Dr. Wang Wen

Why China’s Rise Is Beneficial to the World

This is the edited transcript of the presentation of Dr. Wang Wen to Panel 1, “A Decoupling of the Two Systems or a New Paradigm for Humanity?” of the Schiller Institute’s June 18-19 Conference, “There Can Be No Peace Without the Bankruptcy Reorganization of the Dying Trans-Atlantic Financial System.” Dr. Wang is the Executive Director of the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, and Deputy Dean of the Silk Road School, Renmin University in Beijing, China.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to share my latest thoughts on China’s relations with the world.

Over the past 40 years, China has created an historical record for the rise of a great power. For 40 years, there has been no war or participation in war, and at the same time, there has been no economic crisis or financial crisis, and it has risen successfully. A rise without crisis and a rise without war—this is a new record, which the United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Japan have not achieved.

This is a new phenomenon of physical economy and international politics, and its mysteries need to be rediscovered.

However, in the eyes of Western media and think tanks, China is a threat, and the most malicious speculation is often used to predict China’s future. In fact, this [is a] reflection of the evil in the West—they themselves have done many bad things before, and they think others will do bad things, too. In fact, the rise of China represents a new civilization. China presumes win-win cooperation. The Wild West presumes zero-sum. When confronted with differences, China is willing to negotiate and resolve them, while the West uses carrots and sticks, and a war is often the preference of choice.

From this perspective, the rise of China is an innovation and upgrade in the history of great powers, which means that the development of a great power no longer repeats the wars, hegemony, colonization, refugees, conflicts, and killings in the history of the West, but peace, cooperation, win-win, stability, and development. This is the contribution of China’s rise to human civilization.

In terms of international development, China’s rise has contributed about 30% to world economic growth for more than 10 consecutive years. The world economy would be worse off without China’s growth. China has undertaken more than 60% of Africa’s infrastructure construction, meaning China promotes the realization of commodity democracy and shopping freedom in all countries of the world. With the same money you can buy more and cheaper Chinese goods. Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, China has exported about half of the ventilators and masks to the world. Now, China is surpassing the United States to become the world’s largest consumer market. In the future, it will continue to import $2 trillion of goods every year, which is a power-driving force for the sustainable development of the world.

For developing countries, China offers a new option for development. In the past, all developing countries could only follow the Washington Consensus. But nearly 80 years after World War II, poor countries are still poor, and few countries have upgraded from a low-income country to a middle-income country. However, China, as the largest population country, has achieved leapfrog growth through more than 30 years of effort without repeating the “Washington Consensus.” Its GDP has increased by 80 times, and it has changed from a low-income country to a middle-income or higher-income country. It is expected that by 2030 it will become a high-income country.

The Rapid Development Option

To achieve leapfrog growth, many countries in Africa, Latin America, and Asia are rethinking the Chinese model, and some countries are constantly learning from the Chinese experience.

For the Western world, China’s rise is also beneficial. Cheaper goods made in China save the average American family $1,000 a year. Just like Steven Jobs’ Apple innovation, China’s technological innovation put pressure on the West to break monopolies and promote a faster social development. China has joined most of the international treaties and international organizations established after World War II. And it is the biggest force defending the international order, rather than withdrawing as easily as President Trump did.

Western discourse creates fear of China, believing that China would replace Western hegemony. But, it is actually the fear of a country that is no longer obeying their orders, so that it can no longer do whatever it wants. This worry is arrogant and selfish. The West cannot dominate the world forever. Every country has independent life.

The West fears that mainland China will forcefully unify Taiwan. I would like to say that Taiwan is a part of China, and more than 180 countries in the world have established diplomatic relations with mainland China, all of which recognize this. Mainland China has been working hard to resolve the issues of reunification peacefully with utmost patience. Now, I think it is the United States that is provoking—exporting arms to Taiwan, creating instability. If there’s no U.S. intervention, I’m confident that China can achieve peaceful reunification.

Some Western media also spread rumors: Why does China’s military spending increase so fast every year? Well, U.S. military expenditure is three times that of China. Think about NATO’s bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Yugoslavia in 1999, the U.S. military planned hitting of a Chinese fighter jet in the South China Sea in 2001, the fact that U.S. aircraft carriers often travel through Taiwan Strait, and the technological blockade of many years. Added to that, the U.S. is threatening China. Isn’t China still allowed to improve its defense capacity?

The basic factor is that all the frictions between China and the United States in the past were provoked by the United States first, and China was only moved later. Now, if you think about it calmly: military frictions, trade wars, ecological accusations, Huawei, Xinjiang, Hong Kong, and Taiwan—which one is not the United States provoking first?

All in all, I think a rising China is beneficial to the world. The stronger China is, the less the U.S. will dare to provoke China, and the more stable China-U.S. relations will be. And the stronger China is, the more peaceful and developed the world will be. So, my conclusion is that: Trust China.

This is what I want to share with you. Thank you.