Military scholars hold rare media briefing amid rising tensions between China and the US<\/b>
\nChina will not let nationalist sentiment hijack its policymaking as it continues its peaceful rise, a military professor under the People\u2019s Liberation Army said on Thursday.
Major General Meng Xiangqing, who specialises in national security at the PLA\u2019s National Defence University, was speaking at a rare media briefing in Beijing that was held amid rising tensions between China and the United States.
Addressing both Chinese and foreign reporters, Meng also talked about military developments in China, while another PLA scholar said the two countries had failed to properly define their relations.
\u201cThere has been a wave of populism sweeping across many countries, and I admit that such populist sentiment exists among many in the Chinese public,\u201d Meng said.
\u201cBut the Chinese government will not be hijacked by populism \u2013 and it will steadily push forward with its peaceful development.\u201d
The briefing, which was organised by the university, came as the rise of China\u2019s military in the region and Beijing\u2019s efforts to expand its influence abroad is under increasing scrutiny.
For example, there was widespread concern over China\u2019s move to open its first overseas military base last year in Djibouti, in the Horn of Africa, although Beijing described it as a logistics base.
But Major General Xu Hui said the opposite sentiment had surfaced within China \u2013 that Beijing is not being assertive enough.
\u201cWhen international opinion suggests that China has become too tough, we are hearing voices among the population of 1.3 billion people that China\u2019s foreign policy and national defence are too weak,\u201d said Xu, commandant of the university\u2019s International College of Defence Studies.
Despite that, Xu said China had not abandoned late leader Deng Xiaoping\u2019s policy calling for the peaceful rise of China.
\u201cMany people say China has changed its path and no longer follows Deng Xiaoping\u2019s idea of staying humble and cautious. I think there is a need to correct this wrong perception,\u201d he said.
Xu also said China and the US had failed to find a comfortable balance in defining their relations, and warned that growing mistrust and a bigger gap in perceptions could spark \u201ca new cold war\u201d between the two countries that could spread across East Asia.
\u201cWe have been trying hard to define this relationship, but regrettably, we have not been able to agree on a definition of the nature of China-US relations that is acceptable to both sides,\u201d he said, adding that Washington had labelled Beijing as a strategic rival in its national security strategy.
Xu added that Beijing and Washington should learn from the Korean war, saying the two sides had been dragged into the conflict because of a lack of communication and because they misinterpreted each other\u2019s intentions.
\u201cToday we should learn from this lesson and strengthen our communication,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n