China’s official stance on bin Laden’s death, “milestone for anti-terrorism”

Xinhua has officially reported Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu on China’s stance to news regarding Osama bin Laden’s death. The article said:

“China has taken note of the announcement,” Jiang said, “We believe the death of Osama bin Laden is a milestone and a positive development for the international anti-terrorism efforts.”

“Terrorism is the common enemy of the international community. China has also been a victim of terrorism, ” said Jiang.

She said China has always opposed to terrorism of all forms and has been actively participating in the global anti-terrorism efforts.

I feel China’s attitude is helpful to the U.S. and at the same time responsible and consistent in a way true to China’s foreign policy.

As Jiang said, China is also a target of terrorism. The world in general should stand up and oppose violence. And, certainly, nation states are capable of committing the same atrocities. Some argue that the current NATO bombings of Libya is too a form of terrorism. In our messy world, one’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter. How do we reconcile grievances on both sides?

When little guys commit terrorism, they get hunted down. When big guys do the same, they get resentment. That is pretty much how our world works today. I tend to believe that if the international system is just such that both the little guys and the big guys have recourse for their grievances, then perhaps atrocious acts would diminish.

But, today, for some reason, I feel pessimistic.

Human nature itself, after-all, is ugly. Look at everywhere – people commit crimes for all sort of reasons. They rape, murder, burglarize, steal, and do all sorts of heinous things without their victims ever doing anything bad to them in the first place.

A good friend said to me once, perhaps the best way to improve on what we have today is for a super powerful state to take over the planet. A one-world government indiscriminant in prosecuting crimes may do it. Would we accept the U.S. ruling over everyone? China? U.N.?

Since our world is organized around nation states where the big and powerful dominate, then, at least amongst them, they should not sponsor or incite the small guys to terrorism. They are probably better off combating terrorism together too, regardless of their politics with each-other. Otherwise we’d see escalation of terrorism; more airplanes and buildings blowing up. That would be an unpleasant sight.