Forum gives a glimpse of Sino-US future cooperation
- By Sumantra Maitra
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E-mail China.org.cn, March 26, 2016
Henry Kissinger also echoed the belief that the U.S. and China should share a G2 world, urging the U.S. and China to do everything possible to prevent falling into a spiraling security dilemma and ultimately confrontation, otherwise known in international relations as the Thucydides Trap. Kissinger was optimistic, as are other Western realists who say that confrontation is not inevitable. "China and the United States face a whole range of problems. They want to settle them. And if that is not done, then there's a danger. But we know how to avoid them. What needs to be done is to fill in the area between the short-term techniques and the long-term strategic objectives."
Finally, in what was arguably the highlight of the forum, Facebook's Mark Zuckerburg met Alibaba's Jack Ma, which transcended the theoretical part of the event and actually gave an example of what practical cooperation between China and U.S. might look like. Some of the most interesting parts of the discussion centered on the cultural differences in doing business between China and the United States. Ma said Zuckerburg has married the right kind, a comical hint at his Chinese-American wife, and Mark mentioned that China's high percentage of engineers is going to be useful in the future. Zuckerburg also met with Liu Yunshan, a member of the Politburo, in what seemed to be an opening of sorts and a warming of relationships between China and Facebook.
Of course, there were critics. The Guardian, for example, was furious at what it perceived to be a caving in to China by Mark Zuckerburg. However, the attack was beside the point and ignored the realities and complexities of how world politics work. China and the U.S. both understand that there is nothing to be gained from conflict. The forum proved that the best way forward is through people to people engagement and mutual business growth. China's growth in the last 25 years has been a net positive in carrying the world economy, not to mention lifting millions of Chinese citizens out of poverty. With the new talks of supply side reforms, Western businesses see opportunities in China. In a world beset with sectarian and religious conflicts and growing xenophobia and autarkic protectionism, this should be a reason for hope, provided cooler heads prevail and focus on what's a priority now: improving economic interdependence and achieving global growth.
Sumantra Maitra is a columnist with China.org.cn. For more information please visit:
http://www.china.org.cn/opinion/SumantraMaitra.htm
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