The current world is undergoing a dichotomy of development. On the one hand, the tangible and intangible bindings of international community become increasingly intertwined, thus not only making the world an earth village, but also an integrated entity. On the other hand, there are also forces pulling the world apart and making the international community fragmented and in piecemeal. Moreover, arising are some worrying social thoughts such as unilateralism, protectionism, extremism and Xenophobia. These phenomena are also teaching us that physical power is far from enough to combat the current and future challenges to the mankind. Indeed, to meet these challenges we need to synchronize both physical and cultural strength.

“There is only one system in the world, and that is the international system with the United Nations at its core,” President Xi Jinping said. “There is only one order, and that is the international order based on international law.”

For the United States, the Nord Stream 2 gas project is a reminder of its waning global hegemony. Its ability to control its allies has declined. Bilateral relations have deteriorated. Attempts to block construction have failed. America has become a shadow of its former self.

China-U.S. relations are the main stress point in the present-day world, and the U.S. has yet to accept China’s bottom lines. While chilly political relations and warm economic ones are the new normal, it is still possible for the two to meet halfway.

During the four decades of the Cold War, the United States had a grand strategy focused on containing the power of the Soviet Union. Yet by the 1990s, following the Soviet Union’s collapse, America had been deprived of that pole star. After the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, US President George W. Bush’s administration tried to fill the void with a strategy that it called a “global war on terror.” But that approach provided nebulous guidance and led to long US-led wars in marginal places like Afghanistan and Iraq. Since 2017, the US has returned to “great-power competition,” this time with China.

The Group of Seven (G7) Leadership Summit held last June was stated to be an occasion for the Western leaders to “reestablish” the international order after the COVID-19 pandemic. It was also for the U.S. to demonstrate its return “back at the table”.

The U.S. and others should help developing countries solve their problems, rather than using them as a playing field in a geopolitical competition with China. Excessive competition will not lead to the better world that the American president says he seeks.

In their latest communiqué, NATO leaders declared that China presents “systemic challenges to the rules-based international order.” The response from China’s mission to the European Union was clear: “We will not present a ‘systemic challenge’ to anyone, but if someone wants to pose a ‘systemic challenge’ to us, we will not remain indifferent.” Such a tit-for-tat rhetoric is unnecessary, and most of the world’s population probably does not want it to escalate. Yet escalation is becoming more likely every day.

China needs to a better job in responding to Western scolding. It may need to express discontent, or even anger, from time to time. But mostly it must be able to deliver a positive, vivid and appealing Chinese narrative.

China, the United States and India have different strategic goals and so their interests conflict — so much so that strategic suspicion has fostered a negative kind of competition in which the other side is labeled as a primary rival. Of course there is a way to break the impasse. But it boils down to whether the parties really want to.