Progress was striking in new partnerships, advances by China-led organizations and deeper involvement in world affairs

China's major diplomatic events in 2015, which started with the first ministerial meeting of the Forum of China and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States in January and ended with the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation in December, were milestones in its efforts to shoulder more international responsibilities as the world's second-largest economy and largest developing country.

With greater focus on strategic planning and efforts to bridge the gap between developed and developing economies, China helped reach a historic deal at the UN climate change conference in Paris in December. The Beijing-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, which was officially launched on Dec 25, six months after the article of agreement was signed by 57 founding members, was China's major attempt to reform global financial governance.

Confronted with the US-led Trans-Pacific Partnership, which 12 countries recently agreed to, as well as Washington's increasingly aggressive interventions in the South China Sea issue, Beijing has responded calmly but firmly, without losing its ground and relinquishing its legitimate interests.

To pursue the Chinese Dream, China aims to create a global community with a shared destiny. In this context, its attempts last year to reform international relations bore some results. As President Xi Jinping said during his September visit to the United States and at the UN Headquarters in New York, China is more than willing to help inject win-win cooperation into the "new model of major-power relationship" with the United States and international relations.

Proactive leadership diplomacy was another highlight of China's strategic role in international relations. The establishment of the AIIB, for example, would not have been so successful without the participation of major European economies like the United Kingdom, which top Chinese leaders visited several times over the past year to convince their counterparts of its mutually beneficial nature.

Xi dedicated almost one-third of his time to the country's diplomatic events last year, including 42 days on foreign visits. Premier Li Keqiang, too, has been tactically efficient in seeking transnational cooperation in the fields of nuclear power and telecommunications, bringing home a host of key business deals, and tapping into overseas markets.

Beijing's efforts, of course, have borne fruits in many areas. With its diplomatic network expanding, Beijing has established comprehensive strategic partnerships with 67 countries and five international organizations, and a "global comprehensive strategic partnership for the 21st century" with the UK, which many say could be the beginning of a "golden era" of bilateral relations.

The embedded demonstrative effects are also evident in the Belt and Road Initiative, which at least 60 countries and international organizations have supported. Moreover, China has inked a memorandum of cooperation on production capacity with more than 20 economies, injecting fresh momentum into its neighborhood diplomacy.

The international community has come to value China's global contributions to poverty alleviation, the world economy and UN peacekeeping missions, along with its philosophy of development.

Since the 2008 global financial crisis China's average contribution to global economic growth has been 30 percent or more, almost twice as much as the US'. And China's pragmatic participation in the Development Center of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in July and the annual G20 summit in Turkey in November helped promote its social governance and diplomatic ideas worldwide.

China's active participation on the world stage is the key to fulfilling the world's increasing demand for quality public goods, which also explains the success of the AIIB and the Belt and Road Initiative, made up of the Silk Road Economic Belt and 21st Century Maritime Silk Road. In particular, that Europe now plays a bigger part in China's foreign policy - as its newly acquired membership in the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development indicates - is a source of hope for the country's future success in diplomacy.

The author is a professor of international relations, Renmin University of China. The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.

(China Daily European Weekly 01/08/2016 page13)