The Trump administration’s national security mindset could push humanity towards more conflicts and even “shared destruction”, the head of the Communist Party’s diplomatic arm has warned.
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Liu Jianchao, who leads the International Department of the party’s Central Committee, pitched China’s vision of international relations – a rejection of the ethos reflected in American foreign policy language – as a viable path to lasting global peace on Thursday.
The veteran Chinese diplomat rejected statements made by US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth at the Shangri-La Dialogue in May. At the annual security forum in Singapore, the Pentagon chief repeatedly stressed that Washington “is committed to achieving peace through strength” under US President Donald Trump.
“That rhetoric is a new embodiment of hegemonic thinking,” Liu said in a speech during the World Peace Forum in Beijing.
“What [Hegseth] truly seeks is force, not dialogue. What he stirs up is confrontation and conflict, not peace and harmony,” he added at the event co-organised by Tsinghua University and the Chinese People’s Institute of Foreign Affairs.
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Liu warned that with this mindset, the “Thucydides Trap” – the idea that a rising power and an established hegemon are destined for war – would become an “inevitable fate” for great powers, leaving smaller nations to end up as casualties.
