Contemporary China and the World

?

Contemporary China and the World

By Yuan Yuan, Outlook Weekly Research Center

China has developed, China has achieved large-scale development, and China will still continue its large-scale development, which itself is one of the factors that have become increasingly prominent and important in the world situation. This in turn is bound to become a fundamental standpoint for us to obtain a new and important period of strategic opportunities in the second decade of the 21 century and even longer.

The Eighteenth National Congress of the CPC, having attracted nationwide attention and worldwide attention, has successfully closed. The Conference determines the direction and road to continue moving forward on the basis of its past experiences, smoothly formulates the new central collective leadership for the handover to the new team from the old one, so the 1.3 billion Chinese people are happy and proud.

After the International Financial Forum of 2012 annual meeting in mid-November, Zheng Bijian, former executive vice chancellor of the CPC Party School, in his interview with Outlook Weekly, emphasized that this CPC national Conference is a very important conference as China has entered a decisive phase of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects and a significant conference related to China’s smooth development over the next decade. The most critical point is that the report to the conference emphasizes neither taking the closed rigidities of the old road, nor going to the wrong road of changing the flag, but adhering to and further develop the line, principles and policies since the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee, based on confirmation of the basic national conditions of the primary stage of socialism, and in the face of the general situation in a new period of strategic opportunities. That is to say, this conference gives us a most distinctive prompt, in the forthcoming decade, China will continue to unswervingly follow the road of peaceful rise and development, and work hard to open up a grand new historical stage of completing the building of a moderately prosperous society in all respects and take bigger steps to develop the Chinese productivity (especially from the qualitative aspects) from both quantitative and qualitative perspectives.

Understanding China and the World With the View of The "Duality"

The first two decades of the 21stcentury is a critical stage for China to concentrate on building a moderately prosperous society in all respects on a higher level for the benefit of more than one billion Chinese people. Now, half of 20 years has passed, but the world today has witnessed complex and profound changes. However, China has grown faster, while the situation is more complex; the world has developed tremendously too, and the situation is more complicated. So a very noteworthy understanding is to look at China and the world with a view of "duality".

Broadly speaking, the "duality" refers to two aspects of a matter.

The first one is a complementary relationship, i.e. complementary “duality”. For example, in the next decade or longer time, the Chinese people can not but face a dual mission, i.e. liberation of the productive forces and development of productive forces through both the socialist market economy as the orientation and promoting the economic structural reform of public ownership as the main body and development of the diverse forms of ownership, but also promotion of social justice and taking the road to common prosperity. Here the special complexity lies: to liberate the productive forces and to inspire social vitality and efficiency include greatly encouraging innovation and entrepreneurship, which are uniform in nature with the promotion of social justice and common prosperity. Moreover, some inconsistencies or even certain contradictions may emerge in some ways or on some specific problems. Both aspects are unified in the long-term development, but inconsistencies or even some contradictions may occur in a certain stage of the development process. This requires that while guiding the people to understand the problem of duality and long-term nature of the process, we must properly handle the current problems, make long-term plans, solve the current problems, make overall, balanced, and comprehensive arrangements, rather than attempt to achieve something overnight, and avoid the occurrence of various one-sidedness.

For instance, in the second decade or longer, the Chinese people can not but face a another dual mission, i.e., to continue to complete the traditional industrialization already completed by industrialized countries, but also to promote synchronous development of industrialization, informatization, urbanization, and agriculture modernization to catch up with the trend of the great new revolution of modern science and technology since the 1970s and so far in the ascendant. The special complexity lies that: we would continue to face the dual historic challenges in the process of pushing forward reform and opening up and socialist modernization. Firstly, we would face industrialization challenges characterized by large-scale machine industry and electrification achieved by capitalism during two hundred years from mid-18th century to mid-20th century. Secondly, we would face challenges of new technological revolution characterized by information technology, bio-engineering and new materials, new energy, etc. achieved by capitalism since the 1970s and so far in the ascendant. This dual mandates require that we must neither just copy the past development of "steel civilization", "mechanical civilization", etc. as the level of productivity, nor take the beaten track of allowing capital and technology crowding out of labor and destroying the environment in the old mode of development, but record innovation and the liberation of entrepreneurial vitality on the basis of better integration of capital, technology and labor, and achieve full employment and comprehensive, coordinate and sustainable growth in our large country of over one billion people.

The second scenario of "duality" is contradictions to each other but can be transformed mutually. The report of the Eighteenth CPC National Congress points out that both the development opportunities and their risks and challenges we face are unprecedented, which in essence is a "duality" relationship that contradicts each other and can be transformed into the opposite. This means that we see "unprecedented opportunities" while can not but foresee "unprecedented challenges". We, at the same time, recognize the challenges and opportunities that can be transformed into each other. Historical experiences have proved this point. Needless to begin with stories far into the past, let us look at the first decade of the 21stcentury, almost every strategic breakthrough is closely related with a major crisis converted into opportunities for development. For example, a successful response to the East Asian financial crisis in 1997 turned China into the economic engine of East Asia. For another example, by the turn of the century in the year 2001, breaking the impasse to join the WTO, China begun its entrance into the world market system. For example again, the successful response to the event of "9 /11" in the United States, China began building a new converging point of strategic interests with the United States. For instance, in the year 2008, the cross-Straits relationship turned the corner, thus having entered a new stage of peaceful development across the Taiwan Straits. Again for instance, since the year 2008, having successfully dealt with the severe impacts of the international financial crisis and the European sovereign debt crisis, China has begun its entrance into the core parts of the international system and the world economy. And so on, these show that a crisis is indeed a real implication for opportunities. Be good at judging the hour and sizing up the situation and taking advantages, under certain conditions, pressure can be turned into motivation, and challenges into opportunities. This is a successfully historical experience.

In summary, the world is full of contradictions and conflicts, and full of "duality" relationships. But in the meantime we should understand that the overall situation of the contemporary world and the overall situation of the second decade of the 21stcentury are entirely different from that of the First World War, the Second World War and the Cold War era. In short, the overall posture and the general trend will become more beneficial.

Ten-point Forecast for the Second Decade of the 21st Century World Situation

The development of the second decade of the 21stcentury world will show the following overall posture and general trend.

First, under the conditions of world multi-polarization and economic globalization, the interdependence of nations continues to deepen; countries are connected increasing closely so none is able to separate from the rest.

Second, major powers relationships will witness major adjustments, mutual cooperation and mutual competition become more obvious. The Group-20 summit indicates that they should develop within cooperation but also seek advantages in their competition.

Third, the momentum of peaceful rise of the major developing countries including China as a whole becomes increasingly prominent, and the coming decade is the critical period of their development and rise.

Fourth, the international financial crisis has catalyzed a significant change of the structure of social productive forces in the world, the new technological revolution and the industrial revolution with smart technology and new technology as the core increasingly show off their cutting edges.

Fifth, the deep-seated impacts of the international financial crisis have not been fundamentally removed, there are still uncertainties in the world economic recovery. In the post-international financial crisis, non-traditional security issues such as climate, resources, food, financing, etc. become more prominent, global governance awaits urgent solution.

Sixth, economic development modes of major powers will see significant changes, which in turn determine their relative changing status.

Seventh, various forms of severe turbulence or geopolitical conflicts, or even the danger of war in traditional form still exist, however, we should neither get into panic, nor take it lightly.

Eighth, no matter how the world situation changes, the human race in the historical stage of sovereign states will remain for a very long time.

Ninth, as far as the trends of major powers go, in the final analysis, there are no more than three moves for them: First is to continue the Cold War thinking; second is to launch local hot war, third is to seek common development, mutual benefit and win-win cooperation, and to build up converging interests and the community of interests. Regarding the first two, we first oppose and second not fear because they find no future. China stands for the third, i.e., under the conditions of economic globalization, and on the basis of striving to do a good job in their own development including the building of national defense, taking the road of peaceful development, developing all-dimensionally "converging interests" with all relevant nations and regions and building "community of interests" with different contents and at different levels. Here "all-dimensionally" refers to China’s cooperation with the United States, with Europe, with other Asian countries, especially neighboring countries, with Africa, with Latin America, and so on, but by no means exclusive.

Tenth, looking at the world mega-trend, for both China and the world, there are still opportunities and challenges intertwined with opportunities greater than challenges. In the new round of adjustments of major powers relations, China continues in the driving position, so we remain confident of China's peaceful development rise in the second decade of 21stcentury because we will not be easily shaken by various incidents.

The New Strategic Opportunities and China’s Development

The report of Eighteenth National Congress of the CPC clearly states that looking at international and national mega-trends, China's development is still in an important period of strategic opportunities with a great deal of accomplishments. We should accurately determine the changing connotation and conditions of the important period of strategic opportunities, comprehensively grasp the opportunity to calmly respond to challenges to gain the initiative and the advantages, to win the future, and to ensure to achieve the ambitious goal of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects by the year 2020. That is to say, whether we in the next decade seize the opportunity and turn pressure into motivation and turn challenges into opportunities, and fully complete the ambitious goal, the key depends on our awareness and actions in the profound changing situation both globally and domestically.

Based on the successful practices experiences of the CPC and the Chinese Government in all these years, we can come up with such a point of view. As we assess strategic opportunities, of course, starting from the grasp of domestic and international situations, but at the same time we should have full assessments that an increasingly significant variable continuing to affect the world general trend is China's own development. In other words, exerting a profound impact on the international economic, political and strategic pattern, China's factor gets increasingly heavier and more important into the future. In the second decade of the 21stcentury or longer, despite emerging pressures and challenges at home and abroad, and many difficulties expected and unpredictable, China develops, China has achieved large-scale development, and China will continue the large-scale development, which itself is increasingly prominent and increasingly important factor in the world mega-trend. And this in turn is bound to become a fundamental standpoint for us to obtain a new and important period of strategic opportunities in the second decade of the 21stcentury and even longer,

Looking ahead, we are convinced that a prosperous, strong, democratic, and stable China is bound to bring to the world a bigger market and more opportunities, and make more contributions to the world peace and development.