How to be the second best in the world without endangering the current imperfect world order, over seven decades after the Second World War? How should China live up to the expectations of being the second best and the US’s strategic competitor? In the latest military budget of China as outlined by Premier Li Keqiang in the government work report at the opening meeting of the first session of 13th National People’s Congress, spending will be increased by eight percent. 

China is the immediate second behind the US, whose military budget surpasses all the rest combined. What does that mean? It means we shall navigate our own course of proactive defense as China seeks to build our own global stakes and presence peacefully. 

A skeptical West tends to examine China with an ideological lens. It won’t work. They will be proved wrong should those elite policy makers stick to the Cold War-style zero sum game. 

President Xi Jinping has said multiple times that we do not seek to replace the current world order – why should we, when China has benefited enormously from it? 

We prefer to protect the cohesiveness of a commonwealth of a shared future. The rise of China and its legitimate confidence are a fact. They need recognition. What is occurring is just the re-emergence of a heavyweight world power as Mr. Chris Patten, former governor of Hong Kong, said during an exclusive interview with me many years ago. He argues that China is not a threat but rather an opportunity. 

We therefore usher in a golden era with the UK despite its Brexit and leadership change. The UK substantiates its commitment to this constructive realism by being the first to join the AIIB. Most other allies of the US followed suit quickly. We live in a multi-power center world. Co-evolution is the China solution. The Chinese military is committed to public service as we join the escorting missions in Somali waters. 

China also agreed to join or sign the COC agreement about the South China Sea after intensive diplomatic negotiations with ASEAN. Our patience with the DPP, the pro-secession force in Taiwan, testifies to a peaceful solution, and eventually – and hopefully – peaceful reunification. 

We stand for peaceful denuclearization in the Korean Peninsula and have not had any military confrontation since a border clash in the late 1970s with Vietnam. Our enormous patience and self-restraint in the military standoff with India in the Dong Lang (Doklam) region last year speaks louder than words. But, as Premier Li Keqiang says in the government work report, we shall not sacrifice growing maritime ambition and core stakes as China is becoming the biggest trading power. 

We live in a diversified age of globalization. China supports many global missions such as climate change and free trade. The PLA will protect our nationals and national stakes, which need to be defined with a more open and liberal view. This is a post-West age. One thing we need to be watching out for and guarding against is the rise of populism, a destabilizing force in domestic politics.