Peaceful Development: Restrictions and Challenges

China’s adherence to peaceful development bears on the influence of its cultural traditions, the needs of practical interests, the binding of the market mechanism and the restrictions of international rules. Nevertheless, it’s not an easy road. China must overcome all those challenges, may it be domestic or foreign, subjective or objective, short-term or long term. Some require China to carry out adaption, reform or even revolution by itself, some go beyond the self-adaption of behaviors and institutions, requiring international coordination and banishing other countries’ doubts so as to obtain the understanding, approval and support of the international society and still some are not simply challenges to China but also challenges to many countries or even the whole world as a “community of shared future”, requiring China and other countries to work together and cooperate sincerely in their response. This chapter mainly examines the embodiment and source of these challenges. Possible ways and assumptions about how to respond to them will be explored in the next chapter.