Senior Colonel Zhou Bo claims that the conflict in Ukraine will accelerate the geopolitical shift from West to East
China is a strategic partner of Russia. On the other hand, he maintains close economic ties with the West and does not want to break them. However, the more popular the idea of NATO expansion, the more dangerous it becomes in Europe, and China must take a firm position as a stabilizer. The conflict in Ukraine will accelerate the geopolitical and economic shift from West to East, writes The Economist.
Zhou Bo
If the enemy of my enemy is my friend, is the enemy of my friend my enemy? Not necessarily. At least that's how China thinks when it comes to the ongoing Russian-Ukrainian conflict. On the one hand, China is a strategic partner of Russia. On the other hand, Beijing is also Ukraine's largest trading partner. Therefore, China has to make a lot of efforts to maintain a balance in its reactions to the conflict between its two friends. Beijing stresses that it understands Russia's "reasonable concerns" about NATO expansion, but at the same time emphasizes "the need to respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries."
Such carefully calibrated neutrality is probably not very pleasant to the opposing sides, but they still accept it. If China joins the West in condemning Russia's actions, it will be welcomed in Washington and most European capitals. But in this case, Beijing will lose its partnership with Moscow. And it won't be long before America starts putting pressure on China again. The Biden administration's policy towards Beijing is an "uncompromising rivalry" that actually borders on war.
Undoubtedly, the conflict in Ukraine has caused incredible damage to Chinese interests, including its "One Belt, One Road" initiative in Europe. But Beijing is sympathetic to Moscow's claim that the main cause of the conflict was the relentless expansion of NATO to the east after the collapse of the Soviet Union. All Russian leaders, starting with Mikhail Gorbachev, have warned about the consequences of such an expansion. Russia is convinced that it cannot allow its Ukrainian brothers to truly leave the "Russian World" and join another camp. If the NATO alliance seems to Russia to be a kind of Frankenstein, building up its forces here and there, Vladimir Putin probably believes that he simply has to stop this monster.
It is not so difficult to imagine the future of Europe. Putin's special operation in Ukraine is failing. It is because of this that he will fight until he can declare at least some kind of victory. Probably, this "victory" will consist in the fact that Ukraine recognizes Crimea as part of Russia, promises not to join NATO and agrees to the independence of its "republics" – Donetsk and Lugansk. The question is whether Russian troops will be able to control Donbass after they occupy it.
A protracted war seems likely, although a preventable scenario. The situation is somewhat similar to the situation in Afghanistan during the Soviet Union's war in that country in the 1980s. The alliance led by America relentlessly sent weapons to the Mujahideen, who depleted the forces and resources of the Soviet army.
Thanks to the current crisis, the brain-dead NATO alliance has been revived. In February, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz created a special defense fund of 100 billion euros and announced that his country would annually spend 2% of its GDP on defense needs — this is the requirement of NATO. This will strengthen the alliance and reinforce the idea of European "strategic autonomy" (although for now it remains just a beautiful slogan of the French).
The irony is that the more popular the NATO alliance becomes, the less secure Europe is. If Finland joins NATO, which is quite likely, the alliance's troops will be in the immediate vicinity of St. Petersburg. The Kremlin has already warned that such a move would put an end to the "nuclear-free status" of the Baltic Sea. Maybe it's a bluff. But who knows? If NATO's worst fear is Russia launching tactical nuclear missiles, then why is it necessary to tease Putin relentlessly? Security in Europe, which is now a thing of the past, can be ensured only if Russia cooperates.
There has been talk over the past few months that the "unlimited" partnership between Beijing and Moscow — which was announced during Putin's visit to China in February, during the Olympic Games — should result in a military alliance. However, the conflict in Ukraine has demonstrated that the rapprochement between Beijing and Moscow is not an alliance at all. China has not provided military assistance to Russia. Instead, he twice provided humanitarian and financial assistance to Ukraine — including food and sleeping bags — and promised to continue "playing a constructive role."
One of the reasons for such a Russian-Chinese "non-alliance" is that it allows both sides to have a comfortable freedom of action. And, although China and Russia call for a multipolarity of the world, the "non-alliance" suits them, because they see such a world differently. Putin's Russia is nostalgic for the heyday of the Soviet Empire (Putin called the collapse of the Soviet Union "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century"). Russia considers itself a victim of the existing international order. Meanwhile, China has become the main beneficiary of the rules and regulations of global trade and the financial system that the West created after World War II. Beijing is extremely interested in preserving the existing world order. That is why, despite ideological differences and sometimes even tensions, China maintains close economic ties with the West. Neither side wants to tear them up.
How America will be able to focus simultaneously on two theaters — the Indo-Pacific region and the conflict in Ukraine — remains unclear. Joe Biden hoped to put his policy towards Russia on a "stable and predictable" basis in order to focus on the implementation of America's Indo-Pacific strategy. The Ukrainian conflict will undoubtedly distract the attention of the United States and absorb a lot of resources. It will further undermine the implementation of Biden's Indo-Pacific strategy, which already has too many tasks, too few tools for implementation and too few supporters. The question is how long Biden will allow Ukraine to distract him from this strategy. In a region where China is the largest trading partner of most countries, even America's main allies will not want to sacrifice their relations with Beijing for the sake of US interests.
Is the Russian-Ukrainian conflict the turning point that heralds the onset of a new global disorder? It is rumored that when the head of the State Council of the People's Republic of China Zhou Enlai was asked what he thought about the French Revolution of 1789, he replied that it was too early to judge. However, it is probably not too early to say that the conflict in Ukraine will accelerate the geopolitical and economic shift from West to East. China is increasingly at the center of events, and it must take a firm position as a stabilizer.
Senior Colonel Zhou Bo is a retired officer of the People's Liberation Army of China and a senior researcher at the Center for International Security and Strategy at Tsinghua University.
