By Zhong Sheng, People’s Daily
“Either way, China and America are compelled to work together if there is going to be a stable 21st century. If competition and collaboration give way entirely to confrontation, a disorderly 21st century awaits us both.”
This was written by American opinion columnist Thomas L. Friedman in an article after wrapping up a recent trip to China. He believes that America and China are the only two powers that together can offer any hope, as the world today faces runaway artificial intelligence and climate change.
Friedman’s opinion represents insightful Americans’ clear understanding and rational thinking on how major countries like China and the U.S. should fulfill their responsibilities.
Humanity is faced with unprecedented challenges in this turbulent world suffering from frequent conflicts. Against this backdrop, major-country competition should not be the underlying logic of the times; only solidarity and cooperation can help humanity overcome current difficulties.
Both China and the U.S. must recognize that under the current circumstances, common interests between the two countries are expanding rather than shrinking. Their cooperation is crucial not only for the economy, trade, agriculture, counternarcotics, law enforcement and public health, but also for handling global challenges of climate change and artificial intelligence as well as addressing international hotspot issues.
Many in the U.S. believe that “with great power comes great responsibility.” China also holds that the international status of a country is measured by its openness of mind, breadth of vision, and sense of responsibility.
As the world’s two largest economies and permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, China and the U.S. should always keep in mind humanity’s future and their responsibilities for world peace, provide public good for the world, and play an active role in addressing global challenges.
In today’s world, humanity is a closely entwined community with a shared future. Countries are not riding separately in some 190 small boats, but are rather all in a giant ship on which their shared destiny hinges. As such, they should see each other’s development as opportunities rather than challenges, and treat each other as partners rather than rivals. Global solidarity, cooperation, mutual benefit and win-win should become the defining theme of the times. This is how China views the world and its relationship with the U.S.
As China believes that humanity is a community with a shared future, it has always handled China-U.S. relations with a sense of responsibility for history, for the people and for the world and based on the principles of mutual respect, peaceful coexistence and win-win cooperation. China always holds that the two countries should be partners, not rivals. The Thucydides’s Trap is not a historical inevitability, and a new Cold War should not be fought and cannot be won.
China is committed to promoting stable, healthy, and sustainable development of China-U.S. relations, and exploring the right way for two major countries to get along well with each other. This in itself reflects China’s responsible attitude that puts the future of humanity front and center.
Major-country competition does not represent the trend of the times, still less can it solve America’s own problems or the challenges facing the world. China and the U.S. should jointly shoulder responsibilities as major countries and set an example in addressing global challenges.
In the past, China and the U.S. pulled the world economy out of the quagmire of the international financial crisis together with other G20 members, and jointly pushed to reach the Paris Agreement on climate change, bringing new hope for fighting global warming.
As the world economic recovery remains sluggish and global challenges keep emerging, it is even more imperative for China and the U.S. to take the lead in shouldering responsibilities as major countries, refrain from mutual attrition that drags down the world, and avoid coercing other countries into taking sides.
Tariff war, trade war and tech war are against the trend of history and laws of economics, and they produce no winners. For economic and trade disputes, neither decoupling nor supply-chain disruption is the solution; common development can only be achieved through mutually beneficial cooperation. In the face of the burgeoning sci-tech revolution and industrial transformation, “small yard, high fences” is not what a major country should do; only openness and sharing can advance the well-being of humanity.
China and the U.S. should work together to promote an equal and orderly multipolar world and a universally beneficial and inclusive economic globalization, let the light of peace reach all corners of the world, and ensure that more development gains will be shared more fairly by people across the world.
“There are few certainties in world affairs. What we do know is that without much greater cooperation between the U.S. and China, the world will be in dire straits,” said an American scholar when analyzing the future development of China-U.S. relations.
China-U.S. cooperation may not solve all problems, but few problems can be solved without China-U.S. cooperation. The U.S. should fulfill its responsibilities as a major country, stand on the right side of history, and work together with China to strengthen dialogue and communication, properly manage differences, and expand mutually beneficial cooperation, so as to inject more certainty and positive energy into the world.
(Zhong Sheng is a pen name often used by People’s Daily to express its views on foreign policy and international affairs.)
