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Hello and welcome to the panel discussion of World Today.
I'm Ding Hen in Beijing.
In the grand commemorative events at Tiananmen Square to mark the 80th anniversary of the victory in the Chinese people's war of resistance against the Japanese aggression and the world's anti-fascist war, China made a strong voice on cherishing and defending peace.
A little earlier.
Peace was also a key theme at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit held in the northern Chinese city of Tianjin, with President Xi Jinping saying the SCO now bears a greater responsibility for safeguarding regional peace and stability.
So why is China determined to be a force for peace?
In what ways is China contributing to international peace?
These questions and much more in this edition of World Today.
To listen to this episode again or to catch up on our previous episodes.
You can download our podcast by searching World Today.
So joining us now on the line are Ben Norton, political economist and editor of the Geopolitical Economy Report, Warwick Powell, senior fellow of Taihe Institute and adjunct professor at Queensland University of Technology, and Professor Qu Qiang, fellow of the Belt and Road Research Center, Mingzhu University of China.
So, thank you very much for joining us today, gentlemen.
Ben Norton, to start with you.
President Xi Jinping's V-Day address pledged that China will remain committed to the path of peaceful development and work with all peoples across the world in building a community with a shared future for humanity.
What do you make of the correlation between China's wartime experience, especially wartime experience involving the struggle, the national struggle against Japanese imperialism, and China's current day commitment to peaceful development?
Well, it's important to emphasize that when China was fighting against the Japanese Empire, China was defending itself.
It was a defensive war, it was a war for peace, it was a war for sovereignty and if we look today, I mean China has always remained a peaceful power.
China has not been involved in a war since 1979 whereas, you know, I'm an American.
I'm from a country where the US has constantly been at war my entire life.
So China has shown that you can peacefully develop.
It has lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty.
According to the World Bank, China is responsible for three quarters of extreme poverty reduction in the past four decades.
And China has developed peacefully.
It shows that China is willing to defend its sovereignty if it's forced to, but China does not want to engage in these kinds of violent conflicts.
And the people of China suffered so horrifically during the war against Japanese aggression and fascism, the global anti-fascist war that obviously the people of china don't want to repeat those experiences and this is why recently, you know, we've seen two different very powerful movies that have basically gone viral in china, that were very popular, detailing the experiences during this war, the suffering, especially the horrific crimes carried out by the Japanese Empire.
So this shows that this historical consciousness is alive and well among the Chinese people.
So when the Chinese leader says that China is committed to peace, it's absolutely true.
We can see this reflected in China's modern history.
We can see it reflected in China's political culture.
And I think it's something admirable that other countries especially, I wish, that my country, the US, could learn from.
So, Professor Quqiang, turning to you, during China's war of resistance against the Japanese aggression, do you think the Chinese nation demonstrated any spirit that, if carried forward today, will enable the present-day China to better contribute to world peace and world development?
Oh, yes, absolutely.
Absolutely.
I think this war is absolutely showing a very, very important spirit, because before this war China actually was very, very weak.
We have the warlords, landlords in every piece of land in China, and the whole large country has been split into many pieces.
People just came through the late Qing Dynasty period of the time.
They don't have this kind of the awareness as a citizen of the modern country.
They know they just had their emperor, but they do not know that they are a citizen of just a modern China.
They don't have this kind of awareness of one country.
But I think the anti-Japanese fascist war actually has been arousing people's awareness that we're one country, one common community.
So this war actually forged China into one solid nation, you know, territorially and also spiritually.
This is very, very important.
And secondly, It costs lots of the sacrifice, but also it's been making China one very resilient nation.
During this whole war we have to face about two million of the aggressors from Japan, those fascist imperialists.
And China has been sacrificing about 35 million of the casualties.
And by that moment China only had 400 million in population, which means roughly every 10 people.
We have one casualty.
So that kind of the sacrifice is huge.
China is not a sidekick of the world anti-fascist war.
We are the protagonist, one of the protagonist at least.
And China, our anti-fascist war, had been starting from 1931, which when the Soviet Union finally are facing the pressure of Nazi Germany in 1941… … and when America finally faced the pressure and the challenge of the Japanese army after the Pearl Harbor incident, which was 10 years later.
When Japanese army have the machine guns, the auto rifles and all kinds of the modern bombers, the fighter jet and even aircraft carrier.
But Chinese army and Chinese militias guerrillas.
They only have probably the most obsolete Mauser rifles.
And most of them are using just the machetes and the spears.
They have to carry their comrade's body just to press forward.
So every 100 people, every 40 people, maybe in that kind of a casualty they can take out one, just Japanese soldier.
So that kind of a sacrifice – has been lasting to the last moment until we win the whole campaign.
So I think this kind of the spirit has been encouraging China in today's world.
China.
When new China has been established, we had nothing.
Basically everything starting from the scratch.
Until, like 80 years later, we become the second largest economy of the whole world, probably one of the most modernized economy with all kinds of achievement in digitalization, green development, defense technology, as well as for the spiritual and cultural development.
That is because Chinese people never yield, never surrender.
They always press forward at all cost to win this kind of the battle in many fronts.
So I think this is not only been encouraging the China and Chinese people, it also can be a very important, you know encouragement for the emerging market, because we know Many countries, even today, are still sacrificing.
Their children are dying.
They've still been mired in the swamp of war, of poverty.
So they need this kind of encouragement so that we can achieve peace and prosperity together among all the developing nations.
And I think this is the most important and precious gift that we can have out of this tragic war.
So one week President Xi Jinping also said in his V-Day address that the world today once again has to choose between peace and war.
Again dialogue and a confrontation, win-win cooperation and a zero-sum game.
So, at a time when China is resolutely standing on the side of peace, on the side of dialogue and a win-win cooperation, what does that mean to the world?
And in fact, arguably the similar structures that have dominated the globe for the past 500 years are giving way to new patterns of organization and international relationships.
In that environment, it's not surprising that incumbent powers are struggling with the decentering of their roles in the world and the diminution of their ability to project primacy and unilateral demands on everyone else.
In that context, it's important to understand what the choices are.
And the choices are, of course, to put the head down and focus on the broader objectives of sustainable economic and ecological development in a way that can raise the living standards of hundreds and hundreds of millions of people across the world, and in fact billions of people across the world, and to do that through cross-national collaboration and integrating economic development, modernisation and peace in a symbiotic model or alternatively, take the bait and engage in the kind of violent conduct that has been typical of 500 years of Western imperialism and colonialism.
And so these are the choices that now confront the world at large.
Now I'm actually very confident that the vast majority of countries, most of whom have been subjugated to exploitation over the past few hundred years, understand very clearly what's at stake.
And what's at stake is actually an opportunity to grasp these major dynamics and trends and ensure that they unfold in a smooth and as productive a way possible.
And to do that you have to have an ability to address differences, because invariably there are differences.
You have to have a way of managing those differences so that you don't compromise the ability to progress, the things that matter to everybody.
And that's where we need to choose dialogue and choose the pathway to building consensus, rather than trying to impose one's will through force of arms on others.
So these are some of the important lessons that I think are coming out of the comments from President Xi Jinping.
Okay.
So, Professor Qu, China has actually enshrined peaceful development in the country's constitution.
What do you make of the meaning or the significance of a major power like China doing so?
It seems at present, China is the only major power in the world that has done so.
Oh, yes.
I think this is a major promise towards the world peace.
Just take a look at the current world, the turbulence, the geopolitical conflict, those tensions.
Even though we've been saying goodbye to the Cold War for a long time.
But I think this Cold War mind of – this kind of a mindset has stepped in with us has been bothering the whole human society.
Even though we do not have this confrontation between the iron curtain, but NATO is still trying to stir the shit among many regions.
In the middle list we've been seeing people are still sacrificing, children are dying hunger and famine are prevailing.
So these responsibilities need to be counted for.
And also in the European soil, I think war has still been going on.
So this kind of the confrontation has still been lasting because major power in the whole world still trying to weave the bottom so that they can preserve their presence, they can enjoy their privileges and hegemony, while China, as the third pole of the whole world, are denying this kind of practice.
China, as you mentioned, has been very specifically writing down this statement that tried to have the peaceful development in their constitution and the fundamental law of the whole nation.
Because China never tried to use the military presence and its power to hard sell its ideology to other nations.
And also they tried to develop upon their own feet, without trying to conquer or deprive the other nations.
I think this is morally very advanced, but also very smart in economic way.
Why is that?
It's because China has been very deeply understanding that in the modern economy, if you want to be powerful, if you want to have a better livelihood, if you want to develop your own nation, Deprive the other nation is a wrong choice.
It's kind of the mindset in the colonial period of the time, which is like in a first round of the Industrial Revolution.
But in the current force, you know Industrial Revolution, you know all the wealth has been created based on the intellectual creations and a trade which requires you and your neighbors have a peaceful you know connections.
So if you walk in the shoes of a great economy like China or Germany or South Korea, you probably will know that you want to have a peaceful neighbor, rich neighbor, or you want to have a neighbor in poverty and in war.
I think the answer is very obvious.
So trying to fully understand that.
And also if China – just take a look at the parade of the celebration.
If China are mimicking United States or some other nation just to downpour all this military power into another country, guess how the world is going to be?
And not only the economy is going to be slowed down and everything is going to be destroyed because this kind of power, military presence is awing.
And China fully understands that and denies to use that upon the other people and other nations, because China used to be the victim.
And Chinese people fully understand that if you don't want to have this kind of you know suffering, you don't want to put it onto the other people.
This is a traditional philosophy, you know, and wisdom of confucius, and we fully respect that and we're doing that.
So i think that's the reason why we're doing so and we hope, even though we cannot let every other nation to do that, you know, like us, but we fully hope and try to persuade the other nation to do it the same way.
Okay, I take a point.
So, Ben Norton, going back to you, we know a message that President Xi Jinping has tried to convey to the rest of the world on some other occasions is that hegemonism is not in China's genes.
So do you think whether a country will seek hegemon, hegemony or not is determined by this country's national characteristics or national characters, or by its actual power?
Do you believe that China will not seek hegemony despite its growing hard power or soft power?
Well, I think it's a result of the country's political system and its social order, how its society relates to its political and economic system and the Chinese system.
A socialist market economy is governed in a way where the power of capital does not succeed.
The power of the people cannot take precedence over the power of the people, the interests of the people, and in that way China is able to control the elements that that could its seek hegemony.
The reason that the US is such an aggressive power it didn't begin originally as an aggressive power, But it became more and more aggressive as capital became more and more powerful.
And we see that so clearly today, where Donald Trump invited the richest billionaires on earth to sit with his cabinet members at his inauguration.
Everyone knows that in Washington, it's money that actually determines policy.
And we see that one of the main reasons the US is so aggressive against China is It's because China has moved up the global value chain.
China has developed advanced technologies and China now has many firms competing with US companies that want to be monopolies.
This is stated very clearly by some powerful business leaders in the US, like the billionaire Peter Thiel, who is a close ally of Donald Trump.
Peter Thiel famously wrote an article in the Wall Street Journal saying, competition is for losers.
That's the article title.
And he famously argued that the goal of Silicon Valley is to seek monopolies and dominance and hegemony.
So because the Chinese system is so different, it's not based on monopolies.
It does allow market elements, but in a way that only when it benefits the people.
If it doesn't benefit the people.
We see that there's regulation, there are policies made to make sure that the interests of the people are not violated by the interests of capital.
So the reason I'm emphasizing this is that you know, if you look at China's political economic system, it's completely different from the political economic system up the US or, for that matter, the European colonial powers.
The European powers were not just colonizing the rest of the world for fun, they were colonizing countries to take their natural resources, to exploit their labor, to prevent other countries from being able to develop into compete with the European companies, the European monopolies.
So because the Chinese system is so different no, I do not think that China is seeking hegemony.
I think it is absolutely truthful and honest when Chinese leaders say that they do not seek hegemony.
And if you look at modern Chinese history, there are no examples of China actually seeking hegemony.
On the contrary, if you speak to many people from the Global South, from Africa, from Latin America, from other parts of Asia, they're often very grateful because they actually have the opportunity to work with China in mutually beneficial win-win cooperation.
And they, for instance, you know, there's this famous quote.
It's often attributed to the leader of Kenya, who said that when Western officials visit Africa, we get a lecture.
When Chinese officials visit Africa, we get a port, we get a hospital, we get a new road.
So I think China is setting a new model for what this kind of collaboration can look like.
And they're doing it not just through rhetoric but through example.
And the reason that China is able to do that, again, is because the Chinese political and economic system is fundamentally different from the profit-driven, monopoly-oriented imperialist model of the Western capitalist economies.
China has created a completely different model.
Well, that's very interesting observation.
The system is not profit driven.
It's for the greater public good of everybody living in this country.
So Warwick, does China's commitment to peaceful development mean that China has to tolerate some hostile actions towards China, aimed at say, containing China or hurting China's core interests?
Not at all.
People shouldn't ever underestimate China, uh the capacity of china to defend itself and the will of its people to stand up for what it believes is its rights and for fairness.
Now, for for well over 150 years actually, western powers have sought to exploit china in various phases of imperial and colonial domination and ultimately, of course, over the course of the past 70 to 80 years, has sought to suppress china through military placements around china's primitives, as well as, in recent times, attempts to economically strangulate china's own pathways of economic development and modernization.
And china has made it very clear, through not only words but actions, that it is not going to stand by and allow that to happen.
It has, for example, in the area of modern technology, leveraged or exploited the fact that the Americans sought to contain China's development of new technologies to boost and accelerate its own domestic industry and capacity, to a point now where China is a leader across most technology spheres and is well and truly catching up in those areas where it has historically been behind.
So, whereas the United States and some of its Western allies have sought to contain China, China actually responded by overcoming those constraints and developing its own capabilities.
The modernization of the military is sending a very clear signal that China will no longer be in a position to be dominated by third parties, as it was historically in the past.
You know, the war against Japanese fascism in many respects was the final chapter of 100 years of foreign domination.
And from the ashes of that war came a resolve across an entire country that they will never experience that kind of subjugation ever again.
And we know, for example, that 30 years ago, the United States ran one of its naval carriers through the Taiwan Straits in a very provocative action which, at the time, was something that was difficult for China itself to respond to.
Today, China is in a position where it can fully defend its perimeters, to a point where, in fact, it can fully defend all of its territories, including the island of Taiwan.
And I think that that message now rings loud and clear globally.
China is no longer a country to be to be underestimated.
It is no longer a country whose people should be treated as second class citizens in the world.
And China will no longer be exploited by Western powers who simply wanted China for its markets and for its riches.
Thank you very much.
And let's take a very short break here.
And coming back, our discussion will continue.
Stay tuned.
You are back with World Today.
I'm Ding Hen in Beijing.
Today we are talking about China's determination to be a force for peace.
Joining our discussion, Ben Norton, political economist and editor of the Geopolitical Economy Report.
Warwick Powell, Senior Fellow of Taihe Institute and Adjunct Professor at Queensland University of Technology, and Professor Qu Qiang, Fellow of the Belt and Road Research Centre, Minzu University of China.
So, Professor Qu Qiang, going back to you, one thing quite clear we saw from China's V-Day military parade is that the country is accelerating the building of a world-class military.
So does the growing capability of China in terms of safeguarding its own sovereignty.
National security and development interests mean a growing capability to contribute to world peace as well.
Why or why not?
Well, China is always dedicated to build the world class defense presence.
Such a large country if we do not have a deserving military presence to protect ourselves.
I don't think it's good news.
So I think, because of this lot of lessons we have learned in the past, that's the reason why we want to give our citizens, give our people, a better protection.
But also please mind this.
China never wield its military power against other nations.
We never colonize our neighboring countries.
We never fight outside the Chinese soil, unless it's a pre-protection, because the other country's army or military force is already at our doorstep.
We only do that when North Korea has been invaded and the bombers have already been bombing the Chinese border city.
And we never will back off on our own independence and integrity of our territory, but only by that we will do the national protection of our own.
But I think this also is – this is a principle, but also I think it's been sending out a very important signal that is emerging market like China and many other nations will have this power to defend ourselves.
And this kind of the defense capability is also one very good shield against it.
… potential turbulence and violence actions against the world people, not only Chinese people but also the world.
Just take a look at the whole world in the past 40 years or 50 years.
Even though the geopolitical conflicts and the structural war has still been going on, but the full-out massacres, the full-out genocide or violence in the whole global range has been, you know, disappearing.
Why is that?
It's because, you know, the nuclear weapons has been here.
It's because uh, the rough balance between the major military presence, military powers, has already been here, even though we have more of the weapons in many countries' hands.
But I think this kind of a balance actually are making people more cautious about the consequences if they want to make some bold moves against some other nations.
So I think this has already been very, very important.
I think an emerging market like China, emerging country, developing nation like China, when they have military capabilities to defend its own and also to help the emerging markets to improve their own defense technology.
And I think some bullies, international bullies, when they try to make some moves, they probably is going to think twice.
And this kind of thinking twice, this cautiousness, actually will help the whole world become a safer place, more peaceful.
I think this is also a very important contribution of chinese.
You know military advancement mean to the whole world.
So i think a weapon is very important, that you cannot judge the weapons.
The thing is, who controls the weapons?
Uh, it's in a good hand or in a bad hand?
I think that something matters.
So ben, when we talk about why china attaches such great importance to commemorating the victory in the world's anti-fascist war, a key reason is, of course, that china wants to preserve this united nations centered post-war international system or international order.
So do you think this UN-centered international system is still playing a key role in terms of guarding world peace today?
Well, it's a very complicated question.
I think that it definitely has the possibility to play a more active role in promoting peace.
The problem is that system has really degraded and has been weakened, which is why China and many other countries in the global south have been calling so openly, so vociferously, for the reform of this system, to make it, to revive it, to make it more democratic.
Because the reality is that the post-war system, through 80 years of hegemony by the us-led western powers, it has been weakened significantly.
So let's not forget that in the anti-colonial era of the national liberation wars in the 1950s, 60s and 70s, we saw millions and millions of people around the world, billions of people, liberated from the yoke of european colonialism and they finally became members of the united nations.
And we saw that china was finally able to take its seat at the united nations in 1971, after being denied it for so long.
And at that time, in the 1970s, we saw that the global majority, the countries of the global south, which constitute the global majority, called for a new international economic order.
They created the g77.
China has has often participated in events with the g77.
That was kind of the golden era in which the UN was this very important vehicle for global democracy, for multipolarity, to oppose colonialism and allow the global majority, these countries that were colonized, to finally have their voice in international fora.
But in the past few decades we've seen that the United Nations, the power of the UN, has really been concentrated in the Security Council.
And in particular the United States, has abused its veto power in the Security Council to prevent reform and also to prevent actions that would support peace.
A good example of this is we can see what's happening in Gaza, where it's clearly a genocide.
All of the world's leading scholars and experts on genocide say that it is a genocide.
Top experts at the United Nations have also said that it's a genocide.
The United Nations created a special committee to investigate this and they concluded it was a genocide.
And yet there have been several resolutions introduced in the Security Council and every other country except the United States has voted in support of these resolutions.
And yet the US has used its veto power at least six times since 2023 to veto these resolutions in order to continue sponsoring a genocide to prevent peace.
And furthermore, the vast majority of member states of the United Nations voted to admit Palestine as a member state, And the United States once again abused its veto power to prevent Palestine from being admitted.
And Palestine is the most clear example, but there are many other examples.
When we look at the war in Syria, the war on Libya as well, where the U.S.
It did get approval from the Security Council, and then it went beyond, well above and beyond what was actually given approval for and violated the spirit of the UN agreement.
So the point I'm getting at is that this is why, if you read the Tianjin Declaration that was signed by the member states of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, They emphasized I think quite rightly that we need to defend the UN-centered system and, in particular, the UN Charter, which is based on non-interference and respect for sovereignty.
Those are sacred principles, and the international law-based order should be upheld.
But they also emphasized in the Tianjin Declaration that this system must be reformed, that the UN must be more representative.
The countries of the Global South that have billions or hundreds of millions of people in their populations.
In these countries, they are not adequately represented in the current UN institutions, like the Security Council and other institutions.
So I think that, yes, the system as a whole needs to be maintained.
But it definitely needs to be reformed in a way that gives more opportunities for the global majority.
So the Western countries are not abusing their influence.
So Warwick, we know today, among the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, China supplies more UN peacekeeping troops than the other four permanent members combined.
How do you look at this?
Is this incentivized by a noble intention on the part of the Chinese government to safeguard world peace, or by something say more realistic, like China's expanding economic interests across the world?
Look, it's always a combination of many things as to why countries commit resources to different activities.
But quite clearly, China is trying to demonstrate its commitments to world peace through action.
So it's one thing to talk about things and to use words, but it's another thing to put your resources and your human capacity not only into the field, but to also put them at risk, because peacekeeping is actually a dangerous activity.
So China's willingness to commit its national resources and its national manpower to peacekeeping activities actually speaks to its willingness to expose its own people to risky environments in the interests of global peace.
And that's a very important feature, I guess, of China's contributions to the global community.
China has emerged as a major power and in doing so, it has, I think, adopted a posture of being a contributing power and an enabling power.
So not only is it seeking to influence the shape of global institutions, it's also doing so by deed and by the provision of resources, and also by providing support whether it's in infrastructure education, training and those sorts of things to other countries, so that they then become more capable themselves.
That's not just about china demonstrating to the world that, as it has modernized, that it's willing to make its own contributions to global policing and global peace, but it's actually committed to a broader vision of how the globe can develop, and that is by enabling other countries to empower themselves.
And in doing so, it is, i think, putting into practice this idea that peace is not just a question of who holds the guns, but it's also a question of how we create the conditions that are necessary for security and peace, and that is, of course, economic well-being.
So much so that economic well-being and peace and security become integrated as part of a single holistic vision.
And we see this, of course, in the four now four major initiatives that china has promoted the development initiative, the global civilization initiative, global security initiative and now the global governance initiative.
So, Professor Quqiang, do you think President Xi Jinping's signature concept regarding building a community with a shared future for humanity could somehow help eliminate the root causes of war?
What concrete steps do you think China has taken to try to promote and realize this idea?
Oh, yes, indeed.
I do think President Xi Jinping's comment and you know, advocation is very, very important for develop this common community of all human being.
A lot of people still have this kind of stereotype, saying that you know the whole world cannot accommodating so many population.
Uh, we should not allow all the people in the whole world to enjoy higher living standard, because their excuses is that we only have such a piece of land as the horse it is, and we probably have a limited reservation of the raw materials and resources.
So it's either you or me to zero some game.
But you know chinese leadership very uh wisely uh realize no, this is not the truth.
As just i mentioned, this is already the force, you know, industrial revolution, because we create the wealth not based on, you know, the raw materials or in the limited reservations on the earth.
We can use uh, infinite resources and energies to make everybody to, you know, get richer with a better living standard.
Eventually, if you take a look at the whole universe, When you have a broader vision, you will find out the resources that we value today is basically valueless.
It's everywhere.
Even the gold.
You go to the meteoroid.
You find out that on the shooting star, it's homemade of the gold.
Even there is a asteroid made full of diamond and all kinds of this resource.
It's infinite in the whole universe.
But what is precious is human humanity, human nature.
That is very, very precious among the whole universe.
We are like an orphan, you know, as a living being in the whole universe.
So we're trying to seek those.
You know things do not cost too much but will try to upend the most valuable people, that is, the common community of the human being.
And Chinese leadership realized that.
So take a look at the energy.
We used to fight to our guts, you know, the bloodbaths with each other to fight for the oil.
But take a look at right now, the sunshine, the wind power, there are infinite powers.
China is making use of it.
More than 50 of the energy mix has already come from this endless green energy, and its marginal cost is getting to basically zero.
And the international oil price has been dropping and dropping.
It's a different world right now.
So I think that's the reason why China has been the first country in the whole world, as major country in the whole world is saying that is, we need to build the common community of all human being with a shared future.
Do not treat the other human being with different culture, different face as your enemy, but as a good neighbor to respect them on equal footing and enjoy their beauty, their culture, their creation.
So this is very, very wise.
You know, it's like a beacon showing the future for the whole human being communities.
And China is working on that.
And I think very happy to see that many emerging market are joining this endeavor.
And we hope major countries are also joining us.
Well, you probably wouldn't believe it yourself, but as long as you're joining Chinese initiative, you will find out.
This is the right path.
Yourself is also going to be benefiting from that.
And, more than that, our future generation together will be benefiting from us and have a better world and a better earth.
Ben, since earlier you talked about the Gaza situation.
In the foreseeable future, do you expect China to get more deeply involved in the peace process of some of those international hotspot issues, such as the Israel-Palestine conflict or the ongoing Ukraine crisis?
Well, China already has played a very positive role in promoting peace and diplomacy.
The problem is that the United States has been the principal obstacle to peace and diplomacy in both of these conflicts.
In the case of Israel's genocide in Gaza, I mean, the US is openly sponsoring it.
This was true under the Biden administration.
It continues under the Trump administration.
There are now reports that the Trump administration plans to ethnically cleanse Gaza and to build a luxury resort.
I mean, this is 18th century colonialism in the 21st century.
And China has been trying to push for peace and diplomacy.
China played a very important role, for instance in bringing together many different Palestinian factions.
The representatives came to Beijing and they signed an agreement pledging to work together in pursuit of peace.
But again, when the US is giving carte blanche to Israel to do whatever it wants, with an infinite supply of weapons and military support from the US, then unfortunately there's not much that China can do.
I think China has been doing basically everything it can do.
But China at the same time also maintains a principled foreign policy based on non-interference and non-intervention.
So China has been promoting multilateral forces using international institutions.
And unless China violates those principles, those sacred principles of noninterference, there's not much more that China can do.
Whereas the US unfortunately does not support any of these multilateral principles or institutions.
The Trump administration has now repeatedly imposed sanctions on international bodies, including the international criminal court, including prosecutors from other international bodies, to prevent them from taking any actions to end this genocide in gaza, and in the case of ukraine, it's very similar.
China, and also brazil, made a very sensible peace proposal And the US said no.
The U.S. did not even consider this peace proposal made by China and Brazil.
China has also been repeatedly, from the very beginning of this conflict, promoting dialogue and diplomacy.
And until recently finally ironically, was donald trump, of all people who has held talks with the russian leadership.
However, if you even look at what trump has been doing, despite the fact that he did participate in talks, he's still not going through international institutions, he's not engaging in multilateralism, he's still engaging in unilateralism.
He's willing to talk with Russia, but he's imposing tariffs on India because the sovereign government of India is buying oil from Russia, which it's allowed to do according to international law.
So what we see is that, even when the US does engage in what it calls diplomacy, it's not multilateral diplomacy.
It's unilateral diplomacy.
So I think China has been a model for what a multilateral diplomacy can look like, going through international institutions.
But unfortunately again, there's only so much that China can do when the US refuses to engage in multilateralism.
I take your point.
And, of course, like Ben Norton mentioned earlier, China is also to a large degree contributing to international peace through regional cooperation architectures such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.
We know President Xi Jinping said at the SCO's Tianjin Summit this time that the organization now bears greater responsibility for safeguarding regional peace and stability.
So Wellwick, the SCO, as well as the BRICS.
These are very important multilateral platforms through which China and other powers call for global governance reform.
But in the meantime, these platforms are sometimes described in Western media as China-led attempts to try to reshape global order.
Do you think, on the part of China, advocating global governance reforms is the equivalent of undermining the stability of the world to serve China's own ambitions?
Why or why not?
This idea of shaping global order or reshaping global order of course needs to be understood in the context of a Western view of what that order is.
And that is the notion of a liberal international rules based order.
Now, that, of course, stands in contrast to the United Nations as the foundations of global order.
So when the Western powers in particular make these sorts of allegations about BRICS and SCO and China, what they're really saying is that this entirely Western fabrication of a rules based international order, which in many regards is neither rules based nor international, is being challenged by countries that refuse to accept that a small number of countries, namely the United States and the greater Western powers, are in a position to dictate to everyone else in the world how the world should be organised and how states should interact with each other.
And what the countries of the global south, through institutions like the BRICS and the SCO, are doing is creating the practical mechanisms by which the multipolarity and the sovereign equality and those kinds of core principles that one finds in the United Nations Charter can actually become practically real in the 21st century.
So this isn't about fabricating some new world order, so to speak.
What this is about is creating the ways and means by which the original intent and the spirit of the United Nations Charter can actually take root, as a counterposition to a Western-led Western-dictated, so-called rules-based international order, which in large part is the political extension of the economic imperialism that Western powers and Western capital has exercised over the course of the last two three, four say that the SCO and BRICS and China, as one nation amongst the other nations, is somehow setting out to change the world order in its own interest.
What they're trying to do is make real the spirit of the United Nations Charter.
And that's the point to remember.
These are countries that were promised, in a sense, in the post war years, the opportunity to develop as sovereign nations, having rid themselves of the yoke of political imperialism.
But in truth, they've never been allowed to develop and flourish without the imposts of Western finance capital and Western political institutions that have sought to dictate terms and ultimately determine the parameters and the limitations to which these global South countries are allowed to develop.
What the west has been doing by way of its so-called rules-based international order is capriciously creating and implementing rules as it suits them, because the development of other countries is a direct threat to an economic system and a political system that has that has seen the western powers function as global hegemons.
We know peaceful coexistence is a term often used by Chinese diplomats.
Notably, we know it is actually China that first put forward the five principles of peaceful coexistence back in the year 1954.
Peaceful coexistence, I guess is in many ways consistent with a famous quote from ancient Chinese philosopher, Confucius harmony without uniformity.
So, Ben, the final question goes to you.
Do you think traditional Chinese wisdom has the potential to be more widely accepted by the international community as a guiding philosophy to seek international peace?
Well, every country has its own historical conditions, its own unique culture and cultural practices.
I think what is unique about the Chinese model is that the People's Republic has brilliantly found a way to combine its own traditional Chinese history and cultural practices with Marxism.
And Presidency refers to this as part of the two integrations looking at 5000 years of Chinese culture and synthesizing it with Marxism for the modern era.
So I think Confucianism is something very unique to China and its thousands of years of history.
But what I think other countries can learn from China is how they can also integrate their own historical practices and traditions with these movements in support of the working class, in support of modernization.
So if other countries also adopt socialist models, Vietnam has been implementing its own unique model.
Of course, in Latin America there are many governments that have been experimenting, and they've been learning from China's experience in how to build a, a Society that serves the interests of the working class the majority of the population but also doesn't just completely reject Traditional culture, finds a way to integrate them in order to to benefit the society as a whole.
I think that that's one of the brilliant outcomes of China's unique developmental model, and it reminds me famously of Professor Zhang Weiwei, when he was a translator for Deng Xiaoping.
Don't simply copy our model.
Instead, learn from our model.
Borrow what works for you and don't use something if it doesn't work for you.
I think that kind of pragmatism has been one of the reasons that China has been so successful in developing so quickly and ending poverty.
And I think that other countries definitely can learn from that pragmatism and adapt the Chinese model to their own unique circumstances.
Well, a big thank you to our panelists Ben Norton, editor of the Geopolitical Economy Report, Warwick Powell, adjunct professor at Queensland University of Technology, and Professor Qu Qiang from Minsu University of China.
That's all the time for this edition of World Today.
I'm Dinghan in Beijing.
Thank you so much for listening.
Bye for now.
