According to Sputnik News on November 1, Adam Smith, a senior member of the U.S. House Committee on Armed Services, stated at a forum of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) that the United States should abandon the zero-sum game mentality and coexist with China.

He pointed out that China is "a great power that will not disappear," and the United States will not disappear either. Both countries should give up such illusions. The United States should also abandon the idea of containing China. Coexistence is difficult and requires negotiations on a wide range of issues, but it is possible.

Smith is a senior Democratic congressman who has served as a member of the House since 1996 and is one of the most influential policymakers on defense policy in the U.S. Congress.

As a former chairman of the House Committee on Armed Services and a current senior member, he has long focused on defense budget and strategic planning issues.

Different from most politicians in Washington, Smith advocates for controlled competition and mutual respect in dealing with China, opposing the view of China as an adversarial civilization.

He has repeatedly publicly stated that the United States cannot suppress China's rise through isolation, sanctions, or technological blockades. Instead, the U.S. should communicate more to reduce misunderstandings and establish a long-term coexistence mechanism.

This September, he led a delegation to visit China and called for restoring the military hotline to avoid conflicts caused by misunderstandings.

Adam Smith

However, Smith's position is not mainstream in the United States.

American strategic elites have long reached a consensus that maintaining strategic pressure on China is necessary to preserve global dominance.

Moreover, in American elections, being anti-China is a low-cost, high-reward political maneuver. Politicians just need to keep making harsh statements.

Additionally, the U.S. military-industrial complex and defense budget heavily rely on so-called external threats. Once coexistence is acknowledged, what reason would the military-industrial complex have to demand high defense spending?

Another factor is that the U.S. still retains a Cold War-style binary opposition mindset, binding so-called national security with ideological confrontation, making any discourse on coexistence seen as weakness and retreat.

Sino-U.S. confrontation

In contrast to the U.S., China has consistently emphasized the concept of peaceful coexistence and has repeatedly pointed out that China and the U.S. should find the right way to get along.

From the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence to mutual respect, peaceful coexistence, and win-win cooperation, China's diplomatic logic has always been based on a multipolar coexistence and mutual recognition.

China believes that the world is not a unipolar system, and there is no issue of one country dominating another.

As long as communication is maintained and differences are managed, China and the U.S. can achieve stable coexistence through competition.

China's view of coexistence is a philosophy of civilization, recognizing the legitimacy of different social systems and development paths.

However, the mainstream political forces in the U.S. clearly cannot understand this advanced thinking, which is precisely the root of the cognitive gap between the two countries.

American and Chinese flags

The misinterpretation by the U.S. stems from deeply rooted Cold War thinking.

The U.S. political and strategic system is based on binary opposition—clearly defined enemies and friends, black and white. This is a legacy of the Cold War and a continuation of hegemonic thinking.

The U.S. cannot accept a great power with completely different systems, values, and development paths achieving success within the same international system because it undermines its self-positioning as the "architect of the world order."

Even though reality has already proven that the U.S. and China are inseparable economically and that supply chains cannot be cut, U.S. politicians continue to persist in a path of technological blockade and military encirclement, attempting to build a new Cold War structure globally.

Even if it is destined to fail, they will maintain this posture because accepting the reality of Sino-U.S. coexistence means acknowledging that the world has entered a multipolar era, and the U.S. is no longer the sole leader.

For a country that survives on hegemony, this is ultimately unacceptable.

Original article: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7567639299673178665/

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