The gravest threat facing the world today is Soviet hegemonism. We in China believe that with the direct military invasion of Afghanistan. Soviet hegemonism entered a new stage.

The Afghan invasion led us to a further understanding of the Soviet threat: the Soviet Union's aggressive expansion is not accidental but planned: not defensive, but offensive: not partial, but overall: not regional, but global. Soviet hegemonism necessarily means aggression and war.

Why must we say so? Is it only because the Soviet Union still occupies Chinese territory along China's northeastern and northwestern borders, threatening our security? No. China is concerned not only with its own security, but also with that of other parts of the world. The Soviet threat is not a particular threat concerning a particular region. It is a general one regarding the world situation as a whole.

The emergence of Soviet hegemonism is the peculiar outcome of the developments following World War II. For a long time, as the United States became bogged down in wars in Korea and Vietnam, the Soviet Union strove to expand its strength, narrowed the gap in economic development between itself and the U.S. and immensely enhanced its military power. It achieved parity with the United States in nuclear armaments and even surpassed it in conventional weaponry.

But the Soviet Union is still comparatively inferior in economic strength. This is why it relies on growing military power and the threat of war to expand, its aim being to grab the resources, wealth, and labor power of other countries to compensate for its economic inferiority.

Soviet imperialism is not any better than capitalist imperialism: in fact, it is far more ambitious, adventurous, and--most importantly--deceptive. It came into being as a result of the degeneration of the first socialist country in the world. This allows it to exploit Lenin's prestige and flount the banner of "socialism" to deprive other peoples of their right to self-determination. This duplicity, peculiar to Soviet hegemonism, increases the special danger it poses as a hegemonic super-power. If there is one metaphor to describe the Soviet Union, it is that of a "wolf in sheep's clothing."

The socialism of the Soviet Union must be phony. Any truly socialist country would have a peaceful foreign policy that did not sanction intervention in other nations' internal affairs. The Soviet foreign policy directly contravenes the three cardinal postulates of Chinese foreign policy: peaceful coexistence with the West, a peaceful transition from capitalism to socialism for the rest of the world, and peaceful competition between ourselves and capitalist states. Unlike the Soviet Union, China has no hegemonic intentions.

The most effective way to cope with the Soviet threat is to form an international united front with five sides. China, the United States, Western Europe, Japan, and the other Third World countries must unite and take the struggle as a common task, world peace can be preserved.

We do not oppose detente, but it must be a genuine detente that protects the independence and security of Third World countries--not a pretext for Soviet expansion. The United States' failure to respond to the Afghan invasion only confirmed our deepest fears and reservations about detente as well as the prospects for peaceful negotiation.

Finally, at this critical moment, it has become even more imperative than ever to promote relations between China and the U.S. We must handle Sino-American relations from a viewpoint of overall and prolonged strategy. The strengthening of relations between our two countries is the only way of guaranteeing the peace and stability of the world.

Ni Shi-xiong is a visiting scholar from International Politics Department of Fudan University, Shanghai, China. He is here on a fellowship from Harvard-Yenching Institute.