“Political correctness, commonly abbreviated to PC, is a term which, in modern usage, is used to describe language, policies, or measures which are intended not to offend or disadvantage any particular group of people in society. In the media, the term is generally used as a pejorative, implying that these policies are excessive.”

——Wikipedia

Political Correctness, as a political term, often appears in domestic politics. What we are highly familiar with is the statuses of African American in the USA, the rights of women in Japan and South Korea, and the citizenship of Palestinian people in Israel. However, if you observe the international relations for a period, you will easily find the same phenomena in all the international platforms, which, as an implication, maybe immediately remind you of the comparison between the basic principles in the United Nations Charter and the international practice in reality. For example, the article 2.4 in the charter says “All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations,” while the reality was the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, etc.

However, what I want to say is not that simple.

Last year, the United Nations declared the ending of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which was announced by the Secretary-General and the political heads around the world in 2000. After this 15-year global framework, this year, Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a replacement has been directing the whole world. If we review the past 15 years, we have to admit that the MDGs indeed solve a lot of problems and push the global progress. But the question is the Cost-Benefit Analysis.

According to my personal memory during last two years in China only and in the fields of Model United Nations Conferences (MUNC) only, I saw a series of conferences addressing the MDGs that were actually beyond my capability to count. Last year, the final year of the MDGs, there were thousands of MUNCs, most of which mentioned the MDGs. Countless youth delegates were involved one after another. Finally, I heard and also witnessed that someone just copied the papers from the conferences he had participated in before even without any modification. Besides MUNCs, we can have a long list of activities and campaigns named or nominally relevant to MDGs, the length of which, I believe, can be the equivalent of three times around the earth. What I mean here is not to deny the values and impacts of such publicities and campaigns. Instead, I just want to ask a question. That is, are those a little bit excessive?

Several days ago, I participated in ASEM Youth Week in Conjunction with Model ASEM Ha Noi 2016 which was in the name of Zero Hunger Challenge. During the conference, just like what I guess, delegates naturally discussed the topic under the perspective of SDGs and Paris Agreement of COP21. Personally, it was my first conference addressing the SDGs, and I believe this would definitely not be the last one. Globally, this could just be an unknown conference having been covered by a series of conferences in which a lot of celebrities and figures appeared. And this phenomenon will last 15 years until 2030 as the 2030 agenda said.

Also in the Model ASEM Hanoi 2016, some delegates and I were sent to visit the EU Commission Embassy in Hanoi by the organizing committee. We met a diplomat who just transferred from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Belgium to EU Commission for only several months. In my opinion, if someone works for too long in a special atmosphere or under a certain mission, he may be infected with some continuing obsession with what he is doing. For example, the diplomats who work in EU may have continuing obsession of European integration. However, for this “new” EU diplomat, I thought his answer about the future of European integration would be different and interesting. So I threw the questions to him. He returned me an uncertain and certain future. What was uncertain was that the future was up to the leaders’ eyesight and efforts. What was certain was the things the EU had done would not be accepted easily by people to conceal or abandon. I did agree on the former one. As for the latter one, my interpretation was any bureaucratic would not kill themselves for any purposes regardless of sacred ones or vile ones.

Yesterday, I watched a TED talk that was about how a “global citizen” advocated people as global citizens to address global issues with global solutions. It of course sounds inspiring and meaningful, and I do appreciate the speakers’ efforts and successes he demonstrated. However, I have my reservations about what he did for publicity of global citizens. He launched a grand carnival with popular artistic stars and political stars to attract thousands of people to pay attention, to show their supports, and of course to have fun. Although he successfully raised 50 million USD, how much he did he spend? And if we put aside the numbers, dose it really realize those high-sounding slogans？

At the macro level, we can clearly see a process of democratization of international relations. Since the 1970s, this process was resulted by the trend of multi-polarization and the decline of hegemony. But up to now, this process of democratization has been deepened into individual level. Individuals even the ordinary people without any prestigious titles are now playing increasingly important roles in the global issues, who indeed make marvelous contributions. Meanwhile, another phenomenon has been popular, which is just doing anything in the name of the people, and putting the issues into the whole world people’s daily agenda with attractive forms. As a result, a lot of campaigns have been spreading up, which gives me a feeling that Socialists’ principle and practice like Mass Line (doing everything for the masses, relying on them in every task, carrying out the principle of “from the masses, to the masses”) have been recognized by the whole world.

I still have the question that actually was asked by me to a keynote speaker in the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris. That is, what do you think of the pollution in the name of anti-pollution, the exacerbation of climate change in the name of addressing climate change? In details, should these over 15 thousand delegates, who are from 150 states around the world flying to Paris for such negotiation but resulting in a great deal of carbon emission because of flights and a great amount of water and chemical pollution because of their distribution of countless high quality materials for publicity of their efforts to gain more benefits in the negotiation?

The keynote speaker answered me briefly, “young man, don’t be extreme environmentalist.”

Nowadays, the first public election of UN Secretary-General is going on. Based on their speeches and the former practices, any promises targeting at efficiency in my guess will finally target at creating more institutions and positions and, in the opposite, harm the efficiency. Why? Because of political correctness, which reminds me of the British classic revue, Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister.

And why can classic ones be classic? Because they can always be seen in the reality.