Photo: VCG

Editor's Note:

The year 2024 has witnessed regional turmoil and profound landscape changes. From the Russia-Ukraine conflict to the chaos in the Middle East and the interference of external forces stirring tensions in the South China Sea, China demonstrates composure and confidence amid a turbulent landscape, creating a favorable external environment for its high-quality development and injects valuable stability into a restless world. As a member of the Global South, China is playing an increasingly important role in promoting world development and peace, as well as advancing the rise of the Global South. With 2024 coming to a close, the Global Times (GT) runs a special year-ender series by talking to renowned experts and former diplomats to discuss China's role and the scenes that shaped the global landscape in the past year. 

In the first piece of this series, GT reporter Xia Wenxin talked to Dr Robert Lawrence Kuhn (Kuhn), chairman of The Kuhn Foundation and recipient of the China Reform Friendship Medal, about how China has injected positive momentum into global stability and development through diplomatic wisdom and international cooperation in 2024. He also presented his three-fold prescription for China-US relations, urging the two major powers to cooperate rather than become adversaries as the new US president prepares to assume office.

GT: In 2024, the number of countries visited by Chinese President Xi Jinping has increased compared to the previous two years, with his footprints spreading across Europe, Asia, South America and Africa. What role do you think China's head-of-state diplomacy has played in 2024?

Kuhn: President Xi has been exceptionally active in 2024, making multiple overseas trips - to Europe, Central Asia, and Latin America - and he attended several multilateral summits, including the BRICS Summit. Domestically, he hosted and highlighted three diplomatic events in Beijing: The Conference Marking the 70th Anniversary of the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, the 10th Ministerial Conference of the China-Arab States Cooperation Forum, and the Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation. What struck me at these diplomatic events was President Xi's special efforts to conduct private meetings with leaders from various countries, regardless of their size. This approach demonstrates respect and honors each country and its head of state. This is China's way.

GT: This year, the Gaza conflict has shown no signs of ceasing. China, as a responsible major power, has made its contribution to the resolution of the current turmoil in the Middle East. In July, under Beijing's mediation, 14 Palestinian factions signed the Beijing Declaration on Ending Division and Strengthening Palestinian National Unity. Many people say that only China can achieve such a thing, do you agree? What lies behind the success of China's peace-oriented diplomacy?

Kuhn: China is in a unique position, and has a unique opportunity, to play a role in various global trouble spots, with the Middle East being a special case in point. China's facilitation of the historic rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Iran is a remarkable achievement. Yet, we live in a world where events often overwhelm expectations. The toppling of the Syrian government, almost without a fight, shocked almost everyone. And it is currently not possible to address international affairs, without recognizing what happened in Syria and its broader implications. 

Indeed, China broadly has good relations with all countries in the region so it could be able to play a role, but frankly, peace cannot be imposed on the players - the primary players must want peace themselves. A tragic aphorism says that in the Middle East, "the enemy of your enemy is still your enemy." There are many factors involved.

GT: In 2024, China has continued to promote the implementation of the Global Development Initiative (GDI), Global Security Initiative (GSI) and Global Civilization Initiative (GCI), which have forged a broad consensus and provided a platform for cooperation to deepen global South-South cooperation. In your opinion, what kind of Chinese wisdom do these three initiatives contribute to the world?

Kuhn: China's overarching international strategy is now expressed through its three global initiatives. These initiatives are linked by a major commitment to reform global governance, especially in giving more influence to the developing world, often referred to as the Global South. The three initiatives represent China's explicit road map, drawn by Xi, outlining the country's global vision. 

The first is China's GDI, which builds on the foundation of infrastructure, the product of the Belt and Road Initiative, and shifts to more targeted, sustainable and profitable projects - poverty reduction, food security, healthcare, green climate actions, education, the digital economy, and initial industrialization. These serve, as China puts it, "as the material foundation for security and civilization," to help recipient countries expand their capacity for development. They reflect the "core requirement" of a "people-centered approach" and promote "united, equal, balanced, and inclusive global development partnerships."

Second, China's GSI, as stated by China, adapts to profound international changes by addressing traditional and non-traditional security risks and challenges with a win-win mind-set - and by creating a new path to security that features dialogue over confrontation, partnership over alliance, and win-win results over a zero-sum game.

According to China, the GSI is an international public good, reflecting its awareness of the duty to help maintain world peace and safeguard global security. The GSI forms a coherent whole and represents China's grand vision of a new world order in global governance.

Third, China's GCI calls for respecting the diversity of civilizations, the common values of humanity, the continuity and evolution of civilizations, and closer international people-to-people exchanges and cooperation. According to China, the GCI exemplifies the building of a community with a shared future for mankind, which is President Xi's overarching theme of China's foreign policy.

GT: The new year is around the corner, and one of the biggest events in 2025 is the new US presidency under Donald Trump. China has repeatedly expressed its hope that China and the US could find the right way to get along in the new era, upholding the principles of mutual respect, peaceful coexistence, and win-win cooperation. What do you think is the right way for China and the US to get along?

Kuhn: First, we must recognize reality: We would best settle in for a period of uncertainty and volatility in China-US relations. What to do? 

My three-fold prescription for China-US relations is simple - I offer both sides the same advice: (1) Don't make things worse, avoid exacerbating areas of conflict or contention such as by pushing against mutual "red lines"; (2) Find common ground and small areas of cooperative joint action - interdicting dangerous drugs, planning for pandemics, mitigating AI risk, and controlling climate change; (3) Allow time to pass peacefully by working its calming magic in lowering the heat.

Just three points to follow. The American and Chinese people would benefit from it. The peace and prosperity of the world would depend on it.

GT: What has hindered China and the US from finding the right way? Is it possible for the two countries to overcome these difficulties?

Kuhn: To optimize US-China relations, our assessment must be candid and blunt. We must surface problems so that the bright light of transparent reason can illuminate the real issues, not allowing them to fester beneath smooth-sounding but cosmetic euphemisms that mask problems and allow them to incubate and spread.

Only by honestly recognizing the perceptions of the other side can China-US relations be stabilized, and once stabilized, improvement can proceed naturally.