Power limits count in Sino-US relations
- By Jia Qingguo
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E-mail China.org.cn, January 27, 2016
China's market reform, opening up, judicial reform and struggle against corruption are also bridging the diverging gap with the U.S., and laying a solid foundation for future cooperation.
China intends to do more to fulfill its international responsibility, and improve the current international order for common good. It has more common interests with the U.S. than ever before in defending the international free-trade system, curbing MDW proliferation and safeguarding cyber security. Neither side has enough reasons to deem the other an enemy state.
The South China Sea issue is a touchstone of China's ambitions as well U.S. attitudes towards China. Many Americans believe the two countries are in a "Thucydides Trap," as defined by the 5th Century BCE Athenian historian, that a declining old power will necessarily confront a rising power. Either side thus interprets the other side from a negative angle, and this creates a vicious cycle.
China is the poorest ever second largest economy in the world since the World War II. China's complicated national conditions and huge economic size creates considerable difficulty for the U.S. to correctly understand and define China's identity.
China's interests are in line with the developing countries in most cases. However, it is often under U.S. pressure to act according to the standards of developed economies, especially on the climate issue.
The international community looks forward to knowing China's true strategic intention. Yet, when China cannot convey this in a convincing manner, mutual suspicion and confrontation become inevitable.
China needs a stable and peaceful environment to rise more than ever before. It must make more efforts to explain its foreign policies in a comprehensible way to the U.S., so as to minimize American misjudgments and suspicion.
The U.S. needs to get used to China's rise, which has been underway for more than 30 years and has definitely benefited the U.S., while giving China more space to play its role.
Either side should know the limits of its power when it comes to dealing with the other side. The lesson from the Vietnam War and the second Gulf War clearly indicate the limits of U.S. power. The lesson still applies today. When either side goes beyond the limits of its power, it is putting its own interests at risk in ways it cannot control.
Jia Qingguo is a member of the International Consultative Committee with the Charhar Institute, and a professor of International Relations College of Peking University.
The article was translated by Li Yang. Its original unabridged version was published in Chinese.
Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors only, not necessarily those of China.org.cn.
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