Editor's Note:

The world is seeing a change in its structure of international relations from a unipolar world to a new power paradigm, and witnessing growing challenges to international security such as cyber attacks and nuclear proliferation. What impact does this have on major-power relations, particularly the China-US relationship? What kind of relations should China and the US develop? Zbigniew Kazimierz Brzezinski (Brzezinski), former US national security advisor, took media questions at the World Peace Forum 2013, jointly organized by Tsinghua University and Chinese People's Institute of Foreign Affairs from June 27 to 28 in Beijing.

Q: How do you evaluate the impact of the Edward Snowden case?

Brzezinski: The Snowden affair does not involve eavesdropping on individuals, but essentially the interactions of conversations of different parts of the world to see if there are some patterns of connectivity which involve groups that may be engaged in terrorism.

And the position of the US is that maybe as many as 50 possible terrorist acts organized in the US and abroad were prevented.

Then support for Snowden actually means support for terrorism.

So far, all we know is that he has adversely affected counter-terrorism. I suspect we collaborate with you (China) against terrorism, because you have come to us to talk about what you call terrorism by the Uyghurs.

But I emphasize, that may not be the whole story. Maybe Snowden has some secrets and he's holding them back.

Q: How can China and the US cooperate in the cyber security field?

Brzezinski: Cyber security involves penetration by one country into another country. That is not considered to be normal for cooperation between states.

The PLA a few days ago published a very interesting article on cyber security, in which it said explicitly there is a need for American-Chinese joint efforts to reach an understanding on what is acceptable in cyber security. I think it's in our mutual interests to have an agreement on this activity and limits to it.

Q: In recent years the US has increased its presence around China. Is this aimed at containing China?

Brzezinski: I think our presence contributes to greater stability in the region, because without us, I think more countries near China would be intensely afraid of China.

Here is a country with 1.3 billion people next to tiny countries. With us there, there's a sense of stability and we can also influence some countries in a positive way.

We certainly would not like to see a China-Japanese collision over the (Diaoyu) Islands. That means we can say to the Japanese: be patient, be restrained, don't be provocative, and we can also encourage the Chinese to exercise restraint.

I think our presence in the region makes it easier for everybody here to relax and to accommodate to the reality that we live in a world in which open access, avoiding conflicts, movement of people, intensified trade, expanding globalization, are the normal patterns of behavior.

Today's Asia has more potential for territorial, resource, ethnic, nationalistic conflicts than Europe in the previous century.

It wouldn't be in anybody's interests if a series of wars broke out. The only countries right now with nuclear weapons that occasionally act as if they were tempted to rely on them in the case of conflict are in Asia. China is not one of them.

China pursues a very prudent nuclear policy. The Russians have, like we do, 1,500 deployed nuclear warheads which can kill in a few hours about 85 million people, and they have in storage about 8,000. In contrast, China has over 300, which is enough to do a lot of damage either in Russia or the US.

If we were to withdraw, we would probably very quickly have a nuclear Japan, so I think our role on the whole is that of a stabilizer and a balancer, but not of an antagonist, and I think your leaders understand that.

Q: The rise of big powers and the changes in the balance of power in history have been full of conflicts and military clashes. China and the US promote establishing a new-type major-power relationship. Are you optimistic about these prospects?

Brzezinski: You own a tremendous number of American funds in our financial system, and it's in your interests to own them, but it's also in our interests for you to buy them, so we do have a significant collaborative relationship which is expanding and we think China's economic growth is a contribution to global financial and economic stability. 

We are also realistic enough to understand that we are no longer in an age in which one country can dominate the world completely. 

We are also fairly confident that for the next 20 or 30 years we are going to be ahead of China in terms of overall power. But China will be ahead of everybody else except us, so we will be in this very special relationship of collaboration. Hopefully, that will be beneficial to both countries.

It's a new experiment in history. Whenever a country was on top and another was rising, they always collide. I think this time, we realize that we'd both be better off if we do not collide.