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A thread on the cautious and slightly self-critical views of Yuan Peng, President of CICIR, regarding the impact of #COVID19 on the international order and China’s strategic position, as published in CICIR’s monthly 现代国际关系 http://www.aisixiang.com/data/121742.html
His starting point: #COVID19 can be compared to a World War. It shows that the existing order was not sustainable – black swans and gray rhinos have been dancing chaotically “黑天鹅”与“灰犀牛”乱舞 and there is a rare level of uncertainty and instability in the world order
China's traditional description of the order as “one superpower, many strong powers” 一超多强 is no longer valid. The US can no longer dictate outcomes. China’s rise accelerates but faces a bottleneck 面临赶超瓶颈
Europe’s power is declining and its future is uncertain, Russia tries to take advantage of chaos, India’s shortcomings have been exposed and Japan is facing unprecedented difficulties (I do not editorialize Yuan Peng’s views)
China does not yet have sufficient power to create a bipolar world 中国尚无力同美国并称“两极”. And even as it exits #COVID19 faster than the US, a favorable position does not mean a strategy advantage 有利位置不等于战略优势
Yuan Peng does not foresee new Cold War because of the interdependence of US and Chinese economies and a weakened US alliance system. Instead, he sees the US building a small anti-China circle that cooperates on finance, technology, trade and supply chains.
Overall, China is still in a period of strategic opportunity and is still “unrolling methodically its strategic plan” 战略布署仍在有序推进 But the changing environment makes it more difficult to seize opportunities.
And 2021 is coming soon – the first 100-year goal as announced by the Party, for the 100th anniversary of its foundation. Once there, China needs to pause and rest for a moment, and reflect on its experience 应该稍事休整和停顿，总结经验
To create the conditions to reach the goals set for the second 100-year goal in 2049, there will be a need to “liberate our thinking and seek truth from facts” 解放思想，实事求是
A tentative conclusion after this quick summary that does not do justice to his piece: this is his way to argue that the current foreign and security policy of China will need a serious adjustment if it is to reach the goals set by Xi at the 19th Party Congress
