Daily Inspiration Quote by Li Peng

Count the countries, cite the billions, then slide in the real demand: don’t let “a few powers” run the table. Li Peng’s line works because it wraps a hard-edged geopolitical claim in the language of arithmetic and fairness. The numbers are doing the moral work. If the world is that large, the argument goes, any system dominated by a small club is not just unjust but irrational.

“Consultations” is the key euphemism. It sounds procedural and civilized, a technocratic alternative to coercion. In practice it signals a preference for sovereignty-first diplomacy: no interventions, no sanctions regimes dictated from Washington (or any other capital), no humanitarian pretexts that can be weaponized into regime change. The phrasing is also carefully defensive. By positioning “international affairs” as something that should be handled collectively, Li is not championing liberal internationalism so much as insulating states - especially powerful, non-Western ones - from external scrutiny.

The subtext is post-Cold War anxiety about a unipolar moment. In the 1990s and early 2000s, as U.S.-led coalitions asserted themselves through NATO expansion, the Balkans, and later the rhetoric of democracy promotion, Beijing framed itself as the advocate of a multipolar order. Li Peng, long associated with the party’s security-first instincts, is selling that vision as democratic pluralism between states, not within them.

It’s persuasive rhetoric because it borrows the cadence of inclusion while quietly shifting the definition of legitimacy: not human rights benchmarks, but the consent of governments.