Cold War Mentality Needs to Be Abandoned

For the first act of China’s 2011 foreign policy, President Hu Jintao visited America in order to build mutual trust and friendship and to promote the positive development of the ongoing cooperative relationship between China and America. Since mutual trust is still a work in progress, this means there are still elements of uncertainty between China and the United States.

The conflicts among the strategic interests of China and America are the source of uncertainty. Since the 1980s, China’s economy has developed rapidly. It has exceeded Japan and is now second in economic aggregate, with a foreign exchange reserve of over $2.8 trillion. The United States follows its traditional mentality and attempts to maintain being the sole superpower of the world by containing China in several ways, which causes conflicts between China and the United States.

However, as the world economy has become an interactive, global relation, one country’s well-being or ill-being affects all. It is now totally different from the age of imperialism, when brutal force was used to claim colonial lands, resources and markets. The relationship between China and America is different than that of the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Back then, America and the Soviet Union not only were fighting each other at a military level, they also were playing tug-of-war in the world market. There was no room for friendly interactions; instead, the relationship was based on restraints and restrictions toward each other.

However, “partnership” is the keyword of the current relationship between China and America. In 2010, trading between the two countries increased from $2.5 billion to $3.853 trillion, and China became the second largest trading partner of America. China was also the fastest growing market for America’s exports for many consecutive years; millions of jobs in the United States depend on the trading between China and America. By the end of October 2010, America had invested in over 59,000 projects in China, totaling $64.625 billion. Currently, American corporations make over $220 billion each year in China.

Meanwhile, investments from Chinese corporations in America have also been increasing rapidly. Most imports from China to America are cheap, high-quality daily goods, which have saved consumers in the U.S. over $600 billion in the past 10 years. In January, China held $518.7 billion worth of United States government bonds; the amount jumped to $906.8 billion in October 2010, which helped America tremendously in its recovery from the financial and economic crisis.

That being said, the current relationship between China and America is totally different than that of the past, when there were “tensions to compete” between the existing superpower and the new rising power; as the era has changed, the method of handling the relations between two powerful countries also needs to be changed. The old methods that were used during the Cold War are no longer up-to-date. The perspective of “there will be a war between China and America” given by individual American commentators is totally false.

Although China has become the second largest economic body in the world, when you divide it by its population of 1.3 billion, it actually ranks around 100 in gross domestic product. There is still a long way to go before China catches up with other developed countries. The main task of the Chinese government remains the development of its economy and the improvement of living conditions for its citizens. These require peace in the global setting and its borders. China has announced a few times that it has no intention of being a superpower or the leader. China’s goal in foreign affairs is to establish a stable, peaceful, prosperous and harmonic world; there is no need to challenge America’s position in the global setting.

Humble communications between the leaders of the two countries brought great results to the growth of mutual trust. The two countries published joint statements announcing their focus on building a partnership based on respect and profits to both sides. We believe that as long as trust, respect and cooperation remain in the Sino–U.S. relationship, it will result in a win-win situation.