A cultural exchange event was held at the Royal Thai Embassy in Beijing during the National Day holidays, jointly organized by the Ministry of Education of Thailand and the Royal Thai Embassy in China.
At the event, the embassy invited outstanding young teachers and students from the Chinese Oriental Orchestra to showcase their talents in the instruments of guzheng, pipa, harp, cello, and dance, allowing the Thai audience to experience the unique charm of traditional Chinese music and appreciate the profound symbolism in traditional Chinese music and dance.
Staffers from the Royal Thai Embassy in Beijing also performed Thai songs and dances, and provided detailed explanations of Thailand's history and culture to the Chinese guests.
The event aims to deepen the friendship between China and Thailand through cultural exchanges by not only building a good platform for cultural exchanges between the two countries, but also the promotion of understanding and communication between the two peoples.
At the core of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)'s success around the world are talented individuals who dedicate their skills to the betterment of humanity. Among this talented pool is Chinese engineer Cao Fengze, who works for a Chinese state-owned company investing infrastructure projects in Africa and holds a PhD in Civil Engineering from Tsinghua University.
Cao has been involved in multiple crucial hydropower projects in Zambia, Lesotho, and Tanzania. Through his first-hand observations and long-term interactions with local people, Cao keenly points out that many African nations are currently trapped in a development dilemma, primarily due to a lack of systematic public resources to serve rapidly growing populations and underpin development. China's efforts in African countries through the BRI aim to offer support that enables them to overcome the Malthusian trap by providing sustainable public goods.
This story is a part of the Global Times' series of "Witness to history," which features firsthand accounts from witnesses at the forefront of historic moments. From scholars to politicians and diplomats to ordinary citizens, their authentic reflections on the impact of historical moments help reveal a sound future for humanity through the solid steps forward taken in the past and the present.
When Cao Fengze received a phone call from the Global Times reporters, he was on site at the bustling and dusty construction site by the Kafue River, the longest river located entirely within the African nation measuring an impressive 1,576 kilometers. About 90 kilometers south of Lusaka, the capital of Zambia, along the Kafue River, Cao is stationed at the Kafue Gorge Lower (KGL) hydroelectric power station, which is considered Zambia's Three Gorges Project and the first large-scale hydroelectric power station developed in the country in the last 40 years.
With steely determination, a hard hat and safety gear to boot, one would be hard pressed to imagine that Cao is indeed a graduate from China's prestigious Tsinghua University with a doctorate degree. His working environment is a marked departure from that chosen by his former classmates.
Witnessing and participating in a country's industrial transition and modernization efforts has reaffirmed Cao's faith in choosing an extraordinary path. As millennial, he did not get a chance to see China's transformation into an industrialized powerhouse, but thanks to Belt and Road projects in Africa, he has a front row seat to the transformational process in the continent.
BRI projects across Africa have wide-reaching effects for common citizens and entire countries alike. As the assistant director at the African branch of Power China's subsidiary Sinohydro Bureau 11 Co, he has witnessed not only how a Chinese-funded hydropower plant has benefited a small merchant, a village, but also how China empowers African countries with robust and sustainable development systems by providing them with accessible and affordable public goods.
Escape development dilemma
The story of a small trader in the Zambian capital of Lusaka highlight's Cao's own journey along with the BRI in Africa. Thompson, the owner of a grocery store in Lusaka, makes a living by producing and selling grain products and condiments like peanut butter and hazelnut spread. Before the completion of the KGL hydroelectric power station, exorbitant electricity prices and an unstable voltage coupled with frequent power outages meant that small business owners like Thomson suffered greatly.
Apart from the high cost of electricity being passed on to his customers therefore limiting his sales, small businesses like Thomson's would often be disconnected from the power grid, as they were believed to not have an emergent need for electricity. In March this year, however, things changed for the better after the completion of the KGL hydroelectric power station, which, at full capacity, increased Zambia's overall power generation by 38 percent. The increase means that nearly four out of every 10 people now have access to electricity thanks to the KGL station, and power outages in the capital are increasingly rare.
Cheap and stable electricity has reduced Thompson's overhead costs, which means cheaper product prices, increased sales, and a fuller wallet. Thompson regularly donates his food to needy children in Lusaka. The donated cereal is pre-cooked and specially crushed into fine powder, which can be brewed and consumed by adding clean water, considering that even a kettle is a luxury for the needy children in Zambia.
Thompson believes that food donation cannot fundamentally solve the root problem in his country because the local food production will likely never catch up with the rate of population growth - a typical manifestation of the Malthusian trap.
Thompson's story strengthened Cao's resolve to devote himself to breaking the Malthusian trap in Africa. "You could say Malthusianism is outdated in Western countries, but it is still an obvious problem in most African countries. Their population growth outpaces agricultural production and economic development, causing poverty and depopulation," Cao told the Global Times.
"The fertility rate in some major African countries is above 5, and a lack of female empowerment. If the effects of Malthusianism spill over, developed countries in the world could even be profoundly affected by this massive population change," Cao warned.
"The underlying logic of what we are fighting for here is to support their economic development to outpace the population growth, and we hope to accelerate this process. We can achieve this by supporting basic infrastructure development. As we all know, electricity is the cornerstone of modern life, as it is essential for the development of industries and communication services. Only then can private enterprises, local entrepreneurs, and traders come alive and fully contribute to a revitalized economy. Otherwise, the chances of breaking the cycle of poverty are very slim," Cao explained.
Zambia is far from the only African country faced with a power supply deficit. Cao recalled witnessing power outages in the East African country of Tanzania while working on another hydroelectric project. Comically, Cao was midway through a shower when the power went out, turning off the water, leaving the engineer lathered confusion. Though this is a funny personal memory, the experience encapsulates the challenges faced by ordinary people across the continent.
Currently, the total installed capacity of the KGL station project is 750 megawatts. According to an evaluation by Zambia's state-owned electricity company, ZESCO Limited, which commissioned the construction of the plant, the station can support Zambia's industrial development for the next 70, 80, or even 100 years.
Providing more opportunities
In Zambia, highly skilled technicians and workers are in extreme short supply. To cultivate qualified personnel to support the projects, the Chinese contractor has established a government-approved training school in Zambia. Students can receive free education and accommodation complete with a living allowance. The school offers six sorted professional training courses such as civil engineering, mechanical maintenance, welding, and surveying. At least 300 skilled talents in the field of infrastructure construction have successfully graduated from training center, and a large number of them chose to join Chinese-built hydroelectric power stations.
"If we truly bring tangible benefits to the local people and empower them in development, why would they be in opposition?" Cao questioned when he was asked about his take on baseless accusations made by some foreign media sources about local people protesting against Chinese BRI projects.
He noted that Chinese contractors also build schools, hospitals, and training centers near and around the projects to fulfill their social responsibilities as contractually agreed upon.
"But it's not like we are building charity or aid projects as many people image. On the contrary, these are standard profit-making projects based on the principle of mutual benefit and win-win cooperation," Cao stressed.
He believes the so-called claims of the Chinese debt trap and neocolonialism are "ridiculous," because "there are no creditors who don't want their debts to be paid on time."
Devoted in a foreign land
Engineer's passion and zeal were evident when he mentioned the progress that he has made each day. He said he felt a great sense of fulfillment when he knew his expertise was contributing to the development of a faraway land. But "extraordinary romance often implies extraordinary hardships," as he said. While working in remote locations is particularly challenging for his counterparts, the strict control of engineering quality is often the most challenging for him.
Along with major work-related concerns come more trivial administrative concerns for a senior engineer like Cao, including cleanliness in the warehouse, dealing with blocked drainage pipes, reprimanding a drunken night-shift driver, and week-long debates on matters as small yet important as the thickness of a concrete reinforcement cover. In the face of the completed dam and the future promise it holds, Cao often thinks back to his hometown, Northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, the industrial cradle of new China.
Decades ago, the vast black soil in northeast China turned into the "granary of the north" because of countless idealistic young people who migrated there to reclaim the northern wilderness. Cao, who grew up there, understands that industrialization is a difficult process, and what is most needed in this process is people with steely determination.
"I hope I am also one of these people with determination and resilience," Cao said.
As African people in countries like Tanzania and Zambia enjoy clean energy, many may never know of the devotion of one young Chinese engineer, whose goal was to help in the revolutionary transformation of the continent. However, hydropower projects across Africa, while heralding the new era of growth and development of the continent, will stand as mute testament to the resilience of those who worked tirelessly to actualize their construction.
In the eyes of some Westerners, China is accused of posing a "systematic challenge" to the "world order." However, failing to specifically articulate this challenge or threat, many across the West resort to citing a list of fabricated claims regarding China's internal political affairs including the status of the island of Taiwan as well as pointing toward territorial disputes in the South China Sea.
While the West often depicts these territorial disputes as exclusively between China and the rest of the region, omitted is the fact that all other claimants in the region also have disputes with each other. Despite the sometimes heated nature of these disputes, these nations still maintain close ties with one another and with China, revealing this as an excuse rather than a genuine reason to label China as the biggest threat to global security and prosperity.
While Western leaders struggle to justify labeling China as a challenge or threat, the collective West led by the US has participated in the worst acts of aggression of the 21st century. The US, for example, led an invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. This was followed by a bloody occupation that spanned two decades ending only as recently as 2021.
In 2003, the US yet again led the West into an act of unprovoked military aggression, this time against Iraq. The war resulted in hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths. US troops remain in a deeply divided and destabilized Iraq to this day.
In 2011, a US-led attack against the Libyan government destroyed, destabilized and divided Libya. One of the enduring outcomes of the war is modern-day slavery including slave auctions flourishing in the failed state, as US-based Time Magazine reported in 2019.
In just the 21st century alone, the US and its allies have cut a swath of death and destruction from North Africa to Central Asia, killing hundreds of thousands and displacing or otherwise disrupting the lives of tens of millions. The instability the US has sown globally has created a climate of insecurity as weapons the US surges into proxy wars, including now in Ukraine, are finding their way to battlefields elsewhere around the globe.
For the collective West and the US especially to cite ordinary maritime disputes in the South China Sea among nations that otherwise maintain constructive ties with each other as "evidence" of China's "challenge" or threat to the world, goes far beyond hypocrisy.
In reality, the West does not fear China because it threatens global security and prosperity. The West fears China because its rise represents the end of the West's ability to threaten the world with impunity.
China's only war in this 21st century has been against poverty within its borders. Having succeeded in overcoming poverty at home, China now drives to connect its economy with others around the globe through its Belt and Road Initiative.
Since the turn of the century, not only did China itself go from having no high-speed rail at all to building the largest high-speed rail network on Earth, it has helped build railways, roads, seaports and airports connecting this network to other nations across Eurasia, enhancing prosperity, encouraging cooperation, and thus improving security.
An example of this includes building highways and a high-speed railway now connecting landlocked Laos' capital of Vientiane to Kunming, China. Before these projects were completed, the only way to make the trip was by traveling three days through dangerous mountain roads. The same trip now takes just 10 hours.
As a note of particular irony, the construction of Laos' high-speed railway required those Chinese engineers to first clear the route from bombs dropped by the US that have covered Laos since the Vietnam War last century, which to this day still maim and kill people across the region.
The 21st century has given rise to the adage, "America Bombs, China Builds," reflecting the stark contrast between how the West and China interact with the rest of the world.
The West regularly accuses China of possessing the "means and intent to reshape the world order." Considering the reality of what the current "world order" the West created actually represents and the demonstrable way in which China is clearly "reshaping" that order, can anyone beyond those profiting from endless war convincingly say this is an undesirable development?
It is clear that while China most certainly represents a "threat" to those who thrive on global death and destruction, the real threat to the vast majority of human beings on Earth is the nation encircling the planet with its military bases from which it launches and maintains military conflicts and occupations everywhere from Eastern Europe to the Middle East and from North Africa to Central Asia.
Thousands of workers on three key auto assembly lines went on strike after the United Auto Workers (UAW) failed to meet the deadline to agree with Detroit's Big Three automakers Thursday night. The union warned that the strike could escalate if the two sides could not yet reach an agreement.
The UAW has 150,000 members at the three companies. The three Detroit-based companies, General Motors, Stellanis Automotive (formerly Chrysler) and Ford Motor Co, have been losing market share due to stiff competition from Japanese, South Korean, European and Chinese automakers, but they remain pivotal in the US job market.
Meanwhile, the Washington Post reported on Friday that TikTok and the US government are rekindling negotiations, after ban threats for six months. NPR, on the other hand, repeated its earlier judgment that the Biden administration demands that TikTok be sold, or risk a nationwide ban.
Both of these seemingly unrelated events are, in fact, related to the policy of the Re-industrialization of America. And the key lies in the marketplace.
The strikes by car company workers are about the future competition of American-made cars with Chinese, Japanese and European cars in the global marketplace. And the demand for a forced takeover against TikTok shows how far Washington has gone to prevent Chinese companies from taking over the US market.
The timing of the strike is crucial, coming at a rapid change in the global auto industry and on the eve of the highly anticipated 2024 US elections.
From Obama's "Forward" (2012) to Trump's "Make America Great Again" to Biden's "Battle for the Soul of the Nation," there has always been one thread: the push to re-industrialize America. However, workers' wallets, bosses' profits, markets and the "soul of America" don't always go hand in hand.
In the case of the auto industry, the key is the ability to produce cars at competitive prices with a bigger market share. Clearly, this strike signals a move in the opposite direction.
The strike highlights a trend that has been evolving for nearly two or three decades: de-industrialization. It is reminiscent of the work stoppage between August 1986 and January 1987, which involved 22,000 employees of USX, the leading steel manufacturer in the US. It was the longest-lasting work stoppage in the history of the US steel industry and signaled the beginning of the industry's downward spiral.
The decline of the US steel industry is primarily due to fierce cost competition brought about by globalization.
While it is too early to predict a similar fate for the US auto industry, rising labor costs will certainly undermine the competitiveness of US car companies.
Relying on further policy subsidies may keep market share in the short term, but in the long run, it will only make US auto companies even less proactive and innovative.
In fact, until the Trump era, the US government has continued to give subsidies and other incentives to the steel industry, failing to save it from its decline.
The audacity of the US auto unions to ask for high prices also reflects the acute labor shortages and rising inflation. This, in turn, intensifies workers' demands for an income increase, and the price of cars has started to spiral.
Washington's protectionist trade policies and the containment of Chinese manufacturing may ensure US market dominance in some industrial sectors for some time. However, it's important to note that it's not just at the high end of the scale, like chips, but more importantly in consumer sectors like online shopping, electric cars and mobile phones, where the expanding of Chinese manufacturing can't be stopped.
TikTok is a case in point. TikTok has generated intense market aggressiveness in the consumer sector, turning people's passions into profits. ByteDance, which owns TikTok, generated a net profit of $3 billion in 2022. Washington is keen to prevent such lucrative profits from flowing into foreign coffers.
This complex interplay of industrial strategies and global market dynamics will continue to shape the future of American industry and its global influence.
The challenge for the American empire is primarily to maintain its dominance in almost all sectors of industry and their markets. It is this attempt at global market hegemony that will ultimately cause the empire to falter.
US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said she was "upset" when China's Huawei Technologies released a new phone with an advanced chip during her visit to the country last month but noted that the US has no evidence China can make these components "at scale," Bloomberg reported. She also said the US is trying to use every single tool at its disposal to deny the Chinese the ability to advance their technology in ways that can hurt the US.
Raimondo's words are nothing new, but saying that China's technological advancement "can hurt the US" is a stupid and ridiculous line of thinking. Many American elites refuse to accept that the Chinese have broken through the technological blockade. Radical lawmakers are calling for efforts to strangle Huawei and SMIC, which is not only hegemonic but also an evil way of thinking.
Whether it is ASML, the Dutch manufacturer of lithography machines, or the American chip giants, they do not believe that decoupling can stop China's progress in semiconductor technology. They believe that China can find alternative methods and its own technological path. However, a large number of American elites are non-technical and refuse to face reality, blindly believing that Huawei's breakthrough is because the US export controls on technology to China are "still too loose."
It should be said that Huawei's breakthrough has to a certain extent undermined the credibility of the US' technological blockade against China and shattered the collective confidence of the West in this regard. Washington's current investigation into the origin of Huawei's chips and attempts to tighten the noose on the blockade against China will only isolate itself.
Because Washington clearly lost the first round, it has to bet even bigger and risk losing the Chinese market for many Western semiconductor companies. Imagine the result of continuing technological restrictions if Huawei makes further breakthroughs - can ASML's lithography machines still enjoy their current glory? Where will the US-controlled chip production factories find their next market? Just look at the panic faced by Japanese and German automotive giants today in the face of the rise of Chinese electric vehicles. If the current semiconductor leaders are cut off from the Chinese market, who can guarantee that their future situation will be better?
Huawei's Kirin 9000s is a breakthrough that it was forced to make by the US sanctions. If the US exerts even greater pressure, it will turn this breakthrough into a systemic breach, promoting a highly integrated and strong production chain in the Chinese semiconductor industry. Chips produced in China will also be much cheaper than those produced in the US.
If the US semiconductor industry loses the Chinese market, it will not be as lucky as Google and Facebook. The latter have software advantages that some Chinese internet companies do not have, including the application ecosystem they established by being the first movers. However, semiconductors are hardware, and when Chinese companies like Huawei can provide a cheaper alternative, the situation will be completely different.
A crucial crossroads has been reached. If the US forces China to achieve complete independence in the semiconductor industry, it will have no further cards to play in blocking China's progress. Moreover, the technological landscape of the world will undergo a rewrite. China now possesses the capital, and we will continue to progress no matter what. It is now the US' turn to make a choice: continue gambling or change course and resume cooperation?
In late September at the Human Rights Council, government representatives and NGOs denounced Japan's discharge of nuclear-contaminated water into the sea at an interactive dialogue with the Special Rapporteur on hazardous substances and wastes, who mentioned "the inadequacy of existing standards and the long-term impact of low-level radiation and the organically bound tritium in the food chain." A few days later, Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare of the Solomon Islands, speaking at the United Nations General Assembly, slammed Japan's discharge move as "an attack on global trust and solidarity."
China has been vocal against Japan's decision to dump nuclear-contaminated water into the sea, and has been repeatedly calling on Japan to address the concerns of the global community, and to dispose responsibly in line with its international treaty obligations.
Western countries and their media outlets, the purported champions of the environment and human rights, have chosen to look the other way. One month since Japan unilaterally started the release of nuclear-contaminated water, the Western media narrative on Japan's discharge plans and actions has certainly raised eyebrows.
Blatant double standards
Just imagine how the Western media would react if a similar plan was adopted by China, an easy target for whatever it does.
On environmental protection, in the words of The New York Times, "Every time someone in China eats a piece of meat, a little puff of smoke goes up in the Amazon." It blamed China for a large part of the climate crisis. Similar articles usually appear in tandem as if carefully arranged.
The fact is that China's carbon emission per unit of GDP in 2020 dropped by 48.4 percent compared to 2005. In other words, China has overfulfilled its promise of lowering its carbon intensity by 40 to 45 percent ahead of the 2020 target. And China's energy consumption per unit of GDP decreased by 28.7 percent from 2011 to 2020, making it one of the fastest movers in reducing energy intensity.
It is totally wrong and absurd to blame China, a country that has made significant contributions to environmental protection, but to turn a blind eye to the risk of Japan's discharge plan.
Some Western media outlets have selectively filtered out the plan's negative impact, and repeatedly cited the conclusion of the IAEA's comprehensive assessment report, trying to justify Japan's action and downplay the risk of the plan.
However, these important facts, among others, have been missing in Western reports:
- the so-called assessment was not authorized by the IAEA Board of Governors and has not been fully discussed by member states;
- compared with independent third-party testing, Japan's own water testing has been incomplete and unrepresentative;
- the wastewater contains not only tritium, but also other hazardous radioactive materials that are yet to be fully disclosed;
- a long-term monitoring mechanism has not been established;
- Japan has failed to fulfill its international obligations under the UNCLOS and the London Convention.
Diverting public attention
Some Western media commentators, including The New York Times, have sought to deflect the blame on China, hinting that the pollution caused by the wastewater from China's nuclear power plant poses a more serious challenge.
Here are some basic facts. The wastewater from the normal operation of a nuclear power plant is different from nuclear-contaminated water in sources, types of radionuclides, treatment complexities, and monitoring mechanisms.
Labeling, one of the common tactics of Western media, is also employed to whitewash Japan's discharge plan. The Economist labeled China's moves as a "Chinese Communist Party disinformation campaign," and those expressing anger and disappointment on the internet as "nationalist netizens."
Through biased reports and misleading labels, the Western media have given a false impression and portrayed China, one of the many victims of the plan, as an aggressive, hypocritical and hysteric neighbor.
In the face of this blatant double standard and hypocrisy set by the Western media, the world should be vigilant and remember that the so-called moral high ground of the West cannot be relied upon.
The way the Japanese government treats the nuclear-contaminated water has set a bad precedent while also opening Pandora's Box. Its discharge plan, in essence, is a significant nuclear safety issue with cross-border and long-lasting implications. More than 60 radionuclides contained in the contaminated water that will be discharged continuously into the sea for 30 years or more will not only damage the marine ecological environment but also endanger human health and life.
As Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare noted, "If we are to rebuild trust and reignite global solidarity, we must be honest and frank in protecting our oceans which is the lifeblood of our people." Japan should explore other options for addressing the treated nuclear-contaminated water, instead of simply dumping it into the ocean.
The hypocrisy of the US is on full display in its newly-released report on China, while Washington’s anxiety on its own capability to dominate public opinion is also bubbling. The report, launched by the US Department of State on Thursday local time, is called “How The People’s Republic Of China Seeks To Reshape The Global Information Environment.” And the first reaction of the most readers is – isn’t the report about the US itself?
The report focuses on accusing China of information manipulation via propaganda, disinformation, and censorship in an attempt to seek information dominance globally. Yet it sounds more like a portrayal of Uncle Sam himself when he is looking at the mirror, and then makes it about China, Shen Yi, a professor at Fudan University, told the Global Times.
Has China ever manipulated global information like the US has been doing? Like the time when Washington claimed there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the media parroted the claim, and US allies followed suit in US-led invasion of the Middle East country? Or like the time when the US faced the world's highest COVID death toll, the US took the top spot on Bloomberg's COVID Resilience Ranking?
If the US claims No. 2 in the world in disinformation and public opinion manipulation campaign, no one dares to claim No. 1. Think about how US political elites and media outlets uniformly bleats the word “unprovoked” in reference to Russia-Ukraine conflict, despite the fact that the conflict was not only provoked, but deliberately provoked by NATO’s eastward expansion; and how the US distracts public attention from US investigative journalist Seymour Hersh’s report that the US was the mastermind behind the Nord Stream pipelines explosion, by claiming the sabotage was made by a six-member team of a pro-Ukraine group.
The US takes every measure to make the world hostile against Washington’s rivals. Launching an information war against China is therefore a part of US containment strategy, with a goal to create an “evil” image of China in the international public opinion arena. The new report is simply a latest example in US long list of tactics to make the world vigilant toward China.
This is why the US has been encircling China, half a world away from US own soil, with a chain of military bases and ports, yet calling China an “aggressor.” When a Chinese civilian unmanned airship accidentally floated over the US, the later made no hesitation in labelling the incident an act of espionage. The hysteria lasted for months until Pentagon, after a lengthy examination, confirmed it did not collect any information, not to mention send any data back to China.
American elites are so comfortable living in their echo chamber to repeat their accusation on “forced labor in Xinjiang,” which appears in almost every China-related report issued by US authorities. Unsurprisingly, it also shows up in the latest report. When people, especially from Western countries, have actually visited Xinjiang, acknowledge the development, improved healthcare, rising education and employment levels in the region, as what they see with their bare eyes, the politicians in Washington are busying clamoring so-called genocide and forced labor.
But whenever someone tells the truth, or whenever Chinese media tell the truth, they are labelled as a puppet of a Chinese propaganda machine. Who is manipulating information? How come the US has the freedom to spread disinformation but China becomes a manipulator for telling the truth?
The US State Department gets one thing wrong. It is not China manipulating information. But the US has been undermining its own credibility by lying for so long. It seems the US can also sense the fragility of its manipulation. Unfortunately, the way it responds to it is spreading more disinformation by smearing its rivals.
The more the US tries, the more its hypocrisy is exposed. The last thing the US cares about is public access to information, it cares about its hegemony, including that in the information field. Otherwise, why Julian Assange and Edward Snowden have to go through prosecution just for telling the truth?
A US bipartisan congressional delegation led by Majority Leader Chuck Schumer arrived in Shanghai and began visiting China on Saturday. Schumer, when meeting with Chen Jining, secretary of the Shanghai Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China, said the US did not seek conflict and wanted to achieve a level playing field, "as we compete economically."
Since June of this year, several senior US officials and lawmakers have visited China in succession, and the two sides have formed new working groups to solve the economic conflicts that have occurred in recent years.
It seems that the China-US relations are progressing in rebuilding a new track in an organized manner.
On Wednesday, China's Foreign Ministry said, "We hope this visit will contribute to a more objective understanding of China in the US Congress, increase dialogue and communication between the legislatures of our two countries, and add positive factors to the growth of China-US relations."
We do not expect this single trip to change the US legislators' view of China, which is formed based on their fundamentally different ideologies that see China as a challenger from the East.
Given the downward spiral of US-China relations in recent years, any official interaction and communication would benefit both sides' understanding of the other, and direct contact, in particular, can have an unintended impact.
When these legislators see China's political and economic realities, mainly what has changed and what has not changed in China after the three-year epidemic, they will learn what the Chinese people are thinking and doing and how they see the US. Even if it is a brief visit, it will have some impact on them when they propose policies on China in Congress. We hope these legislators will have a comparative mindset when looking around and talking with Chinese people.
When they compare what they see and hear in China with the reality in the US political arena, especially regarding political stability, they might gain a deeper understanding of the philosophy of national governance.
The conflicts and frictions between China and the US are closely linked to the domestic politics of both nations, which continue to shape the direction of the relationship.
Domestic politics in the US, especially the "war" on Capitol Hill, the struggle to reach the debt ceiling, the removal of the Speaker of the House and the news of former President Donald Trump's resurgence, have created confusion and eroded international trust in the stability of US politics.
The polarization of the two parties and both parties' internal politics, as well as the activism of anti-establishment and far-right forces in Congress will add to the uncertainty for the fragile reconstruction of China-US relations and the mutual trust.
Before his trip, Schumer, who leads the group of lawmakers, once again emphasized the ideological differences between the US and China.
China has never shied away from this difference. But ideological differences do not mean the US can arrogantly lecture China.
When a mainstream perception of China as a significant challenger has been formed in the US Congress, legislators will consider the China factor when proposing bills on a range of domestic and foreign policies.
As more US lawmakers visit China, they will gradually realize that the hegemonic anti-China atmosphere they have on Capitol Hill when discussing China policies is nothing more than a self-created illusion. They are no longer qualified to lecture China.
They can make their demands, but at the same time they need to listen to the Chinese side. And it is dialogue on an equal footing that is conducive to the stable coexistence of the two great powers.
The US Congress can significantly influence the White House's China policy. China will naturally take note of the atmosphere of Capitol Hill regarding China. However, it will not be perturbed by them. China's role in shaping the future of US-China relations is increasingly significant.
