China to become a center of regional cooperation: Brzezinski

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Monday, January 19, 2004

China to become a center of regional cooperation: Brzezinski

At the invitation of China International Strategy Association, former National Security Adviser to the US President Zbigniew Brzezinski made a speech lately in Beijing on "US foreign policy and trend of relations between big countries", indicating that China will become a center of regional cooperation.

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Global power evolvement

When analyzing the strength of a country, Brzezinski introduced in some subjective factors such as national willpower and international influence on top of physical economic elements as industry and finance. Taking each 25 years as a period, he made a list of countries' strength since 1900:

1900: Britain, America, Germany, France, Soviet Union or Japan.

1925: America, Britain (declining), France, Japan, Soviet Union.

1950: America, Soviet Union (closely behind America), Britain, France, China.

1975: America, Soviet Union, Japan (rising), Britain, China. There is a great gap between the first two and the last three.

2000: America (the lonely NO.1), Germany, Japan, China, Britain. Great gap between the first one and the last four.

Looking into 2025, Brzezinski believes that there will be no catastrophic discontinuation, or sudden disappearance of any country from the list of powers. America will remain the only super power, followed by the European Union with a much higher degree of integration, whose economic might may catch up with or even surpass that of America, but political and military strength still lag behind; then followed by China, Japan, India or Russia. What should be noted is that America stands firm in the list for the past century while China has been rising steadily. Brzezinski thinks that by 2025 China will be leading a group of Asia cooperation. Whether China and Japan will become rivals depends to a large extent on the US-China relations, harmonious or confronting. Then the deciding global power triangle will be propped up by America, EU, China and Japan.

China to become a regional cooperation center

In the 25 years to come, Brzezinski says, EU is likely to further expand to the Sea of Azov and the Caspian Sea. In the Far East, China will become a center of cooperation in a region that includes northeast Asia, southeast Asia and central Asia. If America and China cooperate strategically and be politically friendly with each other, Japan will become increasingly a global partner of America and a regional partner of China. America should make its strategic relations with China a mechanism. Brzezinski's suggestion is to transform the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe into an organization for both Europe and Asia, that is, to invite China and Japan in. In that case, the main task for America in the coming 25 years is not to rule in a hegemonic way but to establish strategic partnership with these countries. Brzezinski believes that the unilateralism America displayed in the recent two years is but a short-term phenomenon. America will resume its central position in the Pacific alliance. Presently the US-Japan cooperation still focuses on northeast Asia security, and the US-Japan ties should be extended to globe-scale cooperation. It is also quite important to conduct political and security cooperation with China, for China is very important in the triangle balance. American must be aware of the difference between a leading role and a ruling role, Brzezinski stressed at last.

By People's Daily Online

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