The concept of building a harmonious world put forward by Chinese leaders has attracted the attention of the international community. Embodying the heart of China's foreign policy, the initiative also reflects the thinking of the international community on how to resolve practical contradictions and construct a future international order.

The harmonious-world concept features lasting peace and common prosperity. Peace and prosperity serve as preconditions of each other. Only lasting peace can boost prosperity and only widespread prosperity can make peace lasting. There is a rich body of thought on how to achieve this goal.

A harmonious world can be described in other terms, including rational, just, democratic, tolerant and orderly. In this sense, the core of the concept of creating a harmonious world is to push the world political and economic order in a more rational and just direction.

In order to create a new international order, international politics must be democratized, providing all countries with an opportunity to participate in the development of the world system. The international order must be based on law, and all countries need to abide by common agreements and regulations based on a spirit of equality.

The concept also conveys the idea that international issues should be dealt with through multilateral means. Problems that are the common concern of the international community, such as security, stability, development, diseases and other social issues, should be resolved through multilateral consultation and cooperation or handled by certain international organizations.

On relations among countries, the building of a harmonious world calls for friendly coexistence and a peaceful path in resolving disputes. On the economy, a harmonious world pursues the principles of equality and mutual benefit, but at the same time, developed countries are responsible for helping developing countries. Regarding cultural differences among different civilizations, mutual respect, tolerance and learning need be advocated in a harmonious world.

Interdependent relations

A harmonious world is the common dream and pursuit of all people. But because there are widespread and complicated contradictions and conflicts in reality, there is also widespread doubt and bewilderment over whether the dream can be achieved and how to do so.

According to the Western theory of realism, a country's behavior is based on securing its national self-interest. Thus, the international community is in a state of anarchy. The stability of the world depends on hegemony or a balance among several big powers. A change in the strength of the major powers will lead to a rupture of the traditional balance. The essence of such a theory is that the international community is full of conflicts that cannot be reconciled.

The concept of building a harmonious world, in contrast, looks upon countries as organic parts of the whole international community, and all countries are interdependent. So, in this theory, people can resolve their contradictions through cooperation and gain common development. The harmonious relationship among countries is the basis and premise of common development.

China's development of the concept of building a harmonious world is not only related to the country's traditional culture but also to its practical environment and understanding of the world. At the same time, it is also closely related to humans' rethinking of their own development after World War II, especially after the Cold War.

Portraying the living conditions of human beings with the word "harmonious" indeed carries characteristics of traditional Chinese culture, which looks upon human society and the relationship between mankind and nature as a whole. Thus, the culture stresses harmony among men and between man and nature. The word "harmony" today is a generalization of ancient Chinese philosophy on peace and concord.

However, the thoughts of the Chinese people in more contemporary times have been influenced by European culture after the Industrial Revolution, especially Marxist thinking. Based on it, the Chinese Government came up with the goal of building a harmonious society domestically. But the initiation of building a harmonious world is not simply an extension of its domestic policy; it is based on China's understanding of the development direction of the whole world.

From a practical perspective, the proposal of building a harmonious world is the further development of China's peaceful diplomatic thought. When the People's Republic was first founded in 1949, as it faced a complicated international situation that was dominated by superpowers, China came up with the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, and then formed its own independent foreign policy with the five principles as the core.

After the end of the Cold War, China's reform and opening up made the country develop with astonishing speed and, at the same time, enhanced its international status. Thus, based on the theory of hegemony or balanced stability, a so-called "China threat" theory has emerged in some Western countries.

In response, China argues that a big country not only can coexist with the rest of the world in peace and harmony on its path from poverty to wealth and weakness to strength, but it is also able to make its own contribution to world peace and prosperity. Under the situation that the international order is moving toward justice and rationality, all countries can obtain the space to develop in a peaceful way.

Certainly, the development of China's understanding of the world conforms to the changes in the international situation and the development of humans' understanding of themselves. With the end of the Cold War, the opposition of the two superpowers has disappeared and economic globalization is deepening, during which various production elements have been redistributed and move rapidly in the global sphere and the interdependence among countries has increased.

The economic competition among countries is no longer based on the absolute victory of one country and complete defeat of another. Countries can find a win-win solution through cooperation. Such a theory of interdependence and cooperation and mutual benefit has become more and more accepted. Such progress in understanding provides an important theoretical foundation for the concept of building a harmonious world, and also serves as an important practical basis for that drive.

Reality intrudes

In a certain sense, the process of constructing a harmonious world was begun much earlier. After World War II, people embarked on a course of building a new international order with lasting peace. To achieve this, the war's victors set up the United Nations system. The system advocates the equality of different countries and opposes colonialism and the invasion or enslavement of another country, which can be seen as the beginning of the modern international political and economic order.

The United Nations operates based on the rational cooperation of its member states. But in a world that had just shaken off the disasters of war and where many small and medium-sized countries still have to deal with the consequences of colonialism, the United Nations finds it hard to effectively play its role. Thus, besides the United Nations, a multipolar structure has developed, which may be the major source of the contradictions and conflicts in the world. The confrontation between the two superpowers during the Cold War and the new structure in the post-Cold War period with one superpower and several big powers are both the embodiment of such a multiple order.

After 60 years of efforts, the international organization system based on the United Nations and the system of international law based on the spirit of the United Nations Charter have been greatly developed and strengthened. Although some people have doubts about the effectiveness of the United Nations, as there are still some complicated contradictions and conflicts in the current world, we cannot deny that the United Nations has played and is playing the role of a cornerstone in the current international law order. Such an organization and legal system is an important basis for the construction of lasting peace.

Regional cooperation has also gained robust development, which is of equal importance to the global international organizations. Such cooperation not only can boost the common economic prosperity of countries in a region but can also alleviate or even eliminate political conflicts. In the cultural field, regional cooperation is favorable for developing mutual tolerance.

Apart from this, the confrontation among big powers is easing while dialogue and cooperation are increasing. This increased multilateral cooperation has especially created favorable conditions for maintaining stability and increasing prosperity.

After the end of the Cold War, with the development of economic globalization, information technology has created more convenient ways for people to communicate and mankind has a deeper understanding of itself. The idea of interdependence has been accepted in a wider sphere and seeking a win-win result through dialogue and cooperation is the law of international behavior that is widely accepted. Such changes in relations among countries, the way of thinking and behavior have also embodied the progress of human beings and have laid a foundation for our pursuit of a higher ideal.

But the rationality of the concept of building a harmonious world in theory and in practice cannot make such a world appear automatically. In our practical world, the political and economic development of different countries is uneven, power politics still has an influence and historical problems are becoming more complicated, all of which hinder the progress of the world. Thus, the process of building a harmonious world should be participated in by all the people, and the course will be complicated and uneven.

In such a course, China's role is to act as a participant, constructor and maintainer of the world order, with the strength to maintain peace and stability as a responsible big country that has worldwide influence.

The author is a research fellow of the China Institute of International Studies