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The Asia Pacific as a collaborative field

By Shen Dingli: 0 Comment(s)Print E-mail China.org.cn, October 8, 2013

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This year, the annual APEC informal summit took place in Bali, Indonesia, from October 5 to 7. In conjunction with this summit, China and the U.S. planned respective visits to Indonesia and its immediate neighborhood. Chinese President Xi Jinping did visit Indonesia and Malaysia, but President Obama was forced to cancel trips to Indonesia, Brunei, Malaysia and the Philippines due to the U.S. government shutdown. Instead, he dispatched his Secretary of State to participate and visit on his behalf.

Chinese President Xi Jinping attends the 21st informal economic leaders' meeting of AEPC in Bali, Indonesia, Oct. 7, 2013. [Xinhua photo]

Though the U.S. President is currently bogged down by domestic politics, the annual APEC meeting will move ahead. In fact, the Asia Pacific has increasingly become a focal point of global economy and politics. In terms of global economic output, this area generates half of the world's wealth so no one can afford not to seize the opportunity. The broadly defined Asia Pacific comprises the top three economies in the world and three out of the five BRICS nations. The rising region promises to become a land of hope and co-prosperity.

The shifting center of the global economy, from the trans-Atlantic to the trans-pacific region, has been in conformity with Asia's economic rise, much due to the credit of globalization, allowing for the more unrestrained flow of capital, technology and management skills. Global outsourcing links markets together and rebalances the world economy, eventually transforming the international structure in a peaceful manner.

China has caught up with the wind of globalization through international cooperation. Beijing is both a major beneficiary of the globalization and a main contributor to the peaceful evolution of the looming new world order. However, while the U.S. has, in all honesty, contributed much to China's peaceful rise through an economic partnership, America has also, out of its interest in maintaining paramount statue in the world, been watching China's rise with wariness.

Several concerns do make sense as the U.S. has to a great extent shaped the status quo of the world, emphasizing stability, albeit a sort of Pax Americana, and benefiting nearly all parties. It is predictable that status quo power tends to preserve the existing balance of power and holds concerns over the rising power. Given this fact, China needs to make its genuine intentions that it doesn't want to substitute America's leadership crystal clear. Both countries have a lot to clarify in regards to respective suspicions on strategic issues, especially concerning those Global Commons – air, outer space, maritime and cyber space.

Not all concerns are legitimate though. America has invented the United Nations, aspiring to attain widespread peace through global governance much by respecting the sovereignty of members of the world community. However, America has thus far challenged China's sovereignty for decades, often by intervening in Beijing's home affairs. America must worry about the implications of the Chinese mainland's rise and Beijing's ability to reunify with Taiwan. Nevertheless, this is not a valid U.S. interest and China shall not be held responsible for such American concerns simply because of Beijing's rise.

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