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China does not need to learn from a system that already burdens Washington

TaiShang

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No need to learn from old alliance system that already burdens Washington
By Wang Xiangsui

China's peaceful rise is encountering obstacles from US-led alliances. In China's peripheries, there exist both bilateral and multilateral security alliances, such as the one among the US, Japan and South Korea and the one between the US and the Philippines. Some countries seek to exert pressure on China by making use of their alliances with the US and seek to exploit benefits from this.

This not only makes China feel bullied, but also makes some US strategists worried, as US scholar Christopher Layne noted, "The true cause of American insecurity is not an imminent encroachment on its territory but the risk that US alliances - especially with Japan - will draw it into a regional conflict."

Alliances are the basis of US dominance of the world, but they have also become a burden for Washington.

The peak of US alliances came during the presidency of Harry Truman. The alliances helped the US dominate the global order, and enabled it to divide the world with the Soviet Union.

After the Cold War, the world economy has entered a new phase of globalization, but the security framework has lingered from the past.

In the past couple of years, with the support of its allies, the US has won a few wars, but at the cost of world peace. The recent Diaoyu Islands disputes, South China Sea disputes and the Ukrainian crisis have shown that the US alliance system has destroyed regional stability and the balance of power, and led the world to the edge of conflict.

The fundamental reason is that US-led alliances can hardly tolerate the security demands of emerging powers and developing countries. What should China do when facing such outdated traditional alliances?

As the exclusive old alliance system does no good to global security and development, it should be abandoned. China should create a new international security framework that more suits the world trend.

In recent years, China has been promoting the construction of communities of common interest and common destiny, and has established close ties of strategic cooperation with many countries. Many are established through legal documents with clarified rights and obligations.

In the sense of international law, such communities are a new type of alliance that stresses equality, mutual benefit and inclusiveness. This is an innovation on international security and development and a grand strategy to create future world patterns.

Such a new type of alliance has played a positive role in international politics and resolved some conflicts.

In the Ukrainian crisis, the strategic partnership between China and Russia has helped maintain the balance of power and prevented the crisis from spiraling out of control.

China's aim is not to confront the US-led alliances, but to keep the absolutism of the old alliance system in check and maintain world peace.

The positive aspects of the community of common destiny promoted by China, such as cooperation and inclusiveness, have started to dilute the negative elements within the traditional alliance system like confrontation and exclusiveness.

Although a small step in constructing a new international order, this is enough to make us feel proud. On the stage of international politics, China can walk its own way.

The author is a professor at the Center for Strategic Studies, Beihang University.
 
China created Math and Science , people took knowlege from them they always come up with new ideas

The first wheel was also made in China , now the world calls it their own
 
Every country must go its own way,take its own path。

There is no such a thing as THE universal model of development and progress。
 
If there was no threat there would be no reason to join an alliance. Little countries that feel threatened by a neighbor join an alliance. So was the case in Europe and now it is emerging in the South China Sea.

You don't see it in South America or Southern Africa.

Remove the threat and there would be no whining about alliances since there would be no reason to have one.
 
If there was no threat there would be no reason to join an alliance. Little countries that feel threatened by a neighbor join an alliance. So was the case in Europe and now it is emerging in the South China Sea.

You don't see it in South America or Southern Africa.

Remove the threat and there would be no whining about alliances since there would be no reason to have one.

Outsourcing your defense budget is always a better option for small states who has no hope of playing on equal terms with major states on military matters. It's only a question of whether any major power is interested in paying for the alliance to counter its competitors in the same region. Where there are no competing interest between major states, there will be no alliance.
 
If there was no threat there would be no reason to join an alliance.

That's funny. As if China would not have been able to create its own military alliance structure had it wished so? It is easy to scare people's mind off by crafting security and threat stories, you remember? But China won't do it since it has its own agenda and way of doing things.

Little countries that feel threatened by a neighbor join an alliance. So was the case in Europe and now it is emerging in the South China Sea.

Which little countries. I do not see an alliance more formidable than a decade ago save Vietnam, the Philippines and Japan. By the way, let's not forget China's own efforts of closed-regionalism and integration, which excludes foreigners with military mindset.

China obviously cares about the steps taken by the US and designs certain counter-moves but, what is critical here is that China does acts independently as an absolute sovereign nation.

China is no less integrated than a decade ago.
It is no less rich.
It enjoys no less international recognition.
It has no less international visitors, conventions, fairs, large-scale events...

What has the US really accomplished by scaring the crap out of some small regional countries by re-heating the old China bogeyman game?
 
Which little countries. I do not see an alliance more formidable than a decade ago save Vietnam, the Philippines and Japan. By the way, let's not forget China's own efforts of closed-regionalism and integration, which excludes foreigners with military mindset.

Well you named three Xi is warning about alliances.
China's Xi issues veiled warning to Asia over military alliances| Reuters

Why is he warning now...were they talking about this 10 years ago? Don't think so.
Obviously something has changed.

Can't create a bogeyman out of thin air or do you think people's minds are all weak?
Of course we all know how easy it is to create the Japan bogeyman.
 
Yes, that's official Chinese policy: No military alliances between/among countries against other country or countries. That line of strategy composes the very backbone of China's foreign policy; not a thing of this year.

China has kept warning against NATO for years and opposed almost all NATO-led military campaigns.

That China does not do it may not mean it cannot do it. It is just not the way China does international politics.

Can't create a bogeyman out of thin air or do you think people's minds are all weak?

Of course we all know how easy it is to create the Japan bogeyman.

Indeed, it is possible with a coordinated campaign. Besides, the weaker is hard to paint as a bogeyman. But, it may be fairly easier to create a bogeyman out of the US, given its size and scale. There is such an image already without much state interference.

China being the strongest regional and one of the strongest international powers, that's not a big trouble to make a monster out of it. The political will must be there and the US has been traditionally set to be in that mind set. The difference is, China does not do that.
 
Indeed, it is possible with a coordinated campaign. Besides, the weaker is hard to paint as a bogeyman. But, it may be fairly easier to create a bogeyman out of the US, given its size and scale. There is such an image already without much state interference.

China being the strongest regional and one of the strongest international powers, that's not a big trouble to make a monster out of it. The political will must be there and the US has been traditionally set to be in that mind set. The difference is, China does not do that.

Well there are tons of island nations right next door to us.


Only Cuba feels we are the bogeyman. Everybody else welcomes us with open arms (for our money of course).
Maybe it is because they don't feel threatened by us (even though we can crush them in a millisecond) that they haven't created alliances (against us).
 
What I say is there is a potential to tap out there to paint the US as a bogeyman and form various alliances, but, it is against China's founding principles, that is, the Constitution.

Otherwise, US has played with the Latin America countries (to the point of experimenting on them) much more cruelly and blatantly than China could ever do with SCS nations.
 
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