US must reassure China of its peaceful intentions
- Source: Global Times
- [08:37 November 02 2009]
- Comments
By Li Daguang
Xu Caihou, Vice Chairman of the Central Military Commission of the Communist Party of China, is paying US Defense Secretary Robert Gates a return visit from October 24 to Tuesday, as Gates visited China two years ago.
Bonnie Glaser, senior fellow with the US-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, said that during Xu's visit, the two countries could discuss ways to provide each other with greater "strategic reassurance."
According to James Steinberg, US Deputy Secretary of State, "strategic reassurance"refers to that "we [the US and its allies] are prepared to welcome China's 'arrival,'"and "China must reassure the rest of the world that its development and growing global role will not come at the expense of security and well-being of others."
Putting the connotations of "strategic reassurance"aside, the US advancing such a concept expresses that at least the US is no longer aiming at containing China's development, as it did in the past.
Moreover, it has been "prepared to welcome China's 'arrival'"– the US has recognized China's development over the past decades.
For the sake of world peace and stability, it's necessary for the two great powers to provide each other with "strategic reassurance."However, whether China "must reassure the rest of the world that its development and growing global role will not come at the expense of security and well-being of others"is worth discussing.
Today it comes out that despite China's growing strength, what China advocates is a "Harmonious World."
The West believes in the "Law of the Jungle,"which concludes that a rising country will certainly require a rearrangement of existing international order and a reallocation of world resources, and thus will take the road of expansion.
China follows an Oriental philosophy, which calls for harmonious coexistence. Therefore, not only for the past and the present but also for the future, China never has and will never have any intention of threatening other countries. On the contrary, it was China which was invaded and humiliated by Western imperialist powers in the 19th and 20th century.
