Walking a Path of Peaceful Development Requires Confidence

On March 27, Chairman Xi Jinping stated at UNESCO Headquarters, “As long as the idea of peace can strike deep roots and the sail of peace can be hoisted in the hearts and minds of people all over the world, a strong defense will be constructed to prevent and stop war.” The world is not at all at peace and there is much commotion around China’s borders, but China has confidence in its path of peaceful development as well as its own due contributions to world peace and development.

After all, the biggest threat to China’s peaceful development is a large-scale war between the U.S. and China. As long as China-U.S. relations are handled well, the countries can resolve their differences and control conflicts, and China can earn longer-lasting, peaceful, strategic development opportunities. Currently, contradictions and differences between China and the U.S. have not evolved into intense or large-scale military conflicts.

Since the 1990s, an important change in international relations has been the acceleration of economic globalization. This has caused a profound impact in at least two ways. One is increased interdependence between nations; the zero-sum game logic is broken, where instead of conflicts leading to a lose-lose situation, cooperation brings a win-win. Another way is that many problems previously requiring political and military solutions can now be solved by economic or other means; in China-U.S. relations, there are conflicts and contradictions, but many common interests. When conflicts and contradictions escalate, both sides will suffer losses, but if we strengthen cooperation, dialogue and trust, both sides will benefit.

America’s Asia-Pacific rebalance strategy causes China to face great economic, political and military challenges, and also increases tension in East Asia. Some countries in East Asia, Southeast Asia and South Asia, especially Japan, the Philippines and Vietnam, take advantage of this opportunity, viewing the U.S. as a powerful ally in attempts to benefit from China’s border or territorial disputes. However, the likelihood of the U.S. directly using large-scale military means to combat China is very small. Currently, Japan, the Philippines and Vietnam can do no more than watch what the U.S. does, and the U.S. also has the strength to control them. In other words, the U.S. is still in charge of the real situation; many small countries are just “buying soy sauce.” Thus, as long as the China-U.S. relationship is not completely out of control, the situation in East Asia will not be either.

At present, China already has a relatively strong national power. In the face of international conflict, there is already an abundance of strategies. As for China’s military, it has a working military defense strategy. Therefore, on one hand, China need not fear war; on the other hand, it must have faith to proceed along its path of peaceful development.