China: WWI anniversary time for sober reflection

Today marks the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of WWI. The devastations of the Great War and of WWII still send a chill down our spine. According to historical materials revealed later, no European powers anticipated a war of such scale. So what dragged Europe and the world into the meat-grinder? History has never stopped moving forward. Compared with the international relations after WWI, the post-WWII situation was more successful. The post-WWII structure has ensured general peace up to now; even though there was a period of Cold War, it was still a step forward compared with hot war.

Today it is unimaginable for the world to fall back to the Cold War. The lessons learnt from the previous world wars have propelled the progress of humanity.

Compared with a century ago, basic human nature has not changed much. The greed, selfishness, mistrust and contest for supremacy that triggered WWI, are still easy to find.

What is different today is that these dangerous elements are facing more constraints. The globalization has made the nations more interdependent. The multiple modern communication channels make strategic miscalculations similar to that of WWI barely possible. The UN is playing a bigger role than the League of Nations that was created after WWI. And nuclear weapons offer the deterrent of mutual destruction.

But history is full of surprises. We cannot overestimate humanity's wisdom and ability to control its fate. The world is never without problems, and humans always face challenges. As long as dangerous thoughts and the soil where they grow exist, the possibility of a new tragedy can never be excluded.

The US is the most powerful country in the world and thus bears the biggest responsibility in peace keeping. However, it has launched wars several times against other countries, and in doing so harmed world peace and stability.

Europe was the main battle field of the two world wars. Europeans have been active in pushing for world peace. But their reflections over the two wars have often been self-centered, and sometimes misleading.

In recent years, there have been new theories saying that today's China strongly resembles Wilhelmine Germany, and that East Asia is like the Europe of that time. Some even say the Diaoyu Islands are like Sarajevo. This notion could confuse the already tense Asian situation.

The world has made huge strides in the past century. We need to be more mature in reviewing history. The assessment of history must include non-Western perspectives, including those of China.