Over the past decades, China has adhered to its own development path and in the process it has broken the center-periphery system of dependency among countries to create a new three-part interaction system.

This system consists of three types of relations - China's relations with "periphery" countries (the non-Western world and developing countries), China's relations with "central" countries (major Western countries) and interactions between the two aforementioned relations.

In the new pattern, China is in a unique position to influence the future evolution of the world order as it is more capable of substantially promoting the common interests of all countries than any other country in the world. Hence, China's peaceful rise is of epoch-making significance.

To start with, China's relations with the "periphery" countries are better than ever, as evidenced by the strong support from developing countries for China's Belt and Road Initiative. Since Chinese President Xi Jinping proposed the initiative in 2013, a total of 126 countries, most of which are developing ones, and 29 international organizations have signed cooperation agreements with China on the Belt and Road Initiative. From 2013 to 2018, the value of trade in goods between China and the Belt and Road economies exceeded $6 trillion, an average annual growth of 4 percent, higher than the overall growth of China's foreign trade.

The Belt and Road Initiative's popularity among developing countries comes from the fact that China is the only country that can provide products, services and experience related to the four industrial revolutions.

For the developing countries, China, with a sense of realism, provides products and services catering to their development stage and in the meantime reserves the possibility of upgrading such products and services in the future. Take the China-aided Mombasa-Nairobi Railway as an example. Currently, the railway system uses diesel locomotives, which is more suitable to Kenya's present conditions than other options. However, preparations have been made for its future electrification.

Another example is China-Africa trade. Ten years ago, the United States was Africa's largest trading partner. Now China has taken that position, and the volume of China-Africa trade is twice that of US-Africa trade. Similar changes are taking place in Southeast Asia and Latin America.

In May, Malaysia's Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad offered a forceful defense of Chinese tech giant Huawei. He said Huawei currently boasted "the best technology in the world", and that the US had to accept the new status quo. "We have to accept that the US cannot forever be the supreme nation[with] the best technology...[The West] must accept that this capability can also be found in the East. But they want to have a situation where they are always ahead, and if not[they] will ban you, [they] will send warships to your country, that is not competition. That is threatening people."

China's peaceful rise has ended many "periphery" countries' blind belief in the Western political and economic model. China's success has set an appealing example for "periphery" countries. This is an important part of China's soft power. China does not "export" its development model, but its success means more and more "periphery" countries are turning to China with the hope of learning from China's experience. This is conducive to increasing their global influence and accelerating global governance reforms.

Second, China's relations with "central" countries have significantly improved over the past decades. The progress has been slowed down by the resurgence of protectionism and unilateralism of some Western countries. Despite that, the European Union is China's largest trading partner, while China is the largest creditor country of the US and its second-largest trading partner.

Upholding the principle of winwin cooperation, China has acceded to many institutional arrangements as exemplified by the World Trade Organization, integrated with the global production system and trading system, and formed deeply intertwined interests with major economies in the world. China has become an indispensable part of the global industrial chain, thus significantly reducing the risks of military confrontations between great powers and promoting world peace.

China's ascent to be in the first rank leading the fourth industrial revolution has shocked many Western countries. Although there are some forces in the US that want the country to decouple with China, they are incapable of doing that. Most made-in-China products are irreplaceable in ordinary people's lives. Despite frictions with some "central" countries, China has an enormous market and the most complete industrial chain and upholds the principle of win-win cooperation, making it impossible for the US to rally its allies to jointly obstruct China's development.

Finally, with regard to interactions between the two aforementioned relations, the closer "periphery" countries are with China, the more leeway they will have when dealing with conflicts with "central" countries and the more likely that the US will lose the trade war it waged against China. The improved relations between China and the "periphery" countries has also expedited the process of decentralization in the world, bring to an end the model of the "periphery feeding the central" and profoundly changing the international landscape.

China is in a unique and advantageous position in this ternary pattern. As one of the world's largest economies and a peace-loving country, China is genuinely committed to the path of win-win cooperation, at the same time with a strong capacity to deter wars. China can thus substantially promote world peace and development as it is more capable of substantially promoting all countries' common interests than any other country in the world. China has accumulated rich experience in promoting both peace and development, making it possible for the country to become a major guiding force in the world.

The author is director of the China Institute at Fudan University and a board member of the China National Think Tanks Council.

The author contributed this article to China Watch exclusively. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of China Watch.

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