differing interpretations

• China believes their rise in the world is peaceful

  Xi Jingping’s China Dream

  China believes:

  1. ‘Peace-loving nation’
  2. ‘The pursuit of peace, amity and harmony is an integral part of the Chinese character which runs deep in the blood of the Chinese people’

  China’s rise in the world is simply a means for them to be ‘fulfilling its natural course’.
• However, the US argues that China is unable to rise peacefully

  John Mearsheimer (US Political Scientist)

  One is that China is clearly revisionist power: it wants Taiwan back; it wants the Diaoyu Islands back; it wants to dominate the South China Sea; it has border disputes with India and Bhutan…This is a country that has very powerful incentives to use its military might to change the status quo in ways that it sees fit.