China's peaceful rise
[1] Originally formulated by Zheng Bijian as part of a Ministry of State Security (MSS) influence operation,[2] the term characterized China as a responsible world leader that avoids unnecessary international confrontation, emphasizes soft power, and vows that China is committed to its own internal issues and improving the welfare of its own people before interfering in world affairs.[citation needed] In Zheng's speech he pointed out that in the past, a rise of a new power often resulted in drastic changes to global political structures, and even war (i.e. the hegemonic stability theory in international relations).[9] At the 2004 session of the Bo'ao Forum, the Chinese Communist Party's general secretary Hu Jintao used instead the phrase China's peaceful development.[9] Under the strategic paradigm of former CCP General Secretary Jiang Zemin, China's rapid development was viewed as a multipolarizing change that challenged the unipolarity of the world structure under the United States of America's hegemony.According to Robert Suettinger, "the concept of peaceful rise was initially intended as something of a propaganda campaign" and "should not necessarily be taken to have decisive significance for China's foreign policy."[12]: 487 Chinese leader Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao brought a perspective that was unprecedented in the management of China's development and in defining its role in the world.In a 2005 speech at the National Committee on United States—China Relations, Robert Zoellick, then Deputy Secretary of State, put forward the American response to Zheng's article, which "amounted to an invitation to China to become a privileged member, and shaper, of the international system.