GSI’s Value

On April 21st, Chinese President Xi Jinping made an important keynote speech at the opening ceremony of the Boao Forum for Asia nnual Conference 2022. He put forward for the first time the Global Security Initiative (GSI). Under the sway of traditional Western approach to security and the political predominance of the U.S.-led West, the international situation has kept to be in unrest, wars and conflicts occurring one after another, economic recovery being weak and faltering, and global development falling into stagnation. The Russia-Ukraine conflict and other flash-point international and regional security issues triggered off by major power rivalry become focus of global attention. Against this backdrop, the GSI’s theoretical significance and values to our times are self evident.

West-led World Order Is Full of Wars and Conflicts

Be it regarded in history or at present, security issues are the greatest challenge that threatens human society. Under the profound changes unseen in a century and a once-in-a-century pandemic, global security situation is increasingly deteriorating, and the world is becoming less and less peaceful and tranquil. It is right time to put forward the GSI.

I. A History of Wars and Conflicts

Since the modern times began, the Western powers, with their first-mover advantage in military and economic domains, had increasingly become the predominant forces of the world. In security perspective, a world history dominated by the West was nothing but one of wars and conflicts. As German sociologist Werner Sombart observed in War and Capitalism, between the 14th and 15th centuries, Britain and France fought for 100 years; in the 16th century, Europe only saw 25 years of peace; and the figure was shortened to 21 years in the 17th century. That is to say that 156 out of those two hundred years were at war. By comparison, East Asian region during the same period only witnessed several wars in relatively small scale between countries.

It is obvious that compared with other regions of the world, the world led by the Western powers was full of wars and conflicts. In waging foreign wars, the Western powers more and more adopted a warlike policy, became inclined to resort to war and violence, and ultimately created a hierarchical world system having “law of the jungle” as base color, a system brutal and bloody. On the surface, by military superiority and overseas wars, the Western powers had maintained their predominance in the world politics for centuries, but their zero-sum games, war havoc, and conflicts that prevailed everywhere only resulted in incalculable calamities and losses for the whole human society.

Eventually, the Western powers keen on resolving issues by war had taken the perilous direction of self-destruction. During the World War I (WWI), the Battle of Somme alone caused 1.3 million casualties. In the whole WWI, millions of young adults in Europe died in war, and a huge amount of achievements of human civilization were gone with the gunfire. To a degree, the World War II (WWII) was a continuation of the WWI. With ever rising level of industrialization, lethal and destructive abilities of all war weapons became unprecedented, and as a result, the catastrophe wrought by the WWII far exceeded that of the WWI. All this attests to the fact that to achieve hegemonic objectives by war will ultimately be counterproductive.

II. U.S.-led World Is More Turbulent

After the WWII, the emergence of nuclear weaponry accompanied by “balance of terror” greatly reduced the possibility of a world war. During the Cold War, in spite of saber rattling from time to time between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, both sides exercised relative restraint, leading to a rare pause of war. To a degree, the Cold War between the U.S. and the Soviet Union was a sort of cold peace. However, the disintegration of the Soviet Union had left the U.S. unchecked and becoming increasingly warlike. Five local wars have broken out since the Cold War ended (the Gulf War, the Kosovo War, the War in Afghanistan, the Iraq War, and the War in Libya), all waged or led by the U.S.. According to open sources such as the U.S. Congressional Record, in 111 years between 1890 and 2001, the U.S. had carried out 133 operations of military intervention.

In recent years, as power shift among major countries accelerates, the world undergoes profound changes unseen in a century. On the one hand, the U.S.-led West is on relative decline, financialization and hollowing of economy signalizing that the U.S. is over the hill. On the other hand, emerging markets represented by China are on the rise. Historical experience shows that the period of power shift tends to be one of multiple incidence of geopolitical contradictions. As Italian economist Giovanni Arrighi observed, there is positive correlation between capital accumulation and war. Since its emergence, capitalism has undergone three accumulation cycles, between which each transition (in fact also power shift) is ultimately resolved by a large-scale war.

The Russia-Ukraine conflict that broke out in February 2022 is on the surface that Russia took the initiative to attack, but it is rather in essence a consequence of the U.S. promoting eastward expansion of the NATO and squeezing Russia’s strategic space. Fundamentally, the Russia-Ukraine conflict is hegemony and anti-hegemony in nature, and it is a fight between an old system and a new one against the mega background of international power shift. Since the breakout of the conflict, the U.S.-led West has kept fanning the flames to organize a “proxy war” by providing military supplies to Ukraine, aiming to make the war last as long as possible in order to profit from it.