German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the most powerful leader in the EU, gave her fellow legislators, and indeed the whole world, a very blunt message in recent days.

She said, "No one should think another half century of peace and prosperity is assured if the leaders of the EU fail in this crisis." If the euro were to fail, the single market which binds the 27 EU member states will also begin to unravel.

The creation of a unified economy in post-war Europe was an astonishing achievement by nations which had spent the previous decades locked in one war after another.

After the end of the "long peace" of the 19th century, when, following the post-war restructuring of the balance of power after the Napoleonic Wars, there was relatively little major conflict between European powers, the devastation of World War I and II spread out from Europe to rock the entire planet.

For Merkel to speak so bluntly took real courage. As the leader of Germany, a country at the center of many of the more recent European conflicts, she did not do so lightly. In doing so she affirmed once again the vision of the EU's founding fathers, who were determined to find a way to build a peaceful economy following a conflict that had, once again, claimed the lives of tens of millions of Europeans. 

The German Chancellor did so after securing at least a provisional, working deal on the European economy, alongside the French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

The German-French conflict had been at the root of European wars since 1870, but the two nations were able to put decades of antagonism behind them to strike a new deal for a peaceful future.

This message of an economy of peace is not lost on developing countries. Many of them have their own turbulent histories.

China's leaders have often pointed to their country's peaceful development. They can do so with justification in the absence of foreign wars since 1979, markedly different from other powerful countries in the 20th and 21st centuries. They can also justifiably point to the steady reduction of absolute poverty in the own country, something fully recognized by the UN.

Despite the social conflicts there in China in the past 30 years, which flowed from the sheer pace of economic development, there have been no fratricidal conflicts that threatened the very drive for development. Sharp differences of opinion are sometimes reflected, increasingly on the Internet, but this is a sign of a maturing, modern society and the leadership should not fear it.

The other defining characteristic of China's rise is that it has not resulted from the imperialist exploitation of resources taken from other countries at low or no cost. The main ingredient in the mix has been the energy, ingenuity and commitment of its own people and the reliance on its own resources.

As it has opened up, however, China requires more resources of all kinds from the rest of the world, just as it able to provide many, useful products for the use of millions of others elsewhere. A new balance of trade and all the associated changes is needed, if a peaceful global economy is to be properly secured.

Merkel should be praised for her words, and China should help her to fulfill the European dream of "an economy of peace," for that is precisely the aspiration of its own people.

There can be debates, even hard negotiations about how China can help the EU, but there can be no question about its willingness or intention to do so.

The author is a coal mine safety adviser based in Beijing and Whanganui, New Zealand. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn