A century ago today, on Nov 11, 1918, at 11 am Paris time (the eleventh hour, of the eleventh day, of the eleventh month), the armistice confirming the total surrender of Germany to the Allies came into effect, putting an end to WWI. It had been signed five hours before at Rethondes, in the forests of Compiègne, near Paris, inside a railroad wagon. On June 22, 1940, the same railroad wagon would host the signature of a second armistice; this time, France would surrender to Germany. That restaurant car of the Compagnie des Wagons — Lits symblolizes the drama and folly of European history in the 20th century.

Nine million soldiers and seven million civilians were killed. After four years of untold suffering and carnage, European youth laid under the fields. Three imperial crowns and half a millennium of European geopolitical predominance accompanied them to their grave. All the European powers involved lost, even those that happened to be on the "winning" side. Had the actors of the drama been prescient enough to anticipate the landscape after the battle, nobody would have dared to start it.

George Kennan's The Fateful Alliance, published in 1984, is a good read to reflect on the lessons to be drawn from that war. He points out to "the inability of otherwise intelligent men to perceive the inherently self-destructive quality of warfare among the great industrial powers of the modern age" and to how they suffered "a terrible penalty for their limitation of vision". And he denounces how "the unjustified assumption of war's likelihood became the cause of its inevitability" — a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Splitting Europe into two military alliances, that, once in place, developed a momentum of their own, led to disaster. To split again the world in blocs now, whether economic or military, would be to repeat the mistake of the European countries at the beginning of the last century. The "pivot", Obama's version of containment applied to China, had an economic leg, the TPP. The Financial Times called it "ABC, anyone but China".

Robert Zoellick considered that "attempts to isolate China will inevitably fail, since all the members of TPP are great beneficiaries of their relations with China". Henry Kissinger thought that China had to beadmitted into TPP and warned: "If a global economic order does not appear, obstacles in the field of security might become unsurmontable". Lee Kuan Yew was more explicit: "Protectionism under the shelter of regionalism will breed conflicts or even wars".

Much worse would be the formation of new military blocs. In May of this year, the US Pacific Command became the Indo-Pacific Command, an attempt to enlist Japan, India and Australia to contain China. It is by no means clear, though, that these countries, with close economic links to China, will follow the US lead. Kennan thinks that in the nuclear age "if governments are still unable to recognize that modern nationalism and modern militarism are, in combination, self-destructive forces, and totally so... if they are incapable of bringing them under control... they will be preparing, this time, a catastrophe from which there can be no recovery and no return... our failure will be final - for ourselves and for all future generations".

On Jan 12, 2009, Kissinger wrote in the New York Times: "This generation of leaders has the opportunity to shape the Trans-Pacific relationship into a design for common destiny, much as was done with trans-Atlantic relations in the immediate post-war (World War II) period. And in On China, published in 2011,he rounded off this idea proposing the establishment of a Pacific Community integrated by the US, China and the other countries of the region. In a recent intervention, on Sept 13 of this year, he said, talking about US-China relations: "The issue is not victory, here the issue is continuity, and world order, and world justice, and to see whether our countries can find a way of talking about it to each other". This vision dovetails with President Xi Jinping's concepts of "Community of Common Destiny for Humanity" and "A new type of international relation" based on win-win cooperation.

What  the world needs is not economic or military blocs, but peaceful and inclusive partnerships; not confrontation,but cooperation; not containment but engagement. Differences, economic and otherwise, can be ironed out through negotiation.

Interviewed by Edward Luce, of the Financial Times, on July 20 of this year, Kissinger said: “We are in a very, very grave period". He was not more explicit, but in view of the turn US policy toward China is taking, it is not difficult to understand what he meant. There is still time to avoid the grievous mistakes that led Europe to self-destruction a century ago.

Eugenio Bregolat is former Spanish ambassador to China. The author contributed this article to China Watch exclusively. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of China Watch.

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