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Thursday, September 4, 2014

What Does China Really Think about the Ukraine Crisis?

What Does China Really Think about the Ukraine Crisis?

09/04/14
Lyle J. Goldstein

Introducing a new occasional series focusing on analysis of original Chinese writings.

Editor’s Note: The following is part of a new occasional series named “Dragon Eye” which seeks insight and analysis from Chinese writings on world affairs.
As the Ukraine crisis enters an even more intense phase, it has been conventional wisdom for some time among Western strategists that China is actually the biggest winner of the new and grave tensions in Eastern Europe. Not only has it benefited from a landmark gas agreement with Russia, but, so the logic goes, the new tension in U.S.-Russian relations may sap dynamism from the erstwhile Asia-Pacific rebalance, while encouraging Moscow to increase its cooperation in all respects with Beijing. China has generally adopted a low key approach to the crisis itself, calling simply for restraint and a negotiated solution.
A key question that arises, however, is whether or not Chinese leaders are recalibrating their strategy to mirror Russian President Vladimir Putin’s aggressive approach. Put simply, does Beijing see the Ukraine Crisis as demonstrating the West’s weakness when confronted by a determined and capable challenger? Eminent Chinese specialist on international affairs Prof. Wang Jisi of Peking University said in a June 2014 interview with 财经 [Finance and Economics] magazine that Putin was the foreign leader that Chinese admired most. While calling for a more cautious and restrained approach himself, Wang also offers that Putin’s popularity in China reflects a general desire for “strong man politics” and adopting an “iron wrist [sic] diplomacy.”
Here, of course, it will not be possible to answer definitively the question regarding the eastern reverberations of the Ukraine Crisis. Chinese writings about the on-going crisis are voluminous. Nevertheless, a “dip-stick” test regarding the tone of internal Chinese discussions may be attempted by summarizing a lengthy interview concerning the Ukraine Crisis, published in the July 2014 issue of Ordnance Science and Technology [兵工科技] with Senior Colonel Fang Bing [房兵大校], a professor at Chinese National Defense University in Beijing.
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