Chapter 66 Diplomatic intrigue and the way of thinking of China and the United States in seeking peaceful competition

Some Western scholars and politicians believe that in diplomacy, strength does not represent fairness or justice; but justice itself, justice itself, cannot be transformed into strength.State-to-state exchanges require fairness and justice, but not just relying on justice alone, but more importantly, strength and interests.Driven by interests, some powerful countries in the West have conducted frequent diplomatic activities and exhausted all kinds of tricks and means in order to seek their own greatest advantages.Such as alliance diplomacy, secret diplomacy, treaty diplomacy, human rights diplomacy and democratic diplomacy, etc., these diplomatic means are extremely offensive.Some developing countries, in order to safeguard their own interests, have also adopted active diplomatic strategies, maneuvering, either hard or soft.

At present, the diplomatic strategy of each country is to seek to benefit the country through non-war means.In the contest with other countries, diplomatic strategy is committed to ensuring that the country gains benefits through peaceful means through the widest possible channels, while minimizing losses as much as possible, reducing the possibility of resorting to force or resisting foreign aggression. To evaluate a country's diplomatic strategy, we should not only study its achievements, but also see whether it can prevent problems before they happen, especially in the handling of some major international events, so that the country does not lose face or lose points.China wants to take the path of peaceful development, and its diplomatic ambition and foresight is to plant more flowers and less thorns, pave more roads and less demolish bridges.The thinking method of vertical and horizontal strife is mainly to repair the cracks, increase the needlework, make friends and not make enemies.

At the same time, we don't mean to compromise everything by doing this. We don't want to offend anyone, but we don't have to be afraid of anyone.What we have done is to act in accordance with the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, and grasp it from a principled standpoint. A Western politician in the world recently pointed out that the "unipolar world" that once formed after the end of the Cold War has come to an end. Great powers in the 21st century need to establish new international relations and international institutions. For these countries, concepts such as "enemy" and "rival" are outdated. What needs to be considered is how to transform the relationship of "competition" and "competition" into "Responsible partnership" and how to establish a "more realistic new international order in the 21st century" to more effectively meet the challenges of globalization.He advocated the establishment of a "new multi-polar world with a chorus of great powers".This proposition has been recognized by many Western scholars and politicians.

However, this claim ignores who is the dominant aspect of the contradiction.In the process of transforming the relationship of "competition" and "competition" into "responsible partnership", the success or failure of the transformation is determined by the main aspects of the contradiction. It will become a blank check in people's eyes.At this stage, the leading aspect of this transformation is the powerful country. If the powerful country always holds on to the Cold War mentality and never gives up the concept of "enemy" and "rival", then it is impossible to distinguish the relationship between "competition" and "competition". into "responsible partnerships".However, we cannot say that small and weak countries can only do nothing about this. Individual small and weak countries may indeed be powerless, but if small and weak countries unite to fight, it may promote limited changes in powerful countries.The word "limited" should be emphasized here, because it is generally impossible for a powerful country to spontaneously and completely transform the relationship of "competition" and "competition" into a "responsible one" without any pressure in the foreseeable future. Partnerships".

For now, the success or failure of this transformation depends on the attitude of the United States.Should the United States continue to pursue its dream of a century-old empire, and "compete" and "compete" countries it dislikes as "enemies" and "rivals", or should it abandon unrealistic illusions and participate in promoting and embracing multiple A highly cooperative new world order?This will be a very important strategic choice for the United States in the 21st century, and this choice will fundamentally affect the fate of the United States and other countries in the world throughout the 21st century.

In the 35 years since Nixon visited China in 1972, the peaceful development of Sino-US relations has proved that competition can be peaceful. Thirty-five years ago, Sino-US relations were limited to a strategic cooperative relationship formed against the threat of the Soviet Union, but today's Sino-US relations have gone far beyond the scope of dealing with a common enemy, that is, from purely strategic security and political and diplomatic cooperation to economic cooperation. , culture, technology and other aspects of cooperation, the region of cooperation has also expanded from Asia to Central Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Europe and even the whole world.In the 1990s, issues such as human rights, reform-through-labor products, freedom of speech and religion, and most-favored-nation treatment, which had long been entangled between China and the United States, have been replaced by trade deficits, RMB exchange rates, energy cooperation, economic globalization, and anti-terrorism cooperation, the North Korean nuclear crisis, and the situation in the Middle East. replaced by other questions.The region and scope involved in Sino-US relations go beyond bilateral relations and are having a major impact on maintaining world peace and stability.At the same time, due to the growth of China's economy and comprehensive national strength, Sino-US relations have entered a stage of intertwined interests and interdependence economically.In recent years, Sino-US relations have become more mature. The two sides have established an effective mechanism for strategic dialogue, maintained frequent high-level contacts and exchanges, and conducted candid discussions on bilateral relations and world hot issues.

This shows that there are competitions and conflicts of interests between China and the United States, but war between China and the United States is not inevitable.As the US "Time" magazine reported: "Optimistically speaking, China may rise to become a powerful country. This is not necessarily a terrible thing like Germany and Japan. China and the United States can resolve conflicts of interest peacefully. , then China and the rest of the world can also resolve conflicts of interest peacefully.” However, there are both "doves" and "hawks" in the United States.However, the "doves" and "hawks" in the United States are not two factions with clear lines and no change. They are often transforming into each other, which is the result of the uncertainty of the opponent.For example, Nixon is the representative of the "doves" in the United States, but he also served as the representative of the "hawks" toward China in the past.This is just as some scholars have pointed out in an article: the "doves" coming to power does not mean calm, and the "hawks" coming to power does not mean that things are out of control.

For the long-term peaceful coexistence of China and the United States, the United States should pay attention to this: China has never wanted to challenge the dominant position of the United States.The national strategic goals of China and the United States are different. The United States wants to lead the world, while China wants to build a well-off society in an all-round way through peaceful development.Under this strategic goal, it is impossible, unrealistic and unnecessary for China to challenge the dominant position of the United States.China cannot threaten the United States, and the United States should not regard China as a threatening opponent; China's peaceful development does not come at the expense of the decline of the United States.China's peaceful development has just created a huge, long-term stable market and interest space for the United States; it is impossible for the United States to contain China.If the United States wants to deliberately contain China, the price it has to pay will be extremely heavy, and it will definitely greatly affect the development of the United States.

For a long time, in the U.S. Congress and scholars, there have been two voices about China: one is a tough voice, advocating containment and suppression of China; the other is a moderate voice, advocating engagement with China and socialize.Both the hardliners and the moderates are "hedge their bets". The tough ones are forcing China to make concessions, while the moderates are persuading or cleverly standing on China's position to imply that China will make concessions.This is the consistent behavior of the United States in its foreign exchanges, which deserves our deep consideration, vigilance and reference.In this regard, Chinese scholars should also have two voices, so as to fight with two hands.Otherwise, it will be detrimental to safeguarding China's national interests.

In short, in the exchanges between China and the United States, China must have the strategic self-confidence and strategic courage to "sit tight in the fishing boat despite the wind and waves".Although there are many common interests between China and the United States, their national interests will never completely overlap, especially because of ideological conflicts. Therefore, ideological conflicts and conflicts of interests between China and the United States cannot be avoided. Therefore, China and the United States "Fighting" is normal, not "fighting" is abnormal, the key is to grasp the scale of the struggle, "fighting broken" is not good for both parties.The most important thing is that China and the United States should maintain a healthy relationship of competition or struggle, and avoid turning this relationship of competition or struggle into a relationship of hostility or war.China and the United States are on the same planet, and we must learn to seek common ground of interests in a reasonable, beneficial, restrained, and lawful manner.Any ideological conflict and conflict of interest is a "double-edged sword" that hurts both other countries and the country itself.Any far-sighted politician who is responsible for the fundamental interests of the country must actively seek to replace disorderly confrontation with cooperation and promote common development with mutual benefit.Rationally speaking, in today's world of economic globalization, China and the United States will benefit from cooperation, and lose from confrontation.Today, both China and the United States should revisit what Nixon once wrote: "My most recent visit to China was in 1979. The foreign policy focus of Chinese leaders is security, not expansion. They are interested in domestic development, not foreign policy. Interested in activities outside of the country. They display a very sophisticated global outlook, not that of an empire builder to conquer the world, but that of a world statesman who seeks a global balance of power so that every nation, including themselves, is safe ...if this concept can be sustained, then by the next century, China may truly become a 'great and progressive nation', a powerful and peaceful nation in the world. If we can show strength , showing that we are reliable partners, the likelihood that Chinese politicians will hold such views will increase.”