Peaceful growth the only path

Q+A | Wu Jianmin

Q: How would you summarize the characteristics of China's diplomacy in the past year and what were the highlights?

A: China's diplomacy has displayed three major characteristics since the new leadership took office.

First, it is multidimensional diplomacy. There are four aspects to the country's diplomacy: its relationships with major powers, neighboring countries and developing nations and its multilateral diplomacy. President Xi Jinping has been active in all these four areas.

The second characteristic is that the country will unswervingly follow the path of peaceful development, and President Xi has made this strategy quite clear through his speeches and conversations with foreign guests on various occasions.

The third characteristic is that China has given more importance to its relationship with its neighbors.

I think China's diplomacy over the past year was dynamic.

Why are so many people across the world so concerned about China?

Chinese people should realize that the concerns of some countries, especially our neighbors, have reached an unprecedented level, and the reasons are various.

There are few people in the world who really know about China, and the number who specialize in China and Chinese policies is even smaller.

Most people tend to judge China by the expansion model of the colonial powers and the former Soviet Union, and prejudice against the Communist Party will not end in a short time.

China has its own vocabulary and jargon. When China explains its behavior, it is sometimes difficult for foreigners to understand. Moreover, China is becoming a pluralistic society where there are different voices and ideas. Foreigners have a hard time in telling which one represents China.

Why should China follow the path of peaceful development?

We have entered an era whose theme is peace and development. There is a powerful mega-trend of peace, development, cooperation and win-win results. This is the trend of our time. Any country that dares to counter this trend and wage a war will decline. Peaceful development is the only path to progress and prosperity. China has followed successfully this path over the past three decades. We'll stick to this path.

How should China deal with the challenges in its neighborhood?

Human history has never seen the rise of a country with 1.3 billion people before. China's growth is bound to break the existing pattern of interests, so frictions with its neighbors are, as a result, inevitable.

The US, the only superpower in the world today, announced its pivot to the Asia-Pacific region. China's neighbors, of course, have to strike a balance between the major powers.

China's diplomatic relations with neighboring countries should be considered in the context of the global landscape. I think there are three centers in the world. Europe will remain the center of the financial crisis in the coming years. No prospect of a resolution has appeared in the conflict-ridden Middle East and Northern Africa, which is the center of conflict, confrontation, turbulence and regional war, and has consumed much of the international community's time, energy and resources.

However, global economic growth is centered on Asia, especially China and East Asia. The whole world needs to maintain Asia as the global growth center. And no country will make a policy to break the rise of Asia. No one will shoot himself in the foot.

China should manage and control the current frictions with its neighbors.

The approach Deng Xiaoping advocated is to "leave aside the dispute and seek joint development". This is the best way to defuse territorial disputes and achieve win-win results. I'm happy to notice the progress we made last year with our neighbors along this path. Deng Xiaoping's approach remains the policy of the Chinese government.

Given the US pivot to the Asia-Pacific and its rebalancing strategy, how should Beijing and Washington deal with their own interests while cooperating with other countries in the region? How can China meet the challenge?

The US pivot to Asia, or the rebalancing strategy, was brought up four years ago. In the beginning, the emphasis was on the military aspect. Then they said it's not right to overemphasize the military aspect. Economy is very important.

Apparently it is not a well-thought-out strategy. The center of gravity of the international relations is moving from the Atlantic to the Pacific. This process is far from over. It is understandable that the US, as the only superpower, would follow the power shift and give more importance to Asia.

Where do we go from here? It depends not only on the US, but also on Asia. It is true that some people in America want to contain China. But as far as I can see, this is not the Obama administration's policy.

In 2013, President Xi Jinping and President Barack Obama had an informal summit in California. The two leaders agreed to build a new model for major power relations. It means, as President Xi put it, "non-conflict, non-confrontation, mutual respect and collaboration to achieve win-win cooperation". This is good news not only for China and the US, but also for the rest of the world.

What would be the cost of confrontation, for example, between China and Japan, or China and the Philippines?

Talking about the relations with our neighbors, the Chinese side said over and over again that "cooperation makes two sides winners, confrontation makes two sides losers". This is true.

At the height of the tension, some people said confrontation is affordable. But do they calculate the cost of the confrontation? Do they want an everybody-is-a-loser situation to persist?

It is true that we have a territorial dispute with our neighbors. But territorial dispute is not the whole picture of our relationship. The relationship between China and its neighboring countries has developed enormously in the past 30 years, creating huge common interests which have every reason to be preserved.

What are the chances of easing tensions between China and Japan, if Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe continues to follow his current policies?

I think what Shinzo Abe did is not accidental, but has a complicated background.

After Japan's economic bubble burst in the 1990s, the country was trapped by economic stagnation. Japan has elected seven prime ministers in six years. Under such circumstances, Abe is flying the banner of nationalism to fan public passions and shore up his public image.

Nationalism has two components. One is loving one's own country, which has nothing wrong. The second is xenophobia, to reject others. Abe's nationalism has alarmed not only China, but everybody else, including the US. Abe's counter-China policies hurt not only China's interests but also the interests of Japan itself. He will not go far. Ties between the Chinese and Japanese people and economic cooperation between the two countries should be not only maintained, but also developed further.

Do you think the nationalistic mood among some of the Chinese has influenced China's diplomatic work?

Nationalism and populism have been spreading in the world in recent years, including in China.

Populism means to deliver speeches solely to please some people and win their support, instead of being cool-headed and taking the nation's long-term interest into account. The combination of nationalism and populism is highly dangerous, because it may lead politicians to be hijacked by nationalism.

We realize that in the 21st century, China's most important interest is to maintain development momentum. We have gathered such a momentum for the first time since the Opium War of 1840. To maintain the development momentum, we need to preserve opening-up momentum and international cooperation momentum. China's development needs the world. World prosperity and stability need China. China has been always vigilant about nationalism.

(China Daily Africa Weekly 01/10/2014 page29)