Why China is NOT Scared of the USA | Zhang WeiWei

China’s rise is not merely a matter of economic scale or military capability; it is a claim rooted in a distinct historical imagination and a strategic grammar that prizes integration, patient statecraft, and the primacy of public order. The recorded exchange with Zhang Weiwei at the East-West Forum in Istanbul lays out that claim in plain terms: China presents itself as a “civilizational state” that views global politics through the lens of continuity, infrastructure, and collective uplift rather than through zero-sum rivalry. If that perspective sounds like a rebuke to Western liberal assumptions about power and democracy, it is because it is meant to be one — not as provocation, Zhang suggests, but as an offer of an alternative architecture for a world moving toward multipolarity. ## China as a civilizational state The conversation opens by defining China less as a modern nation-state in the Western sense and more as a hybrid: a polity formed by “four supers” — super-large population, super-large territory, super-long history, and super-rich culture. This framing is significant because it recasts contemporary Chinese policy as an expression of a long civilizational trajectory, not merely a modern project of state-building. Zhang Weiwei emphasizes that each “super” combines ancient roots and modern capacities: a vast, well-educated population; a continental landmass stitched together by world-class infrastructure; and a cultural-political ethos shaped by Confucian priorities, notably the emphasis on people’s livelihood. The implication is that China’s governance logic arises from continuity as much as from technocratic modernization. Where Western political theory foregrounds procedures — elections, adversarial politics, individual rights — Zhang locates the core Chinese political value in the practical delivery of social goods and stability. ## Unite and prosper: China's strategic philosophy A central contrast in the discussion is between two different strategic grammars. One, associated with the United States and Western practice, is adversarial and binary: friend or foe; manage alliances through exclusion and deterrence. The other, which Zhang calls Chinese, is expansive and patient: unite and prosper; treat states as friends or potential friends. This is not mere rhetorical nicety. It translates into a willingness to tolerate ideological difference, to defer the immediate pursuit of dominance, and to privilege long-term integration. Zhang invokes Sun Tzu’s axiom about subduing the enemy without fighting to underline a high threshold for the use of force. The argument is that China’s history inculcates a strategic preference for diplomacy, thresholds, and conflict avoidance. Thus, what Western observers read as timidity or opportunism, Zhang reframes as strategic patience and risk aversion tied to civilizational self-understanding. ## Shared development, the SCO and ASEAN Zhang points to institutions and initiatives to show how this civilizational logic operates in practice. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and China-ASEAN relations are presented as concrete embodiments of China’s four pillars — development, security, civilization, and governance. The SCO, by population and land mass, and ASEAN via dynamism in trade and integration, are depicted as engines of a new regional architecture that contributes substantially to global growth. Zhang highlights the pragmatic focus on infrastructure — from railways to digital connectivity — as the core modality of influence: build connectivity, lower transaction costs, and create interdependence that grounds peace. The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) becomes in this telling the institutionalized projection of China’s developmental diplomacy: not merely investment, but a spatial reordering that makes erstwhile “geopolitical curses” into “geopolitical bonuses.” The claim here is straightforward: development-led integration creates a zone where security dilemmas are reduced because material interdependence raises the cost of violent rupture. ## Public order, regional security and India Public order, Zhang argues, is the social good Chinese citizens prize above all else; for a country of continental scale, anarchy is the existential fear. This preference for order shapes how China approaches regional tensions. In examples cited during the exchange — maritime disputes with the Philippines or border clashes with India — Zhang stresses restraint and proportionality, noting that China has used non-lethal measures or limited force and has preferred negotiated, incremental solutions. The conversation also addresses the India question: persistent border ambiguities, historical legacies such as the colonial-era McMahon Line, and the complicated geopolitics of South Asia shape mistrust. Zhang contends that China would rather shelve difficult territorial questions to focus on development and create a larger “cake” from which future generations can carve a solution. This deliberately long time horizon is offered as an antidote to premature militarization or zero-sum posturing; it is an approach that bets on economic and social transformation as the path to durable peace. ## Peace, common values and the UN Charter A recurring theme is the primacy of peace among the “common values” Zhang attributes to Xi Jinping’s global governance initiative: peace tops a list that also includes development, fairness, justice, democracy, and freedom. The ordering matters. In Zhang’s account, the Western canon of universal values often omits peace as an explicit value, implicitly reserving a license to intervene. China’s insistence on peace as foundational aims to refocus international norms on sovereignty, non-interference, and the UN Charter’s post-war settlement. This is not framed as nihilistic rejection of rights claims but as a normative recalibration: the worst of humanitarian interventions and regime-change campaigns — examples include the upheavals of the Arab Spring — suggest to many states that procedural or ideological prescriptions can unleash disorder. Zhang therefore positions China’s proposal as a return to a common denominator acceptable to most states: the UN Charter as baseline, not the West’s idiosyncratic “rules-based” order that often excludes dissenting interpretations. ## UN reform, development and Trump's diplomacy When the conversation turns to institutional reform, Zhang acknowledges that the UN system has substantive achievements in social and humanitarian domains yet concedes that Security Council reform is politically difficult given the veto prerogatives of permanent members. His response is twofold: be patient and expand practical alternatives. The BRI, new multilateral institutions in AI and data, and China’s financial support for the Global South are offered as practical workarounds — parallel architectures that deliver development even as formal UN reform stalls. On Donald Trump’s personal diplomacy, Zhang offers a cautious realpolitik reading: Trump respects strength and strong leaders, and that creates openings for summitry. Yet such moments are unpredictable; they may create short-term horizontal alignments without resolving deeper structural tensions. The underlying message is that China will pursue institutional capacity and regional integration regardless of the vagaries of U.S. electoral politics. ## Democracy, border disputes and Asia's future Perhaps the most provocative thread is Zhang’s critique of prevailing Western definitions of democracy. He argues that democracy should be judged by Tao — the “way” or purpose — not merely by procedural metrics. If the aim of political systems is good governance, peace, and development, then the quality of delivery and stability matter as much as the formal mechanics of elections. This is not an argument for authoritarianism per se but a plea to broaden the evaluative framework. In the context of Asia’s future, Zhang advances a confident p

Why China is NOT Scared of the USA | Zhang WeiWei At the East-West Forum in Istanbul, Professor Zhang Weiwei presents China's vision of a multipolar world. He explains the civilizational state, contrasts Chinese and Western approaches to governance, and argues for peace, development and regional cooperation. Addressing fellow panellists, Zhang discusses the United Nations, ASEAN, the Belt and Road Initiative, relations with India, and Donald Trump's diplomacy. He challenges Western definitions of democracy and concludes that Asia's future depends on integration, strategic patience and shared prosperity rather than military confrontation. Zhang Weiwei's Links: Fudan University profile: https://cifu.fudan.edu.cn/14/1d/c521a136221/page. htm China Institute, Fudan University: https://www.fudan.edu.cn/en/2019/0514/c295a96680/page. htm East-West Forum: https://east-west-forum.com/ Neutrality Studies Links: Neutrality Studies Substack: https://pascallottaz.substack.com Support Neutrality Studies: https://neutralitystudies.com /donate Neutrality Studies shop: https://neutralitystudies.com/shop Time Stamps 00:00 Pascal's introduction 00:20 China as a civilizational state 04:45 Unite and prosper: China's strategic philosophy 06:51 Shared development, the SCO and ASEAN 10:27 Public order, regional security and India 12:34 Peace, common values and the UN Charter 15:06 UN reform, development and Trump's diplomacy 20:26 Democracy, border disputes and Asia's future #Pascal Welcome back, everybody, to Neutrality Studies. Today I'm sharing a video with Professor Zhang Weiwei, the director of the China Institute at Fudan University in Shanghai. The video was shot about two weeks ago in Istanbul during the East-West Forum, and what Professor Weiwei has to say is highly relevant, so here you go. #Zhang WeiWei Thank you, Madam, for your moderate, very, very exciting speech and encouraging words. Well, I will try to present my view on this whole topic of the world in transition and China as a civilizational state, as mentioned in the outline of the program for the conference. And as we all know, I think the world is already multipolar. If you look at the size of the GDP of four BRIC members, it's already larger than G7. Yet the multipolar world order is not yet born. So that's something we try to produce and shape, including our forum, East-West Forum here. And well, here comes the role of China. And China is indeed a unique country and can make an important contribution, perhaps already made a very important contribution to a new global order, a more fair and more just order. And how to define a civilizational state? It is an amalgam of the world's longest continuous civilization with a super-large modern state. And I try to summarize this into four supers: super-large -- 1 of 7 -- population, super-large territory, super-long history, and super-rich culture. And all these four supers, each of which is a blend of old and new, ancient and modern. For instance, if we talk about the large population, yes, China has always been a populous country since ancient times. Yet this population is very well educated. Every year, we produce more scientists, engineers than the Western countries combined. Same with this vast territory. It's our inheritance from history, yet it's also very modernized. Connected with first-rate infrastructure, best railway system, best highway system, and best digital infrastructure, 5G into every village, no exception. And super-long history. It's also a combination of old and new. If you look at China's political system, if the Western system is about election, the Chinese system is about selection plus election. Selection from the Chinese tradition, and election is from—we adapt from the Western tradition. Same with super-rich culture. If we talk about political culture, the most important political principle in China is people's livelihood first. It's very much Confucianism. Whatever you do, the state has to deliver to improve people's livelihood, both in material terms and non-material terms. An inaccurate analogy, very inaccurate, just for reference, would be something like dozens of Islamic nations or countries today have amalgamated into one nation with a centralized government, with a very modern economy and speaking the same language. And yes, it's also a highly developed economy, but it's one nation. Or another inaccurate analogy, which is not politically correct, like the Roman Empire has continued to this day, with all these different, you know, countries uniting to one and speaking Latin. Yet in the case of China, with very strong philosophical tradition, we treasure peace. Peace above all, most important thing. Highly modern, but also from Asian tradition. This would be a kind of nation-state, a civilizational state, as I try to explain to you. And now we look at the international order. See, let's say we try to build a kind of new order, much better than the one we have, from unipolarity to multipolarity. First, let's look at the ideas or philosophies, in what way China differs from the United States. Vastly different. For instance, if you look at the Chinese political philosophy, it's never about divide and rule. It's always about unite and prosper. Within China, we practice this way. Outside China, in the world, we do the same. And in terms of strategic policies, for the United States or the Western philosophy in general, it's friend or foe. You're either a friend or enemy. But the Chinese case is friend or potential friend. In other words, you have much longer view, longer vision, and as a civilizational state. And then it's very different from the trigger-happy United States. The Chinese philosophy is, if you look at Chinese history, China has the highest threshold for the use of force among the major powers. Of course, China has very clear red lines. This is very important. And also, this is strongly influenced by Sun Tzu's military, The Art of War, the famous book. The idea is you try to subdue your opponents or enemy without actual fighting. So you have this philosophy, then you have this philosophy of friend and potential friend. You have already avoided so many wars. You can prevent a lot of wars from happening. This is the way China handles. -- 2 of 7 -- Now, this is the philosophical part. Of course, most important thing is one humanity, humanity as one, rather than on the table or on the menu. This is a philosophy China rejects categorically. It's very much against Chinese conscience. Now, when we talk about shared future for mankind or one humanity, some people say it's idealistic. How you put this into practice? How to make this into something tangible? I was asked by an American scholar in Shanshan Forum about this question. Why Chinese leader Xi Jinping raised this whole global governance initiative at Shanghai Cooperation Organization, rather than United Nations? It's more, you know, serious, whatever, formal. But I said that it's very simple to understand, because Shanghai Cooperation Organization is the embodiment of these four initiatives Xi Jinping has raised: development, security, civilization, and governance. Exactly four pillars of Shanghai Cooperation. That's my summary of the success. Now, Shanghai Cooperation Organization has become the world's largest regional cooperation organization in terms of population, in terms of land mass, and in terms of the results. So this is very important. It's already larger GDP than G7. And same with ASEAN. If you look at China's partnership with ASEAN, same, these four pillars. As a result, China now contributes every year 30% to world economic growth. ASEAN produces roughly 7% to 8%. With this kind of China-ASEAN cooperation, we contribute to close to 40% of global economic growth. Then you look at this whole Eurasia, from Russia to Central Asia to China to Southeast Asia. This huge landmass is a land of peace and development for the past five decades. It's so important. And in many ways, I say, if China had adopted Western political, so-called liberal democracy system, maybe China had already produced a Donald Trump and Third World War had already occurred. So with Chinese political system, as Professor Jeffrey Sachs said, you have the only adult there, you know, and make rational decisions about world, about Chinese, about global affairs. So this is very important. And finally, just make a small comment on this practice. If you look at these two regional organizations and what they have done, as a result, as you know, both Central Asia and Southeast Asia are described as geopolitical curses for many, many decades, for understandable reasons. Yeah, complicated geography, complicated religious traditions, complicated different political systems, and what's more. Yet today we can see with very high pride that now they are geopolitical bonuses. Central Asia used to be landlocked. Now they are land-linked. So with this kind of positive note, China's civilization, they have produced both ideas and practices for a possibly better world to come. #Pascal Thank you. #Zhang WeiWei If you look at the opinion surveys done by whatever reputable opinion survey agencies, what Chinese treasure most is public order. That's a vast country, the size of every European country put -- 3 of 7 -- together. And so China hates the word "anarchy." So when we talk about multipolarity, multiple world order, if you look at the official language, it's called a more just, orderly, public order. So just a footnote to your comment, because I think with China, ASEAN, China and Shanghai Cooperation Organization, it's already possible we can foresee a kind of China-projected future, more benign, more just, fairer international order to come. #Zhang WeiWei Now, concerning my Indian friend, #Zhang WeiWei His comment. First of all, I like your name, Mr. Panda. Well, I do want to discuss a bit about this China-Philippine case. If China were behaving like the United States, with China's military power today, we can dismantle the Philippine military force within 24 hours. But we cannot do that. We only, whatever problems, we only use maximum water cannon. Even our border clash with India, it's not at all what other major powers will do. They're only fistfights between soldiers, and then they're being resolved gradually. So at this moment, the China-India leaders met each other, and relations become more normalized. I hope the world do better. And now I want to make one or two points here. One is concerning values, liberal values, whatever. If you look at Xi Jinping's Global Governance Initiative, he mentioned what's called the common values, six of them: peace, development, fairness, justice, democracy, freedom. What's most important is peace is top on the list. Because when you mention these Western so-called universal values, they talk about human rights, democracy, da-da-da, but they never mention peace. In other words, the West reserves the right to use military force on Global South countries. This is not allowed. This is totally wrong. We don't accept this. So peace, top on the list of these common values. I think it's appreciated by most countries, most peoples in the world. Peace is number one. And second is whatever values, you know, each civilization has its own values. But now we have this United Nations Charter, which is the broadest common denominator we can share. So when China says we should reform this current international order, we mean we return to the United Nations Charter, which is the post-World War arrangement, which most countries accept. But this rules- based order, it's not the United Nations Charter. It's the so-called liberal values dictated by the United States, by the European countries, the lieutenants of the United States, and imposed on others, you know. And if you just look at this Arab Spring, millions died. Hundreds of millions, you know, lost their homes and became homeless because they don't f