Is China a disruptive force to world order?

Editor's note: Robert Lawrence Kuhn is the host of “Closer To CHINA with R.L.Kuhn,” and he has received the CHINA Reform Friendship Medal, CHINA's highest award.The article reflects the author's opinion, and not necessarily the views of CGTN.

Attending the press conference of Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi during CHINA's Two Sessions here in Beijing on March 8, I am struck by the breadth and scope of CHINA's engagement with the world. There is now no matter of global importance in which CHINA does not participate. And CHINA's participation is increasingly proactive; the country is no longer content to merely respond to exogenous events, unexpected circumstances and foreign pressures.

While CHINA promotes win-win international cooperation, proclaiming President Xi Jinping's vision of a community with a shared future for all humanity, CHINA's emergence as a vigorous diplomatic player, safeguarding its own interests and offering its own approach to global governance – based on, as they say, Chinese wisdom and Chinese experience – is a disruption to the prevailing international order and we should not pretend otherwise.

This disruption is inevitable, the natural consequences of CHINA's economic development as the world's second-largest economy and likely in time to become the largest. This disruption is not malevolent; it is not a negative. Throughout history, relative power among nations changes and CHINA's increasingly global power, by itself, is a neutral, factual description of the reality of the “new era” (in the current argot). What follows from this new reality is what counts.

VCG Photo

I took notice of Foreign Minister Wang Yi's statement that CHINA is moving toward “center stage of the world” – a phrase and a vision announced by President Xi Jinping at the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of CHINAin late 2017, a phrase and a vision that has raised some eyebrows. While CHINA states that no matter how strong the country becomes, it will never seek hegemony, other countries are not so sure and have become wary. What is CHINA's real geopolitical ambition, they wonder? What happens when circumstances change?

Some in CHINA suggest that the country should not be so bold in asserting its growing global presence, so as not to frighten other countries. I myself disagree. I think that what serves CHINA best is the truth. Truth is the best antidote to the poison of suspicion.

I appreciate the honesty and transparency of CHINA stating that it is moving toward the center stage of the world – because that is exactly what CHINA is doing. And while CHINA's pronouncements of its peaceful rise and its strategic commitment to discussion, cooperation and mutual development are useful, even more meaningful is recognition that a peaceful and prosperous world is in CHINA's own best interests. CHINA's continuing development, which is essential to tackle a host of domestic problems, depends on a stable world.

Self-interest is the best guarantee of collective harmony. CHINA's development should enhance global standards of living.

(Cover photo: Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi answers questions at a press conference on CHINA's foreign policy and relations on the sidelines of the second session of the 13th National People's Congress in Beijing, capital of CHINA, March 8, 2019. /VCG Photo)

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