Expert dismisses China threat as "groundless"

US worries about the rise of China are "groundless," an expert at a renowned Chinese think tank said in an article published by the English-language China Daily newspaper on Monday.

Wang Jisi, director of the Institute of American Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, suggested that China and the United States "make joint efforts" to avoid "backsliding into Cold War-like confrontation."

The widespread view that China's rise will pose a challenge to US hegemony and the biggest threat to US security, held by some commentators by comparing China and the former Soviet Union, is "groundless," Wang said in the article.

He laid out five points to counter the view by analyzing the differences between the current China and the former Soviet Union in the Cold War period.

First, Wang argued, despite its increasing national strength, China has a much wider strength gap with the United States than that which existed between the former Soviet Union and the United States during the Cold War.

The second difference is that China, positioning itself in the early stage of socialism, has "a sober perception of its national conditions and development goals." This is in sharp contrast with the former Soviet Union, which announced it had entered the stage of a developed socialist nation and held a strong desire to catch up with or surpass the United States militarily and economically, the expert said.

Third, China has held "a cool-headed attitude toward the trendsof economic globalization and international forces comparison," which is different from the former Soviet Union, which always overstated socialist and capitalist differences, Wang continued.

In addition, China's contemporary diplomacy is fundamentally different from that of the former Soviet Union, Wang said. "Compared with Soviet diplomacy, which was mainly aimed at overthrowing the West-led international order, China's fundamental diplomatic purpose is to create a favorable international environment for its self-development, maintain territorial integrity and promote the final national reunification."

Unlike the former Soviet Union, China has attached utmost importance to conducting strategic dialogues and mutual communications with the United States and other major powers, Wangsaid, explaining his fifth point.

Meanwhile, the expert on US affairs suggested that it is necessary for the two countries to promote bilateral military exchanges and strategic dialogues while advancing a multilateral security mechanism to enhance mutual understanding and trust.

Wang pointed out that the most important thing is that the two countries should deepen the reached consensus on the Taiwan issue,namely the one-China principle and opposition to Taiwan independence.

"The concurrent beefing up of both countries' strength indicates that China and the United States can completely avoid being pushed by any international factor to the hegemony-struggling chariot if the former carries on the proven correct development path and the latter's decision-makers do not make fatal strategic mistakes," Wang concluded.