70 years on: China remains a stabilizer for global development

Note: The following article is taken from the Chinese-language "Commentaries on International Affairs."

Ten years ago, British scholar Martin Jacques’s book ‘When China Rules the World’ triggered heated discussion in the West. The author believed that China would develop an approach to modernization that would differ from that experienced by Western countries, and which would bring about profound changes to the world order. Ten years on, many of the views expressed in the book have turned out to be true. A white paper, entitled ‘China and the World in the New Era,’ recently released by the Chinese government states clearly that the Chinese people, through their hard work over the past 70 years, have completed a course of development and at the same time injected positive energy into the peace and development of the world.

[Photo: VCG]

Peace and development is the common goal of human society. Wars and conflicts have however made up the majority part of mankind’s history. The rise of Western powers in modern times was accompanied with colonial expansion and invasion, with the two World Wars in particular inflicting huge disasters on humanity. In the nearly 30 years since the end of the Cold War, military operations carried out by Western powers have triggered humanitarian crises, opening a Pandora’s box of extremism and terrorism. The world is now facing an increasingly complex and severe security situation with an expanding deficit in peace and trust.

In the case of China, its development over the past seventy years from a secluded and backward country to the world’s second largest economy has been realized by avoiding repeating the same old growth pattern as the West. The country, by adhering to reform and opening up, has found a development path that suits its needs. As former U.S. President Jimmy Carter once pointed out, “China has not wasted a single penny on war.”

The reason why many scholars like Martin Jacques have been closely watching China is that they are trying to decipher the secret of the Asian country’s rapid peaceful development from an historical and realistic perspective, and analyze what China will bring to this world as it grows more powerful, and where the world is headed with an advancing China. The past seventy years has witnessed a continuously and peacefully developing China that has contributed to the enhanced stability of the world, which is embodied in the following aspects.

The Temple of Heaven in Beijing is decorated for the celebration of the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, Sep 30, 2019. [Photo: VCG]

China has made a great contribution to the formation of basic principles for the development of modern international relations. It has pursued a peaceful and independent foreign policy, having jointly proposed with India and Myanmar the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence which have become the guiding principles in international relations and international law. Against a backdrop of political polarization and economic globalization trends in recent years, China came up with the concept of building a shared future for mankind, the Belt and Road initiative, and reforming the global governance mechanism. That’s why United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres once thanked China for its “long-standing support for the cause of the United Nations” and recognized China “for its central role as a pillar of international cooperation and multilateralism.”

Over the past seventy years, China has been pursuing defense-oriented policies, under which the country has never sought hegemony, expansion or to develop spheres of influence. It also maintains a high level of military budget transparency. Between 2012 and 2017, the country’s average annual defense spending accounted for around 1.3 percent of its GDP, the lowest level among the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council. Meanwhile, China has become the second largest financial contributor to the United Nations. The country’s also actively participating in UN peacekeeping missions, having dispatched more than 39,000 peacekeeping military personnel to UN missions around the globe, becoming the largest contributor of peacekeepers among the five permanent members of the Security Council.

China is also playing a constructive role in facilitating political settlements of such issues as denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, the Iranian nuclear issue and the peace process in Syria and Afghanistan. China is also an active participant in maritime escorts and international humanitarian relief work as well as an advocate of the need to strengthen international cooperation in arms control, non-proliferation of nuclear weapons, and counter-terrorism. It insists on solving territorial disputes through negotiation and consultation, having formally resolved land border issues with 12 neighboring countries while steadily pushing forward consultations with relevant Southeast Asian nations to set up a code of conduct in the South China Sea. China is also actively participating in multilateral dialogues concerning such areas as cyber and outer space security with the aim of promoting the development of a regional security mechanism and fair international rules.

The world is at a crossroads. Some figures in the West however are still stuck in a Cold War mindset, preaching “great-power competition” and “zero-sum” ideas, which have exacerbated global peace and trust deficits. China’s approach of peaceful development and promise not to seek hegemony, but instead mutual benefits not only have subverted the old pattern of rising great powers, but also have profoundly affected the world’s future development process. As China remains committed to a path of peaceful development, the country is expected to offer greater opportunities to the rest of the world and continue to be a stabilizer of world peace and security.