From Cognitive Consensus to Interest Accommodation: A Conversion Mechanism Responding to States' Legitimate Self-Interest

The construction of a Community with a Shared Future for Humanity cannot stop at grand ideals and institutional arrangements; it must answer the "question of needs" of its members. States and peoples care first of all about their own survival, security, development, and dignity; if the community does not respond to these genuine concerns, it will be seen as "someone else's ideal." Taking Marx's "real individuals" as its theoretical starting point, this paper argues that the state is the concentrated expression of the legitimate claims of its people, and proposes the "Eleven-Dimensional Spectrum of States' Legitimate Self-Interest Needs," reinterpreting national interest as the institutionalized expression, in international relations, of the people's legitimate claims across the dimensions of self-preservation, self-convenience, self-compassion, self-prosperity, self-beauty, self-joy, self-voice, self-confidence, self-strengthening, self-esteem, and self-freedom. Criticizing the two extremes of hollow communitarianism and narrow interest exchange, it advocates a third way in which common values provide direction, members' needs provide the foundation, and responsibility embedding ensures sustainability, building a conversion mechanism of "cognitive enhancement, need identification, interest accommodation, responsibility embedding, and conscious action." An analysis of five ideal types (wealthy but security-anxious states, war-torn states, developing states, small and vulnerable states, and great powers) shows that the community's provision must match differentiated structures of need weights. The paper concludes that the Community with a Shared Future for Humanity is not an empty theoretical community but a practical community that understands members' needs, responds to members' claims, and embeds shared responsibility.