Expert: Xi's grand vision for new diplomacy

What is Xi's grand vision for China? The world is watching; many are hopeful, many are fearful. Some wonder about Xi's intent. But there is now no need to wonder; he has made his intent clear in his new book Xi Jinping: The Governance of China.

For China to fulfill its potential as a global leader, it must gain the world's respect for its principles and philosophies, not only for its economy and military. This involves appreciation for China's self-determined "road of development" and for its political system, particularly the perpetual leadership of the ruling party.

This is a larger topic but such appreciation can develop only with a kind of convergence, where China's political system continues to reform, with increasing transparency and freedoms, and where foreigners come to understand that pragmatic competence managing China's complex society trumps idealistic ideologies of multi-party democracies.

In my dream of a post-adversarial world, China assumes increasing responsibility for world peace and prosperity, which includes opposing regimes that trouble their own people. In seeking the moral optimum, China may have to tear up old scripts.

For its part, the United States should reject the Cold-War mentality of "containing China" as being both archaic and self-defeating. Of course, there remain areas of contention - balance of trade, human rights, territorial disputes - but different political systems should not be one of them. Politico-economic theories constructed in the 18th and 19th centuries have little utility in the 21st century, where most nations optimize free markets and government regulation that by nature can be neither generalized nor static.

In today's world, the real conflict is not between opposing political systems but rather between the forces of modernity, competence and development on the one hand, and those of ignorance, exploitation and oppression on the other.

China's increasing engagement with global diplomacy should be celebrated.

The author is an international corporate strategist and political/economics commentator.

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