"My basic conclusion is that its 'Asian NATO,' or NATO's expansion into Asia, is actually a manifestation of its weakness, and it cannot afford it alone."
"The fundamental reason for the game of the century between China and the United States is that the United States cannot accept China's rise."
In the 191st episode of "This is China" broadcast by Oriental Satellite TV on June 26, Professor Zhang Weiwei, Dean of the Institute of China Studies of Fudan University, and Professor Jin Canrong of Chinese Min University analyzed the new characteristics of Sino-US relations.
【Jin Canrong Speech】
The recent changes in Sino-US relations have been quite rapid and complicated, and I think there is a contradiction in it. On the one hand, we can see some détente, such as the visit of the US Secretary of State to China on June 18-19, which is the first visit by a US Secretary of State to China in five years, and it is also the first time that Biden has been in office for more than two years, and his "ministerial-level cadres" have come, so it is also a good thing. Earlier, on May 23, Mr. Xie Feng went to serve as China's ambassador to the United States, and for almost five months before that, our ambassador to the United States was vacant. With the arrival of Ambassador Xie Feng, this link is relatively normal.
In addition, on May 25-26, Chinese Minister of Commerce Wang Wentao went to the United States to hold the APEC Trade Ministers' Meeting and met with US Secretary of Commerce Raimondo and US Trade Representative Dai Qi. On June 5, Assistant Secretary of State for Asia-Pacific Affairs Kang Da visited China, mainly to meet with Yang Tao, Director General of the Department of the United States Department of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, and also met with Vice Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu.
In addition, everyone also noticed Biden's own statement and wanted to meet with President Xi; Then, President Biden's national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, also made it clear that he wanted to arrange a meeting between the two heads of state.
This is one aspect of the U.S.-China relationship, but on the other hand, the situation is grim. Before Blinken's visit to China, the United States sanctioned Chinese enterprises for various reasons, including "forced labor in Xinjiang"; moreover, US military planes and warships constantly intruded into relevant areas of the mainland; military aircraft broke into an exercise area of the People's Liberation Army in the South China Sea; warships passed through the Taiwan Strait and were forced to change their course by the Suzhou ship. This America is a little unaccustomed.
At the same time, the Shangri-La Summit was held in Singapore, and there were no formal talks between the defense ministers of China and the United States; Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu met with Japan's defense minister and South Korea's defense minister, but not with U.S. Defense Secretary Austin.
Therefore, my understanding is that the Sino-US relationship is quite contradictory now, and although there is some détente, my judgment is that this détente is technical and tactical, not structural and strategic. Its goal is actually negative, for example, Blinken's coming to China is to prevent the "spiral down" of Sino-US relations, but the big structure, from a strategic and structural point of view, Sino-US relations have entered the game of the century, which will be a very long-term game.
The fundamental reason for the game of the century between China and the United States is that the United States cannot accept China's rise. I think there are two major strategic mistakes in the United States now. First, from a racist point of view, it cannot accept the rise of China, it thinks that you are non-white, how can you rise? How do you qualify for a rise? Former US President Barack Obama often quotes him in Australia, "If Chinese live the life we have in the United States, it will be a disaster for the planet", which is racism, which means that you are not entitled to enjoy the same life as me. This violates the principle of universal human rights and reflects the mentality of racial arrogance, social Darwinism and hegemonism.
Second, it feels that it has the power to stop China's rise, which is certainly wrong. Therefore, these two problems have led to a fundamental contradiction in Sino-US relations.
Now that the nature of Sino-US relations has changed, from both competition and cooperation to competition, what are the specific contradictions? I categorize it into five pairs of contradictions:
The first identity contradiction. The United States is the leader of the West, and the West is the vested interest group of the existing international order, and as the head of the largest vested interest group, it positions itself as the defender of the status quo. China is developing, and this development is indeed changing the status quo, and now many things that the West is proud of have been taken by us, China is at the forefront of the world, and emerging industries are catching up. So the United States defines us as a "revisionist state", what does it mean? It is you who changed the order I lead, so you are a "revisionist state". This is a pair of identity contradictions, and the United States considers itself a "defender of the status quo" and regards us as "status quo changers".
The second contradiction is the contradiction of the balance of forces that we often talk about, the contradiction between the eldest and the second. The United States is recognized as the boss, and we in China also recognize it; The United States believes that we are the second oldest, and in international relations the contradiction between the eldest and the second is called the "Thucydides trap." Please note that the United States is very good at rectifying the second old, the first is Britain, the six relatives do not recognize, the start is quite ruthless, by proposing the concept of "national self-determination", instigating independence everywhere, dismembering the British Empire, then Germany, and then the Soviet Union, but because the Soviet Union has nuclear weapons, it dare not really fight, make soft power, incite internal changes in the Soviet Union, cultivate a lot of "two-faced people", and finally succeeded. Now netizens call this "remote animal husbandry". "Remote animal husbandry" in the United States is particularly developed. Then there's Japan and the European Union, so the United States has already laid down five old men before us, and now it's going to start putting us through.
This thing cannot be avoided, not that we can solve it by lowering our heads and making a little profit. The way to face this situation is to develop, develop well, and enhance the comprehensive national strength, not only GDP must exceed it, but also the comprehensive national strength must surpass it, the people's living standards must catch up, and only by forcing it to recognize our rise through development can this contradiction be resolved.
The third is the more obvious contradiction, the contradiction of the political system. We uphold the party's leadership, and it wants us to engage in a multi-party system and wants to subvert our party's leadership.
The fourth is the contradiction of civilization, which is a little more complicated, so I will say two more words. The United States is the master of Western civilization, and one of the major characteristics of Western civilization is monotheistic religion, and the degree of religious belief is very high. There's a logic among ordinary Americans that seems stupid to me, but it works, and that is that most Americans really believe that their God is the greatest, that his God is going to prevail over the other. China says that we can make friends, the beauty of each other, the beauty of the beauties, the beauty of the United States, the common cause of the world, and the idea of peaceful coexistence. But they don't, they feel that their God is the greatest, and then say that God likes me the most, and why I have mixed well in the past 200 years is because God likes me, I am God's chosen people, and of course I should lead the world. But now they are a little collectively confused, because their leadership is telling the Americans that China is rising and threatening the United States, which makes him run into a logical problem: Chinese don't believe in God, God doesn't know you, how can you mix better than me?" It's not scientific. As a result, the whole people fell into a kind of anxiety and confusion, and then began to beat us, and there was a civilization contradiction.
Chinese believe in the law, not in God; We worship from ancient times "Heaven and Earth Prince", "Heaven and Earth" is the law of nature, and "Jun Prince" is the law of society. So Americans can't understand us, because the two civilization systems are different, and their mentality is not right, they feel strange to a thing, he does not take the initiative to understand, there is a logical contradiction, very anxious, people are anxious and have a bad temper, they hit us.
The fifth is racial contradiction, which Americans don't mention much, but is actually very profound. I don't know if you have noticed, Ambassador Cui Tiankai served as ambassador to the United States for eight years, and after returning to China, he said that he felt that racism in the United States was a big problem, because racism could not accept our rise physically and psychologically. We must admit that the West has done a good job in the past few hundred years, this is a fact, and the main body of the West is white, so there is a white racist superiority, and it is despised for yellow, black, and brown people, to put it bluntly, it is to treat us as an equal person. This leads to the fact that when we are rising, they are physically and psychologically unacceptable. This is actually the most difficult to solve among the five pairs of contradictions. What to do? Again, as mentioned earlier, we need to develop well.
Marked by the Biden administration's National Security Strategy Report in October last year, the United States has unilaterally launched a new Cold War against China, not a new Cold War between China and the United States, and the evidence is that its policy has four things in common with the policy towards the Soviet Union during the Cold War:
First, to establish a global adversary, then the Soviet Union, today China, which states that China is now the only country that has both the ability and the intention to challenge the current order.
Second, internal and external mobilization. Now that anti-China within the United States has become ideological, as long as it is definitely correct to criticize China, China is to blame for not doing things smoothly at home, such as the debt has reached the ceiling - now it has passed 32 trillion (US dollars), almost defaulted, how can Treasury Secretary Yellen convince both parties in Congress? She said she couldn't do it, otherwise Chinese would laugh at us. Increasing military spending, investment in science and technology, and investment in education all use China as a matter of saying things, ideologizing anti-China, and mobilizing society. For example, in Asia, the United States is engaged in a "small Asia-Pacific NATO", which is characterized by reconciliation between Japan and South Korea and the promotion of cooperation between the United States and Australia. In addition, there is the "Asia-Pacific transformation of NATO", which requires many countries to choose sides, which is external mobilization.
The third is all-round pressure. Now the United States has a whole-of-government policy towards China, that is, various departments are not allowed to act on their own, and the pressure on China cannot leave a gap, so there are trade wars, industrial wars, science and technology wars, judicial wars, public opinion wars, military deterrence, and so on.
Positioning China as an adversary, mobilizing and putting pressure inside and outside, but the fourth point also proposes that there can be no hot war, because a hot war is not a cold war, and the United States will definitely pay a great price, so it will rectify you, but it will control a certain border.
Therefore, according to the above logic, I personally believe that the United States' unilateral new cold war against China has begun, but the new cold war between China and the United States has not begun. Why? First, as of today, China should not fight; Second, strategically we did not engage in bloc confrontation, unlike the Soviet Union, we did not ask any country to take sides; Third, we do not engage in an arms race, and now our external environment is very poor, but the growth of military spending is actually not very fast compared with the growth of expenditure in other fields.
Another point is that even if I speak now, the internal and external mobilization of the United States is not smooth, first of all, internal mobilization, American entrepreneurs still do not cooperate, Apple CEO Cook came in April, Musk, Bill Gates, Starbucks boss, etc. in June, a bunch of people came, the Chinese market is still very attractive, so entrepreneurs are not very cooperative. President Xi met with Bill Gates and talked about pinning his hopes on the American people. So our current work in the United States is a two-pronged approach, the government can dialogue on dialogue, and the non-governmental can communicate and communicate, because we see that some people in the United States are actually unwilling, enterprises, some local governments, and civil society organizations are unwilling, so we have space to work. Moreover, the outside world is not actually mobilized, and old Europe will not do it. Macron openly stated that NATO is in charge of the North Atlantic, the Asia-Pacific has nothing to do with me, and he opposes NATO's Asia-Pacificization. New Europe, like Hungary, certainly does not participate. Some Western countries, such as Israel and New Zealand, will most likely not participate. Another crucial point is that the countries of the Third World, the so-called countries of the Global South, are opposed to the new Cold War taking sides.
This is what I see in the situation of Sino-US relations, structurally it is not optimistic, and the future is still very grim. So what to do? I think there are mainly a few aspects, China must subjectively attach special importance to Sino-US relations, because we know that the quality of Sino-US relations determines the fate of mankind and the fate of our planet. President Xi Jinping put forward three good principles, China-US relations must respect each other, coexist peacefully, and achieve mutual benefit and win-win results. Then, our way of dealing with it is not to aggravate the contradiction, and now the problem is mainly on the US side.
The United States is like this, the Biden administration, as a family member, wants to achieve balance, so it proposed a 3C China policy, that is, competition, cooperation, confrontation. First of all, this policy itself is contradictory, and another trouble is that the US political situation is too diverse, there are many factions, and Biden cannot control it, which is uncertain.
The last way out, in fact, has already been mentioned, development, depends on China's development. If China wants to seriously pursue development, first, its national strength must rise, and the other is that the fruits of development must be popularized among the people, which will eventually be reflected in the improvement of the people's living standards. In this way, improvements are made from macro to micro. I estimate that at a certain stage, the United States can still change its attitude and accept us.
That's it for my sharing, thank you!
【Roundtable Discussion】
Moderator: Mr. Jin made a very thorough analysis of the current situation of Sino-US relations, especially the situation in the United States. In his speech, Mr. Jin said that in fact, the strategic and tactical capabilities of the United States are very strong. Science and technology wars, trade wars, cognitive wars and other wars are airtight. You may know what the new Cold War is about, from which you can see its strategic and tactical capabilities, but unfortunately there is a major miscalculation of strategy, so no matter how strong the ability is, it will only make it go in the wrong direction. Mr. Zhang, you can also give us an analysis, this time Blinken visited China, how to interpret this tactical action?
Zhang Weiwei: I think this time is quite interesting, first of all, a lot of details, for example, the two sides agreed that he came to visit, not to be invited. You are not invited by us, formally invited, you yourself want to come, we will discuss a date. Then, then come on.
In addition, when President Xi met him, the arrangement of sitting was different from the past, and according to the interpretation of netizens, it was beginning to teach him lessons. But if you look closely, in the video released by CCTV, President Xi's expression is very serious, I guess it may be no less than the "wishful thinking" that Von der Leyen said at that time.
[On the afternoon of June 19, President Xi Jinping met with visiting U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken at the Great Hall of the People. Photo from Xinhua News Agency]
On the whole, I have always been a little more optimistic than Mr. Jin, we said that Sino-US relations must go through confrontation to achieve better exchanges, from "denial" to "anger", to "partial acceptance and bargaining", to "acceptance" four stages, I think now after the confrontation, a little bit began to enter "partial acceptance". After the confrontation, the trade war completely failed, not an ordinary failure, 95% of the increased taxes are paid by American consumers, the technology war is also on the verge of failure, and then militarily, you see this time our Suzhou ship in the Taiwan Strait immediately crossed, is to tell you to change direction, tell you to slow down. There is also the action we took against the US reconnaissance plane in the South China Sea, which vibrated it with the exhaust of the J-16 fighter, which is very powerful, and it takes a little more force, and the aircraft has to rotate 360 degrees. From what I know about our Chinese People's Liberation Army, doing this is to set rules for you.
[Chinese Navy "Suzhou ship" intercepts the US "Zhong Yun" video screenshot]
What does the United States want? It wants to wipe the gun but not lose fire, so it wants all kinds of so-called "guardrail" measures, but looking at the report of this meeting, everyone noticed no, I read the US report they were disappointed, because the military's communication has not been re-established, we did not agree. Although the US side said that we have resumed high-level contacts and communication between the two sides, there is no between the armed forces, which means that the position of our military is placed here: if you want to wipe the gun and not fire, we tell you that the gun may be fired, and you must be prepared. I think we must be ready, we are doing everything with a bottom line thinking, if the Suzhou ship goes, what if it collides? What if there is a conflict? And even what to do with shelling? What to do if it sinks? I believe that we must have an arrangement, the key is to let the Americans know that you have an arrangement, that is, I am not afraid of you at all, this is the most critical, which makes him see that he has to come to talk quickly, and establish various channels of communication as soon as possible to prevent the deterioration of the relationship between the two sides. In fact, we do not want to deteriorate, and we do this to prevent the relationship from deteriorating. Therefore, there is an important consensus between the two sides this time, that is, both sides hope to "stabilize Sino-US relations."
Host: Just like the United States to contain China's development, this is its strategic direction, there are many practices in tactics, it is close to reconnaissance, but you don't have a reaction, hope to wipe the gun, but can't go off, we react a little, it thinks you are not professional, what is professional in its dictionary? The so-called profession is that I can infringe on you, but you can't fight back, this is called an American profession. At the heart of this is hegemonic thinking. Over the past time, the relationship between the United States and China, it has increasingly experienced that hegemonic thinking and hegemonic practices kick the steel plate, just now Mr. Jin said in his speech that it has lost the five old two, and has accumulated countless successful experiences in the past, but those successful experiences are suddenly not so successful, and this also needs to be adapted.
Jin Canrong: Now I think the United States is groping, and it will keep pace with the times, and so far I don't think he has found it. A person in charge of the United States said that China seems to be different from previous examples, the EU is very loose, China is completely unified, and then like Japan, Germany, and the United Kingdom, although the economic efficiency is good, but the scale is small; Russia is large, but economically inefficient; And China is big, economically efficient, and then united.
At present, I think the United States is still groping, so how to make it accept? In fact, I completely agree with Professor Weiwei's statement that there may be a need for struggle, blindly obeying and giving in is not enough, fighting a fight, but setting up the rules. China is now mainly industrialized, and China has repeatedly emphasized that modern civilization is industrial civilization, industry is the foundation, especially manufacturing, and this piece of China has won.
Let's recall that the five old two who were laid down by the United States have a characteristic, that is, the manufacturing industry is not as good as the United States, and the highest single country has not reached 70% of the United States, and the European Union as a whole, the manufacturing industry has reached 85% of the United States, but how much is China? Last year in 2022, China's total manufacturing output was 196% of that of the United States, basically doubled. That's the equivalent of the United States, Japan, Germany, South Korea and Italy combined, and is likely to surpass the G7 this year, which is where China is very powerful. But many people have not noticed, including the United States, but their real experts know. The United States is now a bit overly politicized, and as a result, many experts step aside, and then a group of strange politicians come out, which affects the quality of his decision-making.
[In July 2020, China announced sanctions against four U.S. politicians, from left to right: Brownback, Cruz, Rubio, and Smith.] 】
Host: In fact, these are not politicians, that is, populist politicians, as long as he shouts anti-China slogans, he can have votes, which is a very sad place after the US vote politics has gone to extremes. Teacher Zhang has always had a viewpoint, China itself is a world, such a large land, so many resources, so many different plates of development, especially now we say that the contradiction between the people's growing demand for a better life and unbalanced and insufficient development, at first glance it is insufficient, but carefully look at all our growth points, from this point of view, our room for maneuver is much larger than those countries.
Zhang Weiwei: I have always been optimistic about the Chinese model and bearish on the US model. The American model capital is large and capital-centric. Then the path and effect of the development of these two models are different, and the West cannot read the Chinese model.
Jin Canrong: This is also normal, because people's cognitive ability is very limited, so it must be the phenomenon to the essence, at present, it is beginning to recognize your rise, and not fully admitted, still learning, otherwise how can it stupidly engage in a trade war? The trade war is that when it is initiated, it must feel that it will win, but it has lost the trade war, the probability of the science and technology war is also lost, and the probability of the industrial war is also lost, so it is difficult for him to admit these phenomena, how to talk about the essence? It needs to have a process, and the key to this process is that China should develop well.
Zhang Weiwei: Actually, I have a basic judgment, that is, the world has entered the "post-American era" since the financial crisis in 2008, which does not mean that the United States is not important, the United States is still important, but the thoughts and ideas of the United States no longer represent the future direction. Everyone thinks, they can see clearly, you have a problem.
Then a very important point, China is a "civilized country", it really has a lot of wisdom, why we analyzed Trump's trade war at that time must lose, we did the first time to do the program said that the trade war must fail, we analyze the decision-making process of the United States, even if you negotiate with the representatives of your American enterprises, preliminary understanding, but they first announced sanctions, first announced that they would tax, and then went to ask the company, and the result was that the company was opposed, 95% of the American companies were opposed. I will say that your decision-making process is reversed, and you have to learn from our democratic centralist decision-making process of "coming from the masses and going to the masses", and our decision-making is much more prudent and reliable.
Moderator: Teacher Jin said a word in his speech, called law, that is, to do things according to the law, than to do things according to imagination, that is much more effective. I think that even ordinary people in China may know the power of the word law, plus we still have thousands of years of cultural traditions accumulated a lot of wisdom.
Zhang Weiwei: When we talk about laws, we can actually call it "underlying logic" in modern terms. You see, why the United States mobilized against China from within and outside, and the results were not so successful. We can first focus on external mobilization, its underlying logic is that I often talk about geopolitical logic, the entire Eurasian plate - China, Russia is the center of the two plates, this is a complete super-large country, are "civilized countries", have a long, long history of civilization; Then at both ends of this plate, one is Europe, more than twenty countries, divided, and this structure determines that it is difficult to integrate it completely; South Korea, Japan, the Philippines, etc., are also broken plates, so geographically speaking, it is very difficult to integrate. The United States, including its allies, is structurally unlikely to succeed in targeting China.
So my basic conclusion is that the United States engaged in "Asian NATO" or NATO's expansion into Asia, in fact, it is a manifestation of its weakness, it cannot afford it alone, it cannot deal with you, and then make up a few, make up a group, but each country involved has its own calculations and their own thoughts.
Jin Canrong: I seem to have said in this program that strategic research is four levels: Tao, Law, Force, and Art. The Tao is to follow the law, and the law is the Tao, that is, you do not violate the law and follow the Tao. Law is to use your advantages and fix this advantage in legal form, so that the management cost is relatively low. Force, that is, by brute force. It's just a few little tricks.
My observation is that after World War II, China basically followed the way, what should be done at what stage, and did a good job. Now it's time to be strong, and it's time to do what is strong. The United States has done a relatively good job of "law", making full use of its own advantages, turning it into a universal rule for people to accept. Russia is a typical "force", they themselves admit that Russia has no strategy, Russian strategy is brute force; When encountering resistance, the iron rod sweeps, the resistance increases, and the iron rod is thickened. Japan is a "jutsu", always engaged in small actions. But now I have come to a new conclusion, as if the United States has gone a little bit to the art and made small moves. Therefore, President Xi said that a big country should look like a big country.
China now advocates a community with a shared future for mankind, development initiatives, security initiatives, and civilization initiatives, at the strategic level, everyone seems to be pulling away, the United States still has some capital, but according to the current way of playing, it is becoming more and more petty.
【Q&A Session】
Audience: Hello two teachers, good host. My name is Li Guocheng and I am from Zhongnan University of Economics and Law. I would like to ask the two teachers how to view Sino-US relations under economic development is not as expected, thank you.
Zhang Weiwei: In fact, the economy is like this, I always say that everything lies in international comparison, now authoritative international institutions, you can list three or four, China's economic growth this year is expected to be about 5.5%, there are higher, there are slightly lower, about 5.5, the United States is about 0.5%, they are all more optimistic about China than the United States. If you look closely, representatives of Wall Street, representatives of large American companies, CEOs of large enterprises, all come to China, and they are all more optimistic about the Chinese economy.
Jin Canrong: I don't understand the economy, I just use common sense to see that now there is a lot of information that shows that our Chinese economy is indeed more difficult. The main thing is that the private entrepreneur is not confident enough and he is unwilling to invest, we have encountered difficulties, there is no problem with supply, and there is a problem on the main consumption side. So we first have to acknowledge the difficulties.
But because it involves Sino-US relations, I don't think the United States has reason to be optimistic, just now Professor Zhang said, we are a little slower than before, but the United States is slower. China's economic difficulties are certainly a strong constraint on us, but as far as Sino-US relations are concerned, the current economic difficulties do not seem to change the overall situation. The general situation is that China's development is still faster, and the forces of China and the United States are still approaching.
Zhang Weiwei: We have mentioned earlier, because the West as a whole is facing different types of crises, such as the United States is facing serious inflation, the most serious in 40 years, you see so many times to take various measures including raising interest rates, but it can only reduce inflation from about 9% to 6%, which is still very high inflation.
Sometimes I feel that everything is in comparison, and before at the Blue Hall Forum, I said that almost all countries in the world, including the United States, have experienced at least one of several crises, such as banking crisis, food crisis, energy crisis, other crises, like Europe and refugee crisis, China has not experienced all, we have not experienced inflation, we have not experienced a banking crisis, we have not experienced an energy crisis, etc., which is already a great achievement. If you say that China has no chance, then the whole world has no chance, which is really incomparable.
Jin Canrong: Last week, Premier Li Qiang held a meeting before his visit to talk about how to solve the employment difficulties of young people. But still the situation that Mr. Zhang just said, in international comparison, we still have many opportunities, so the head bosses of American companies, like Elon Musk, like Bill Gates, the vision is still okay, they from a comparative point of view, there are still many opportunities here, he is here to find opportunities, in terms of the world, our comparative advantages still have.
[On June 14, Bill Gates visited China. 】
Audience: Hello two teachers, I am from Hong Kong, China, graduated from Schwarzman College of Tsinghua University, and studied international relations. With the acceleration of reconciliation in the Middle East, China plays a very important role in it, and at the same time actively promotes reconciliation and peaceful development in the Middle East. What do you think the international community expects from China's next actions or decisions? Meanwhile, on the other hand, is America's influence in the Middle East waning? How might the U.S. react, or make a strategic adjustment? What impact would such a change have on U.S.-China relations? Thank you.
Zhang Weiwei: I think the United States wants to sabotage, but now it can use fewer means than in the past. We are really remarkable this time, Saudi Arabia and Iran were able to restore diplomatic relations with the mediation of China. The United States is mainly two grippers in the Middle East, one is Israel, that is, taking advantage of the contradictions between Israel and the Arab world and the Islamic world, to support Israel in all directions.
The other is to put Iran into a target and let everyone besiege Iran, but now after Iran and Saudi Arabia have reconciled, it has made it difficult. Today's Iran and Saudi Arabia are quite mature, their senior officials are quite mature, this is too important, they do not want to be your United States anymore, but for the Arab-Israeli contradiction, the United States must also pick, that is, the contradiction between Israel and the Islamic world.
Jin Canrong: Our Chinese diplomacy has reached the stage of becoming strong, and the tasks of each stage of development are definitely different, and in the stage of becoming strong, it is necessary for China to make contributions to the world, and one of the contributions is of course peace, because peace is the prerequisite for development.
I remember many years ago, Ma Hong, the old president of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, visited the United Kingdom and asked the United Kingdom why modern development is so good. First, after the English Civil War, that is, after the Glorious Revolution, there was never a war inside, and if you wanted to fight, you went to fight outside; The second is good infrastructure, and the third is stable and predictable policies, which are the three prerequisites for economic development.
In the past, I felt that Britain and the United States had a "knack" for competing for world hegemony, which is called "offshore balancing" in academic terms, and in the words of ordinary people, it is to sow discord. Everyone has heard that there is a theory in international relations called geopolitical theory, originally the relationship between the two of you is still okay, a little contradictory, but it must make you two die, and at this time it has a chance. Therefore, it must fully create contradictions, which is the prerequisite for its intervention.
But now China's thinking is to resolve contradictions and promote the March 10 Shai-Iraq reconciliation, which is a good starting point, but it still takes time to achieve good results, and it also requires the rise of our comprehensive national strength, and even talents. We have a long way to go on the right path.
(Speaker: Zhang Weiwei, Dean and Professor, Institute of Chinese Studies, Fudan University, Senior Researcher, Kunlun Research Institute; Jin Canrong is a professor at the School of International Studies, Chinese Minmin University, and an expert on American issues. Source: Kunlun Ce Network [Authorized], reproduced from "Observer Network" "Oriental Satellite TV")