If major powers continue to lack strategic mutual trust, world will remain in a state of prolonged instability: Chinese scholar

The Global Times Annual Conference 2025, themed "Moving forward in Partnership: Resonance of Values between China and the World," was held in Beijing on Saturday. During a discussion on the topic "Addressing the Global Security Deficit: Hotspots and Solutions," Zhao Xiaozhuo, former director of the Beijing Xiangshan Forum Secretariat, said if major powers continue to lack mutual trust, the world will remain in a prolonged state of instability.

Commenting on the current state of international security, Zhao said the world today is vastly different from what it was five or 10 years ago. "Some conflicts now have long-term and dangerous characteristics," he noted. "As for the reasons, I believe the most critical one is that major powers have lost strategic mutual trust."

 "When major powers trust each other, the overarching tone of the international community is one of peace and cooperation. The world consists of so many countries, each with different interests, and conflicts inevitably arise at times. However, these conflicts were generally controllable," Zhao explained. "Now, the problem is that without strategic mutual trust between major powers, many factors have become uncontrollable. In some places, it's like dry tinder - you cannot know when a single spark could set off a fire."

Zhao further stated that if major powers continue to lack mutual trust, or worse, if the US pursues great power competition by suppressing and containing certain countries and treating them as strategic rivals, the world will remain in a prolonged state of turbulence and instability.