Page 112 - SELECTED WORKS OF DENG XIAOPING Volume III

PEACE AND DEVELOPMENT ARE THE TWO
OUTSTANDING
ISSUES IN THE WORLD TODAY

March 4, 1985

Different people may have different attitudes towards the development
of China. They analyse this question from different standpoints, depending
on whether they think China’s development will or will not be in their own
interest. I should like to examine this question from two points of view, one
political, the other economic.
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. The stronger China grows, the better the
chances are for preserving world peace. 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. In the days when Chairman Mao and Premier Zhou were leading the
country, 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. Only the two superpowers have the capacity to launch
world war, while the other countries, such as China, Japan and the European
countries, are not in a position to do so. It follows that opposing superpower
hegemony means preserving world peace. Since the downfall of the Gang of
Four, we too have made it a state policy to oppose superpower hegemony
8
and keep world peace.
Generally speaking, the forces for world peace are growing, but the
danger of war still exists. Not much progress has been made in the talks on
control of nuclear arms and of weapons in outer space. That’s why for many
years we emphasized the danger of war. Recently, however, there have been

Excerpt from a talk with a delegation from the Japanese Chamber of Commerce and
Industry.

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