ABSTRACT
Compared to the United States' superior hard power, the biggest advantage of the Europeans is not at the physical level, but lies in the profound heritage and completeness of its modern system and norms. When launching an intervention, the European countries not only have interests and strategic considerations, but also are affected by the elements in their modern system and norms. Compared with European countries, this chapter recognizes that advantage in international affairs so far is confined to trade, finance, and infrastructure construction, making a lot of "hardware" contributions to the modernization progress of other countries. In fact, from a global perspective, Europe has always acted in the role of modernization communicator in the past centuries: its pirates, treasure diggers, and sailors exported map chronicles and gunboats to other continents. In comparison, China is more of a norm-taker rather than a norm-maker in the communication process of modernization; but as time goes on, this situation is undergoing a positive change.
