STORY: Munich conference closes with calls to jointly address global security challenges
SHOOTING TIME: Feb. 18, 2024
DATELINE: Feb. 19, 2024
LENGTH: 00:02:40
LOCATION: MUNICH, Germany
CATEGORY: POLITICS

SHOTLIST:
1. various of the MSC
2. STANDUP (English): YUAN HENGRUI, Xinhua correspondent
3. various of the MSC
4. SOUNDBITE 1 (English): MIA MOTTLEY, Barbados Prime Minister
5. SOUNDBITE 2 (English): ALI SABRY, Sri Lankan Foreign Minister

STORYLINE:

STANDUP (English): YUAN HENGRUI, Xinhua correspondent
"The 60th Munich Security Conference concluded on Sunday, emphasizing the necessity of enhancing cooperation and improving global governance. Ongoing conflicts, including the Ukraine crisis and the Israel-Hamas conflict, were among the focal points of discussion during the three-day conference."

During the conference, decision-makers and world elites held insightful debates on the urgent need to improve international order, so that every party involved can reap benefits more equally, and agreed that positive-sum cooperation should be firmly advocated as no one is immune from a global pool of threats and risks including climate change, regional conflicts and artificial intelligence.

This year's motto for the MSC, "lose-lose," which was put forward in the 2024 Munich Security Report, sums up a prevailing and conspicuous mindset of the West: facing a volatile global situation and changing geopolitical environment, governments seek to "de-risk" and prioritize "relative gains."

The report noted that the mentality of prioritizing relative payoffs may spur "lose-lose dynamics" of inter-governmental interactions while jeopardizing cooperation and undermining the international order, thus creating a vicious cycle.

While noting the anxiety of developed countries in the West, the report also pointed to the dissatisfaction of developing countries in the Global South for not receiving their due benefits.

The Global South, which has become an increasingly important part of the security discussions in Munich in recent years, also called for enhanced cooperation and collaboration.

SOUNDBITE 1 (English): MIA MOTTLEY, Barbados Prime Minister
"The economic construct that saw the extraction of commodities without value from, particularly, the Global South. But it can't be the voice of one or two in speeches or conferences such as this, and what the global system misses is an effective mechanism for decision-making."

SOUNDBITE 2 (English): ALI SABRY, Sri Lankan Foreign Minister
"It is important that international organizations come together, map out strategies, share knowledge, and the facts, as well as data which is available. It is in that sense I thought it is a shared responsibility for the whole world that we work together in a collaborative manner in all these different layers, internationally, regionally, nationally, as well as locally. So my request is to walk the talk."

Xinhua News Agency correspondents reporting from Munich, Germany.
(XHTV)