What is the difference between security and peace? Is China's approach to global peace the antidote to Western militarism? In this episode of Diplomacy Talk, Swedish peace researcher Jan Oberg discusses China's role in global governance, the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, and why he thinks the West has lost its way.

Oberg also highlights the potential of initiatives like the Belt and Road in promoting international understanding and cooperation. As the world stands at a historical crossroads, Oberg offers a fresh perspective on how China's foreign policy contributes to world peace and promotes common development.

Following is the transcript of the interview.

Diplomacy Talk: Dr. Oberg, welcome.

Jan Oberg: Thank you so much.

Diplomacy Talk: How many times have you been to China?

Jan Oberg: I've been to China four times. I came here the first time in 1983. It's absolutely amazing. I mean from 1983 till now, it's a completely different country. It's unique in human history that within 30, 40 years, you uplifted half of the people out of poverty and you created an infrastructure and you do a welfare society.

Diplomacy Talk: What impressed you the most?

Jan Oberg: I think this thinking that communication is so important for bringing people together, doing projects, transporting people and goods and all that, is a visionary thinking. And you have the advantage compared with the West that you can start a new structure. Whatever you can do, you can do it from scratch, (and in) the right way, whereas the West is now spending most of its money on other things. Among them, wasting an incredible amount of money on militarism and warfare.

Diplomacy Talk: What do you think of China's further opening-up for foreigners?

Jan Oberg: It's great. I hope that the globalization, modern social media, fast communication, will open up more and more for human relations, human respect, human mutual understanding.

People who have, including my neighbors back home in Sweden, who are lovely people, but when they hear that I'm going to China, they say, "Why are you going to China? That's a strange dictatorship, right?" That type of stuff. And I say, "Have you ever been there?" "No, we've not been there." "Go there then and see for yourself, negative and positive sides, but you come home with some knowledge and some impressions and maybe some human friends."

I am discouraged by the fact that the West does not show curiosity. You don't have to love China, you don't have to hate China, but you have to be curious, historically and economically.

Diplomacy Talk: What are your hopes for this visit?

Jan Oberg: I was invited to participate in the international conference about the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, which I'm very honored to have been invited to.

The Western world is now in a situation in which peace is a taboo word. We have very little peace research left. (On) the media, it's very difficult to raise the issue of whether what the governments are doing will lead to peace. In politics, too, the word "peace" has disappeared. The only word used is security. Security and warfare and armament and selling weapons, etc. That's where foreign policy is oriented.

So coming to a country in which, at the highest level, you can have intellectually complex and diverse discussions about peace in your own country and peace in the global system, is something that I find very rewarding and interesting.

What I also like is your president talks about a "we," a global "we" and not "we and them." I mean of course we are different and there's diversity in the world system, but the global perspective of your leadership is that we are one humanity living together on one globe, one boat. That is a kind of long-range thinking. There's an idea about the next 30 or 40 years.

My humble opinion is that if you ask a Western leader where do you want your society to be in 40 years from now, I don't think you will get an interesting exposé of a long-range thinking. It's very much muddling through at the moment. We don't have that vision of a longer future anymore in the West.

Diplomacy Talk: What is the difference between security and peace?

Jan Oberg: There's a great difference. You may say that peace is to develop security and secure development, but the way most countries thinking of peace today is that security is something you do by military means. And most countries think that deterrence is a good thing.

That means "I am able to kill you on your territory." That's not defense. That's offense. So offensive deterrence is a curse to the world, because if I say to you, "I don't have the intention to kill you, but if you don't do what I say, I will be able to kill you." That cannot lead to you feeling secure. That is not common security.

Today, we solve conflicts, meaning we don't solve them, because we use violence to solve conflicts.

You know Article 1 of the UN Charter says peace shall be established by peaceful means.

So as long as security is practiced predominantly by military means, that does not lead to peace. That's what NATO does. "We can kill people around the world, and we don't intend to, but we can do it." That's enough for others to feel, for instance, Russia, to feel threatened. And that whole philosophy is wrong.

Humanity's biggest problem in the future is to learn to handle our natural conflict, but with as little violence as possible. That is what a doctor does. A doctor repairs and does violence to the body when he or she does surgery on you, but never a blood drop more than necessary. And that's what is built into the UN Charter — only as the last resort can the UN do a military action.

Diplomacy Talk: What is your understanding of the Five Principles?

Jan Oberg: I think these principles are even perhaps more important today than they were.

It's an idea that would make the world a better place if everybody followed those ideas. We live, at present, in a world in which the countries spend about 400 times more on arms than on the United Nations. That is a perverse priority. And if you ask me, there's no way that is going to go well in the future if we don't strengthen the nonviolent principles and reduce the violence.

There's no reason to have between $2 and $3 trillion in military expenditures around the world, and then seeing that it leads to war. This is not the recipe. Any idiot should be able to see that these horrendous investments in military has only given us warfare, confrontation, militarism, military thinking, and destructive behaviors, including self-destructive behaviors.

What the West is doing now, NATO is doing and the U.S. is doing, vis-à-vis the rest of the world, is self-destructive. It's not only destructive to others. It's self-destructive. We are undermining our own values in the Western world at the moment.

Diplomacy Talk: Regarding the Ukraine crisis and the Gaza conflict, do you think China is actively trying to help solve the problems or just watching from the sidelines?

Jan Oberg: Definitely not just watching, because you have put up framework texts for how to handle it.

And what I like about those is that they do not say what the solution should be, because there's a very important mistake often made by America or NATO. "We know what's best for you. So we snatch your conflict from you, and we think you should just live this way that we want you to live."

The only sustainable peace you can have is the one all parties have contributed to and are willing to sign. It's not somebody else's suggestion. Therefore, dialogue exploration of possible futures is the essential thing a mediator, professional mediator does neutrally. But he or she does not come in and say: "I think you should do that and that and that."

If they ask me to be a mediator, I would look at what would a positive future for Ukraine and Russia and the West be, that could be sustainable in the long run and not end in a new conflict and warfare in 10 years from now.

And in that sense, the proposals, or the text, produced by your country are very important, because they do not fall into the trap of saying, "That is our solution." Whereas, you set up what some would say are perhaps rather general principles, but the principles are important if you want to make peace, like the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence. There are lots of principles in conflict resolution that should be respected. So, I think you have made a very good contribution to solving the problem.

Diplomacy Talk: You mentioned that we should resolve issues through dialogue instead of conflicts.

Jan Oberg: Warfare is the worst idea, and it never solves a problem. I don't think you should have a prime minister or any minister in the field of international relations, foreign policy, etc., who does not have a "driving license" in conflict resolution.

We accept not to send people out behind steering wheels in our cars because they can be making insecurity and bumping into each other because they don't have a driving license. No theory, no ways. But if we had the same for politicians knowing that "If I do certain things, I will bump into another country." We must have qualified people who run these international affairs in a way we don't have today.

We should teach our children how to talk with each other or how to solve conflicts. And let me tell you a conflict is nothing but a problem. You and I have a conflict. It's a problem that stands between us, not that you're a bad person, not that I'm a bad person, which is a tendency in the West to say "we have a conflict, it's because of Putin or it's because of this and that."

I was just illustrating that instead of pumping in weapons into Ukraine, now as the West does, which is the most stupid and cynical idea, because that's a way of making Russia weaker without paying any human price of NATO soldiers. I'm not impressed by it morally.

Diplomacy Talk: What responsibilities do different countries shoulder in order to have a good global governance?

Jan Oberg: First of all, I would say they should become decent, legal, loyal members of the United Nations.

If you criticize the (UN) Charter, you are a dangerous person because the Charter is the most important, the most nonviolent document that governments have ever signed. It's a fantastic piece of intellectual peacemaking built into the paragon.

Only in Chapter VII comes the idea that when everything has been tried in terms of civilian initiatives and/or sanctions and talks and all that, then the United Nations can organize a military act, not the U.S. or somebody else or NATO. The UN would be a much better place and be a road to or tool for whatever we formulated to global governance, if we behaved and did what we had promised in resolution after resolution.

So I always say, if you are critical to the UN, give it decent mandates, give it enough budget, and do what you should as a good member before you criticize the organization. And that to me is a fundamental thing, because we need to reform the UN, but we should not throw out anything in the UN Charter before we have something better. The world without the UN is a jungle.

And therefore, I would say to Denmark, Sweden, the U.S., etc., behave yourself, become good members of that organization.

Diplomacy Talk: Global development and security are facing many risks and challenges today. What are the key features of this period? And what urgent tasks do we need to…

Jan Oberg: If you ask me what is humanity's most important task, I know everybody talks about climate change and poverty alleviation and a multipolar world. None of this will work if we keep on having such an emphasis on violence.

If you have a problem in your house, and the only tool you have in your toolbox is a hammer. So if your tapestry is coming down, you'll begin to hammer, hoping it'll be fixed, and eventually the wall will be hammered down.

Misuse of violence and weapons have become a drug to some. That is self-destructive, like a drug addict is self-destructive.

Diplomacy Talk: How can we better improve understanding and trust between countries?

Jan Oberg: Well, one thing, of course, is economic cooperation. When people work together on a project, they get to know each other. And that's of course what the Belt and Road Initiative is also about. I know it's about infrastructure and transport and blah, blah, blah. But I would see also it could become a very important tool for peacemaking, international understanding, etc.

I think everybody in the West should go half a year to school in China and everybody in China should go half a year in school in the West. Because when you live in a society, you begin to understand it better. And if you're just a tourist and stay at a hotel, it may be a different thing. But if, let's say, students come here and students from here come over there, they make friends. They get a sense of how society works, what you do, and what you don't do, and how you think, and what's the history of your place and all that.

Diplomacy Talk: Thank you, Dr. Oberg. Thank you for sharing your insights.

Jan Oberg: My great pleasure to talk with you on your very good questions.

Presenter: Wang Xiaohui

Producer: Li Xiaohua

Production supervisor: Zhang Liying

Editors: Zhang Ruomeng, Zhang Heling, Jiao Yuan, Lyu Yiyi, Xia Fangting

Produced by chinadiplomacy.org.cn