Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in Shanghai on Friday, saying China is ready to deepen all-round cooperation with the United Nations and support the organization in building a more just and equitable global governance system.
The UN secretary-general is in Shanghai to attend the 2026 World AI Conference (WAIC) and High-Level Meeting on Global AI Governance. He also attended the signing ceremony for the agreement establishing the World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization.
Wang, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, said multipolarity is an inevitable trend in historical development, and stressed that the United Nations must be strengthened, not weakened.
Wang added that the more turbulent the international situation becomes, the more important it is to uphold the authority and central role of the United Nations.
"We have always believed that the United Nations should spearhead the development of AI. We established this organization with like-minded countries to support the United Nations' work. We also hope that all countries will make their own efforts in the same direction," Wang said.
Guterres said the UN is committed to working with China to uphold international law and improve global governance with China's continued support.
He also shared his views on the relationship between AI and global governance.
"We are totally committed to having, as it was said, an AI for good and AI for all. AI for good, of course, has to do with the way of governance. And the way of governance, we should not be afraid of it because we need global governance of AI," said Guterres.
China supports UN in advancing global governance: Chinese FM
Rally participants gathered in the Japanese capital on Aug 9, which also marked the 81st anniversary of the Nagasaki atomic bombing, to voice strong opposition to the government's push to boost defense spending and revise the war-renouncing Article 9 of the national Constitution.
Holding anti-war placards, chanting anti-war slogans, protesters warned that remilitarizing the nation would betray its pacifist ideals and endanger future generations.
"Defense spending keeps increasing. Based on Article 9 of the Constitution, Japan pledged never to wage war again, yet it keeps strengthening its military. I find this extremely dangerous. They are also trying to revise Article 9. So I believe that for the sake of future young people and children, Article 9 must never be revised. Japan decided never to repeat the mistakes of waging a war after its defeat in WWII. I think we should continue to safeguard that commitment," said a rally participant.
For many in the crowd, the shadow of Hiroshima and Nagasaki remains a powerful moral compass as they believe that militarization offers no path forward for a nation that knows the devastation of war firsthand.
"Japan is the only country in the world to have suffered atomic bombings. Yet now Japan is going to deploy missiles. I believe Japan must never possess nuclear weapons," said another rally participant.
"I believe Japan has no future if it goes down the path of militarization. Nuclear weapons are absolutely bad for Japan," said a third woman, also a rally participant.
Beyond moral objections, some demonstrators said that Japan's economic vulnerabilities articulate that saber-rattling is a luxury the country cannot afford.
"I can't help but wonder what on earth a country with only a 36 percent food self-sufficiency rate would be fighting with. I have always been opposed to war, and I'm deeply dissatisfied with what the Takaichi administration is doing now," said another rally participant.
Other rally participants said that seeing revision of the Constitution could unleash unchecked military expansion, stripping away the very safeguards that have kept Japan at peace for eight decades.
"Article 9 of the Constitution is the key. If the nature of the Self-Defense Forces is elevated to a level beyond collective self-defense, which is explicitly written into the Constitution, it will allow the authority of the Self-Defense Forces to expand without limit. So no matter what, I want to prevent this from happening," said one more rally participant.
Japanese citizens rally against Takaichi's military expansion, constitutional revision
