Peace and Development Are the Two Outstanding Issues in the World Today

Contained in in Vol. 3 of Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping. Part of Deng Xiaoping's Talk with the Chinese Delegation Visited by the Japan Chamber of Commerce and Industry on March 4, 1985. I should like to examine this question from two points of view, one political, the other economic. Deng Xiaoping pointed out that although the danger of war still exists, the peaceful forces restricting war have made gratifying progress. From the political point of view, there is one thing that I can state clearly and positively, and that is that China seeks to preserve world peace and stability, not to destroy them. Some people used to regard China as a warlike country. In reply to that view, not only I but also other Chinese leaders, including the late Chairman Mao Zedong and Premier Zhou Enlai, have stated on many occasions that China desires peace more than anything else. China was already strongly opposed to superpower hegemony, regarding it as the source of war, by which we meant not local war but potential world war.

The growing strength of the Third World — and of the most populous country, China, in particular — is an important factor for world peace. So from the political point of view, a stronger China will help promote peace and stability in the Asia- Pacific region and in the rest of the world as well. From the economic point of view, the two really great issues confronting the world today, issues of global strategic significance, are: first, peace, and second, economic development. Peace is an East-West issue and development is a North-South issue. If most developing countries are in a backward state for a long time and face economic difficulties, they will not be able to get rid of poverty completely. This will not only affect themselves, but also restrict the further development of the developed countries' economy. In the "East, West, North and South" issue, the North-South issue is the core issue of development. In short, if the countries in the South are not duly developed, the countries in the North will find only very limited outlets for their capital and products; indeed, if the South remains poor, the North will find no outlets at all. With the reference to the two questions of “East-West, and also North-South”, this conversation made a concise summary of the new basic contradictions in the contemporary world. In 1987, according to Deng Xiaoping's judgment and proposition, the 13th National Congress of the CPC put forward the profound conclusion that peace and development are the two major themes of the world today, which provided a theoretical basis for China's development strategy and domestic and foreign policies in the new period of Reform and Opening-up, and has made a profound impact.