07:41     11 November 2023    

Editor's note: The sixth China International Import Expo (CIIE) is being held in Shanghai from November 5 to 10. The U.S. has sent its highest-level delegation ever to participate in the sixth CIIE. Some analysts view this as a positive sign for the China-U.S. relations and a beacon of hope amid global instability. What benefits has China's development brought to the people of the country and the world? To explain the concept of China's development, CGTN and China Institute for Innovation and Development Strategy (CIIDS) have launched the "Chinese modernization: Sharing prosperity" series. In this episode, Lawrence H. Summers, former U.S. Treasury Secretary, shared his thoughts on this topic. It is important to note that the views expressed in the video are his own and do not necessarily represent those of CGTN. Seems to me that what happens in the United States, what happens in China, and what happens in their interactions, especially in the economic sphere, are as important for the future of the world as any other developments that are going to play out over the next several years. I do not find it difficult to construct scenarios or visions for the future in which the United States economy and the Chinese economy both flourish and the world flourishes. Unfortunately, I do not find it difficult to create scenarios in which the United States economy encounters substantial difficulty, the Chinese economy encounters substantial difficulty, and the world plays out in conflict and much less human achievement than otherwise would have been possible. I find it difficult to imagine scenarios in which the United States succeeds, China does not, and the world works out well, or to imagine scenarios in which China succeeds, the United States does not, and the world works out well. That means that the United States and China are engaged in what mathematicians would call a positive-sum game. That's not hard to see from a very basic kind of economic analysis. Two entities in economics can be competitors. One can be the customer of the other, or one can be the supplier to the other. If you think about it, it's good when your customer gets richer. It's good when your supplier gets to be more efficient. So I think it is immensely important that even as we recognize that we have very different concepts of how the world should be ordered, very different concepts of how our domestic economies should be structured, we have rather similar interests in mutual economic success. I think we are more likely to reach positive outcomes if we are more extensively engaged in dialogue with each other. Dialogue need not mean affection. It need not mean friendship. It may mean only mutual comprehension, but that kind of mutual comprehension is, I think, something that is going to be very important going further. I am concerned by developments on both sides of the Pacific. It sometimes seems to me that in the United States, every official wants to have a firmer posture towards China than the average position. When everyone wants to get to a certain place relative to the average, there is a natural and adverse escalatory cycle. And so my hope is, that there will be a growing recognition that the United States and China are like two strong men in a rowboat, a lifeboat, in a turbulent sea, a long way from the shore. Both of them need to be rowing in unison if they are going to get to that shore. And their feelings are not really what's important. Their appreciation for each other's lifestyle is not what's important. What is important is getting their pulling of the oars into some kind of unison, so that both can get to the shore, survive and flourish. And that is what I think we need between China and the United States.