The Chinese word CRISIS combines the words « wei » (DANGER) and « ji » (OPPORTUNITY FOR CHANGE), to signify a tipping point, a decisive moment: the role of the crisis is to make even more obvious the necessity to make the right changes, which require courage since it means giving up things that we have got used to. The alarm bells of the conflict stop ringing once we have invested in peace opportunities to the point that the danger has passed, without making us fall into the violence of war. It is then (and only then) that we can be proud of having managed the crisis well, of having escaped a conflict that degenerates into war.
Cf. Étienne Chomé, The C-R-I-T-E-R-E method for improved conflict management, Presses Universitaires of Louvain, 2009, p. 39.