China claims it is not seeking global hegemony

China yes­ter­day cel­e­brated the 40th an­niver­sary of eco­nomic re­forms in a con­text of in­ter­na­tional dis­trust due to the grow­ing eco­nomic and po­lit­i­cal in­flu­ence of Bei­jing on the world scene. Aware of this, the one and a half hour speech Xi Jing­ping de­liv­ered in the Great Peo­ple’s Palace in Bei­jing fo­cused on re­as­sur­ing the great world pow­ers that his coun­try has no in­ten­tion of dom­i­nat­ing the world.

Xi re­it­er­ated the line of his re­cent dis­course and reaf­firmed the Chi­nese gov­ern­ment’s com­mit­ment to the mul­ti­lat­eral trad­ing sys­tem and the open­ing of its econ­omy to the world. The Chi­nese leader did not, how­ever, an­nounce any ini­tia­tive to coun­ter­act eco­nomic slow­down or over­come trade fric­tions with the United States. What he did make clear was that China’s de­vel­op­ment will not be “against the in­ter­ests of other coun­tries.”

China’s ex­pan­sion around the world, from Asia-Pa­cific to Africa and be­yond, has trig­gered alarm bells in many coun­tries, es­pe­cially the great pow­ers, who see their eco­nomic, and lately also po­lit­i­cal and even cul­tural, hege­mony en­dan­gered.

But for the Chi­nese pres­i­dent, this is noth­ing but a way of ap­proach­ing the cen­tre of the world stage, which, he said, does not pose a threat to any coun­try as long as China is de­vel­op­ing.