As a member of a delegation of the Chinese Foreign Ministry policy advisory committee, I visited Poland, Serbia and the Czech Republic in May. As close neighbors of the Middle East, the three countries are very concerned about all the hot issues there. How to effectively crack down on terrorism, stabilize the Middle East, and ease the pressures of the refugee crisis were thus among the most frequently discussed topics on our trip.
In discussions of America’s role in the global anti-terror campaign, experts shared the belief that the US has kept creating and escalating troubles without producing solutions. Since the 9/11 incident in 2001, the entire world has been dragged by the US into a protracted war on terror. Today, 15 years afterwards, the world has found itself in a strange loop: There are more terrorist groups worldwide, terrorist attacks have become even more barbaric, terrorism has greatly damaged and stricken international order and world peace.
Take the Libya war, for example, the only war Barack Obama has launched during his presidency. Experts considered the 2011 war as the outcome of the serious imbalance in present-day international political and economic orders. Problems it has ignited keep revealing themselves to this day. While achieving some immediate geopolitical gains, the US and Western countries have lost some long-term interests in the Middle East by launching such a war.
First, Islamic radicals have taken advantage of the war to expand their influence, becoming the US’ new enemies. The military intervention has turned the “Arab Spring” from a campaign against the powerful and privileged as well as dictatorship inside Libya into one against the West and colonialism, worsening conflicts between the Islamic world and the West. Second, it directly resulted in the birth and expansion of the Islamic State. The spread of has gone far beyond what the US can control or afford, threatened the US and its interests in the Middle East, and severely affected security interests of countries in the region and the world at large.
Some experts proposed that in order to retain its “global leadership”, the US needs to forsake hegemonistic thinking and make wiser choices. While effectively cracking down on terrorism, we need to preserve the world’s basic order, safeguard the dignity of international law, and guarantee global public interests through extensive and in-depth cooperation, which is essential for preventing the world from sinking into the vicious circle of terror, chaos and disorder while carrying out all-round attacks on terrorism.
As terrorism and terrorist activities disseminate and take advantage of information networks, no country is immune, and the traditional approach of each taking care of its own business will make it impossible to ultimately win the war on terror. The new conditions of the anti-terror campaign call for stronger, more efficient multi-lateral anti-terror mechanisms. It is thus imperative to build an international united front against terror.
Chinese experts have stated that only through increasing consensuses, taking pragmatic moves, enhancing online operations and systematic guarantees can we lay a solid foundation for building an international united front against terror. That means abandoning double standards, engaging in equal and candid cooperation, setting up regional anti-terror coordination agencies, and enhancing intelligence exchange and judicial collaboration. It means cracking down on terrorism on the Internet, preventing online dissemination of terrorist information and extremist ideas, consolidating UN anti-terror mechanisms, improving international conventions and security and judicial collaboration between countries, ensuring efficient and rational execution of police authorities at home, and dovetailing domestic laws with international law and treaties.
Chinese experts believe that countries can only handle the challenges from terrorism through promoting bilateral and multi-lateral cooperation from the perspective of common security. They should cultivate order with high degrees of consensus, and preserve order actively under the premise of respecting and abiding by the UN Charter and international law. Such proposals have resonated with their international counterparts, who expressed willingness to jointly cope with the “riddle of terror”.
