women and girls are still mired in war and conflict, and around 10 percent of women and girls are trapped in extreme poverty. 

To this end, President Xi Jinping made four proposals to address such global challenges.

First, an enabling environment for women’s development needs to be fostered, in which the principle of common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security should be upheld, the safety of women and girls in regions overwhelmed by war, conflict, poverty or natural disaster should be protected, and all forms of violence against women and girls should be prohibited. 

Second, a powerful momentum for women’s development in high quality needs to be cultivated through innovation, enabling all women to play an even bigger role in green development, and to share the benefits of economic globalization. The imbalance and inadequacy of women’s development around the world should be addressed.

Third, a governance framework to protect women’s rights and interests needs to be formulated, in which institutions and laws should be improved to channel more health and educational resources to all women, and the inclusive and harmonious social environment should be promoted to set women free from discrimination and bias, to support their extensive engagement in state and social governance, and to morph gender equality into a common value and a code of conduct embraced by everyone in society.

Fourth, a new chapter to promote global cooperation on women needs to be written jointly, in which the essential role of U.N. should be emphasized to meet the needs of women in developing countries, to create broad cooperation platforms for women from all countries to continually deepen exchanges and mutual learning, and to enable women to assume their historic responsibilities in the sphere of global governance and to benefit from it. 

To implement these proposals, President Xi Jinping announced five concrete measures to be conducted by the Chinese government in the next five years: 

-- To donate another US$10 million to U.N. Women;

-- To earmark a quota of US$100 million in China’s Global Development and South-South Cooperation Fund for implementing development projects for women and girls, in collaboration with international organizations; 

-- To launch 1,000 “small but rewarding” livelihood programs with Chinese assistance that take women and girls as priority beneficiaries; 

-- To invite 50,000 women to China for exchange and training programs; 

-- To establish a Global Center for Women in term of capacity building.

To echo the measures above, I am happy to announce that over US$2,000,000 will be donated shortly to the UNICEF Malawi by China’s Global Development and South-South Cooperation Fund to end preventable maternal and newborn death, as the MOU signed indicates.

As the first female Chinese Ambassador to Malawi, I’m delighted to see Malawian women are playing more important role, and I have the privilege of meeting many of them who step out of home and make tremendous contributions to this nation. I am ready to deepen cooperation together with Malawian side on implementation of the consensus reached at the summit, so as to better unleash the power of women, and bring the cause of women’s development to a new altitude.