Chapter 9 Respond to threats with peace and collapse with rise

What is the basis for saying that "the development path of peaceful rise" is a stronger and more effective expression that takes into account international public opinion? The actual situation is that some international public opinion has been hyping up the so-called "China threat theory" for 10 years since the 1990s. At the end of 2002, shortly after the Sixteenth National Congress of the Communist Party of China, I led a delegation of the Reform and Opening Forum to visit the United States. During my contacts with people in the U.S. government and opposition, I directly observed that there was a certain market for "two theories", one called "China Threat Theory" and one It is called "China's collapse theory". The "China Threat Theory" means that China will go forward and become stronger. Isn't it going to compete for resources?Isn't it going to expand?And "the theory of China's collapse" is also raised, saying that China's development will not last and will collapse.At that time, I felt that I needed to answer, and I should answer, and as long as it was based on China's basic facts and basic experience, it was completely possible to answer.So I introduced them to the 16th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, and thus solved the problem.

I said that the 16th National Congress of the Communist Party of China summed up the experience of more than 20 years since the reform and opening up.What experience? It is reform and opening up.The essence of reform and opening up is to be connected with economic globalization rather than separated from it.The road we have created is to independently build socialism with Chinese characteristics in the process of being connected with economic globalization instead of breaking away from it.If we follow this path, we must not provoke a worldwide massacre in order to compete for resources like some rising powers did in the past; we must not reject peace, development and cooperation because of differences in social systems and ideologies; moreover You can't fight for hegemony and dominate with one effort.

I also said that China has been on this path for 25 years, which proves that we have maintained peace (not a "threat") and developed rapidly (not a "collapse").We will continue to go on like this in the future, and we will go even better.Many Americans can understand this, and the overall reaction is good. After I came back, I suggested to carry out research in this area.This special research has been successfully carried out, some work has been done, and some results have been achieved.I think that things in China and the world are still developing, and we will continue to have new research results.

In short, it took China 70 years to basically achieve modernization, reach the level of a moderately developed country, and enable 1.3 billion to 1.5 billion people to live a good life. This is not ordinary development, nor is it ordinary rejuvenation. We call this the "great rejuvenation."Could it be that such a rapid development of the "great revival" is not a "rise"? Isn't it what Deng Xiaoping said about transforming from a political power to an economic power?History will prove that the "development path of peaceful rise" is completely in line with reality.As long as we really persist in doing it, we will have more and more friends, sympathizers, and understanding people, and our path will become wider and wider.