The UN at 80 Campaign with China and the “One World: Shared Future” Global Youth Visual Exhibition opened in Beijing on 23 September 2025. The event was a deliberate, high-visibility effort to mark the United Nations’ 80th anniversary. It placed youth creativity, multilateral values, and the Sustainable Development Goals at the center of global conversation.
- Voices from the Ceremony:
- Youth Creativity at the Core:
- Purpose and Future Prospects:
- Conclusion:
- The author Anum Malik, is affiliated with the State News Agency and contributes her research to the think tank, CDS.
- *The views and opinions expressed herein, and any references, are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of the Centre for Development and Stability (CDS).
The launch, co-hosted by China Global Television Network (CGTN) together with the UN Country Team in China and staged at the UN compound in Beijing, brought together diplomats, UN representatives, media professionals, and a cohort of young visual creators whose work speaks to the challenges and hopes of their generation.
Voices from the Ceremony:
The ceremony blended symbolic speeches, recorded messages, and on-screen programming. Shen Haixiong, president of China Media Group, stressed the value of youth voices as formative for the future and framed CMG’s role as amplifying the UN’s agenda and “building bridges between China and the world” through images that break down prejudice and deepen resonance around the idea of a shared future for humanity.
Melissa Fleming, UN Under-Secretary-General for Global Communications, in a video message, welcomed China’s engagement with multilateralism and reiterated that the UN will continue to defend the Charter’s core principles of peace, equality, and dignity for present and future generations.
UN Resident Coordinator in China Siddharth Chatterjee described UN at 80 as a moment to look forward to craft “a legacy of peace, prosperity and sustainability”, and urged renewed faith in collective action inspired by young creators.
Youth Creativity at the Core:
At the heart of the event was CGTN’s “One World: Shared Future” Global Youth Visual Challenge, which was launched in July and drew an extraordinary global response: more than 56,000 submissions from 51 countries, reflecting how digital storytelling and visual media can mobilize broad participation on themes tied to the SDGs from peace and justice to education, poverty eradication, climate action and biodiversity protection.
From those thousands of entries, 15 videos and 20 photographs were chosen as outstanding works to be showcased on CGTN’s platforms, and a group of eight creators from countries including Malawi, Portugal, France, Russia, and China attended the Beijing ceremony to present their pieces and speak to their inspirations.
The selected works and the accompanying screenings of CGTN’s anniversary productions launches that included pieces such as “UN Champion of Nation,” “The United Nations at 80,” “China’s Green Revolution,” “Blue Helmets, No Borders,” and “One World Shared Future” functioned as both celebration and curated narrative: honoring the UN’s record while showcasing stories in which China is cast as a partner in global development, peacekeeping and green transition. Those programs and the curated youth entries will be distributed across CGTN’s website and social channels, an explicit strategy to translate the exhibition’s in-person momentum into sustained digital reach.
Purpose and Future Prospects:
The purpose of the launch was multiple and strategic. On the surface, it commemorated an institutional milestone, 80 years of the UN, and reaffirmed broad principles: peace, equality, dignity, and international cooperation. At the same time, the event intentionally centered youth agency and visual storytelling as instruments for public diplomacy, soft power, and narrative formation.
State media’s partnership in curating and broadcasting youth works amplifies the UN message while also aligning the anniversary narrative with China’s own emphasis on “a community with a shared future for mankind.” That alignment visible in both official remarks and programming choices is consistent with a dual objective: to strengthen public engagement with multilateral goals and to position China as an active, media-savvy partner within those global conversations.
Looking beyond the launch, the UN agencies in China plan further outreach tied to UN@80: subway campaigns, social media engagement, and on-site activities across the country over the coming weeks, designed to bring the conversation out of conference halls and into everyday public spaces.
The immediate prospects are clear; the selected youth works and CGTN’s special programming will increase visibility for SDG themes and generate conversation across age groups and borders, but the deeper, structural prospects depend on follow-through. For media engagement to produce policy traction, it must be paired with tangible programmatic investments, policy dialogues, and platforms that allow young creators to influence decision-making beyond storytelling alone.
There are two connected, realistic outcomes to watch. First, this initiative can widen public resonance for multilateral goals by translating technical agendas into personal, visual narratives that mobilize empathy and civic interest, especially among younger audiences who live and breathe short-form and visual content.
Second, and more consequentially, the exhibition marks a model for how state media and international organizations collaborate to frame global governance debates. If such collaborations remain open, plural, and accompanied by critical engagement, they can enrich global conversation; if, however, they remain primarily top-down and selectively curated, they risk producing a narrower narrative that privileges certain policy framings over others. The latter is an inference, grounded in the structure and partners of the event, and should be read as an analytical perspective supported by the event’s public record.
Conclusion:
In sum, the Beijing launch of the UN’s 80th Campaign, featuring China and the “One World: Shared Future” Global Youth Visual Exhibition, was more than a commemorative ceremony: it was a deliberate exercise in narrative building, youth engagement, and public diplomacy. Its success will be measured not just by audience numbers or viral clips, but by whether the stories it elevates translate into broader civic participation, cross-border collaboration, and measurable policy commitments that accelerate progress on the SDGs. For now, the exhibition has opened a visible and creative channel, one that, if sustained with transparency and inclusive follow-up, could strengthen both the UN’s public footprint and the next generation’s stake in global governance.
