Dialogue with Jin Canrong

• Source: Global Times
• [11:59 November 12 2009]
• Comments

Global Times: The overall gap between China and the US is getting smaller. Do you think the two countries will have more strategic conflicts than strategic cooperation? Do you think the two countries will create a new mode that will constrain conflicts effectively?

Jin: It really depends on the efforts and actions by both sides. We can neither say that they will definitely have more conflicts nor will there be more cooperation. But from the current policies, there is more cooperation than conflicts. As a rising non-western power and from the contemporary international situation, China can avoid the historic cycle that conflicts are triggered when a rising power challenges hegemony. From the international aspect, globalization has made countries’ interdependence at an unprecedented level. International institution, the most effective ever, will be the efficient way to constrain Sino-US conflicts in the future. Viewed from their own features, China and the US are different from the hegemonies in the 19th century. The hegemony the US applies is a regime hegemony which depends more on soft power, so that it lowers the possibility of the US using its hard power or military power to against other countries. Meanwhile, China sticks to the path of peaceful development which is different from Germany and Japan who challenged hegemony in the history. China has abundant internal resources and a big domestic market which it can develop by itself without challenging anyone.