Qin Hui on Ukraine--1

Qin Hui, “The West's ‘Double Standard’ and Putin's ‘Single Standard’—From the Crimean Crisis to Putin's February 21 Declaration”[1]
 
Introduction and Translation by David Ownby
 
Introduction
 
Qin Hui (b. 1953), who taught at Tsinghua University until his recent retirement, is a historian and one of China’s most prominent public intellectuals.  Translations of many of his writings, treating topics as diverse as Thomas Piketty’s Twentieth-First Century Capitalism, “China as seen from South Africa” and “Globalization after the Pandemic:  Thoughts on the Coronavirus” are available on this site.  Qin emailed me last week, asking me to translate a series of texts he is writing on the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which are being published in FT Chinese.  I am delighted to do so, because Qin’s voice is certainly unique in China, and perhaps in the world.  The text translated here is the first in the series; the Chinese version was published on February 24, 2022, and is pay walled.  I should note that Qin's wife, Jin Yan, a noted scholar of Russian history, has also published on the current crisis (I will try to translate some of her material for next time), and that the two of them have put together online lectures on the war and related themes (available here.  In Chinese, of course, and more than seven hours long, so not for the faint of heart).
 
The war in Ukraine has provoked a great deal of commentary among Chinese establishment intellectuals, some of it explanatory, some of it sympathetic to the pronouncements of the Chinese government, some of it mildly critical.  In this context, Qin Hui’s text is extreme and unrepresentative, because the goal of his essay is to completely demolish any and all justifications of Russia’s invasion, whether they are offered by Putin or by Putin admirers in China.  To this end, he wields the same tools he always does:  a comprehensive understanding of comparative examples (in this case of interventions by international governments or neighboring states in massacres and other disasters in other countries), a keenly analytic mind, and a finely honed sense of sarcasm.  His ultimate point is to wake the world up to the greatest threat to peace since Hitler, the Sudetenland, and Poland.
 
Qin has much to say—and none of it flattering—on the subject of Putin’s rhetorical justifications for his decisions, and is withering in his criticism of the Chinese Party-State’s support of Putin despite his repeated condemnation of Lenin and Leninism (not that Qin is a Leninist, but Xi Jinping famously said that the Soviet Union failed because there were no “real men” left in the Party to “uphold the principles,” which can be seen as spectacularly hypocritical).  But the core of Qin’s essay is an extended comparison of the cases of Kosovo and Crimea, i.e., instances of ethnic animosity that led to conflict and outside intervention.    The argument is complex, but again, Qin’s goal is to show that Putin’s arguments and Russia’s actions simply do not bear up under scrutiny.
 
When Qin compares Putin to Hitler, he is inspired by the recent attack on Ukraine.  In the context of the 2014 annexation of Crimea, Qin compares Putin to the Serbian strongman Slobodan Milošević, who, for reasons of ethnic nationalism, destroyed the multi-ethnic Yugoslavia built by Tito, eventually provoking the independentist movement of the Kosovan Albanians and ultimately the intervention of the United Nations.  Qin accuses both Putin and Milošević of bad faith, but largely defends the often maligned international intervention and the (sometimes fragile) peace that ultimately resulted. 

He acknowledges that such issues are difficult and controversial, and the “double standards” he refers to in the title of his essay point to conflicts between “territorial integrity” and “humanitarian intervention,” for example, which, in their application, often are quite difficult to reconcile, requiring judgements which may not always be fair and just.  His point is that Kosovo was a difficult situation requiring many such judgements, some of which might be criticized, but that overall, the international intervention, even if it came too late and lasted a long time, ultimately bore fruit in that the region refound a certain stability.  Most of the major players took things seriously, respected the situation on the ground, and acted in globally good faith.
 
Qin insists that this did not happen in Crimea.  In Crimea, Putin used the possibility of ethnic conflict as a pretext to carry out a coup d’état, install his people, and carry out a referendum within the space of a few days, before people on the ground had any sense of what happened, to say nothing of the international community.  Putin wants to say “if you can go into Kosovo, I can go into Crimea.”  Qin attempts to demonstrate that whatever similarity there may have been in pre-intervention Kosovo and Crimea, in Crimea, Putin engaged in blatant dishonesty,  manipulation, and violence simply because he wanted to.  This is what Qin means by Putin’s “single standard,” which he imposed unilaterally for reasons that have to do with his vision of Mother Russia, and nothing to do with the principles of international law.
 
Qin further remind readers who are shocked that Russia has invaded Ukraine that Russia has been at war with Ukraine for eight years, which we have conveniently forgotten because we do not know what to do about it.  Studied ignorance is not a policy option, Qin insists.  Crimea was the Sudetenland, and Ukraine is Poland.  The other shoe has dropped.
 
Favorite Quotes  
 
“We should note that while Putin condemns Lenin and the Bolsheviks, he does not say a word about Tsarist Russia's oppression of ethnic groups or imperial expansion, and between the lines, he clearly expresses his yearning for the legacy of imperial Russia and his resentment of the Bolsheviks for destroying it. Back in the day, when Mao Zedong, in an anti-Soviet moment, famously labeled the CPSU a ‘new Tsar,’ this was perhaps not entirely appropriate, at least from an ideological point of view, but ‘emperor Putin’ can’t wait to wear this crown. This is also a mockery of those naive friends who fantasize about Putin being a “new Bolshevik” who "never forgot his original intentions 不忘初心," or perhaps one of the ‘pink boys’ that emerged in the new era following the collapse of the CPSU, which contained not a single ‘real man.’  Putin's policy is not only geopolitically harmful to neighboring countries and harmful to world peace, but in ideological terms is also a slap in the face of those who made such arguments about him! Where is his ‘theoretical self-confidence 理论自信?’ If the CPSU contained not a ‘single real man,’ then where are the ‘real men’ when Putin takes aim at Leninism and lets fly?”
 
“Putin's arguments are clearly from the heart. But at the same time that he has become increasingly anti-Western, his anti-Communist tone has also become more pronounced, which is understandable. The Russian Communist Party, which became a party for senior citizens during Putin’s first decade in power, has made considerable progress as the largest opposition party in the last five years as the Russian economy has deteriorated, social problems have increased, and the liberals have been the focus of state suppression.  In the two general elections in 2016 and 2021, the Communist share of the vote rose from 13% to 19%, and they now compete with Putin for the great banner of Russian nationalism. Putin's attacks on Lenin for ‘betraying the country’ are also aimed at suppressing the Russian Communist Party. In fact, over the course of the Russo-Ukrainian war, the two separatist forces of the ‘far left’ and ‘far right’ in the eastern part of Ukraine were originally both anti-Ukrainian, and the head of the Donetsk Communist Party, Boris Litvinov, was also the chairman of the parliament of the Donetsk ‘republic.’  However, before long, the far-right forces supported by Putin deprived Litvinov and all the members of the Donetsk Communist Party of their seats in the parliament in 2016. Clearly, totalitarians are not friends of the masses. Putin not only needs a foreign hysteria to distract attention from his internal problems, he also needs to prevent other hysterics from sharing his ‘glory.’"
 
“To be fair, the level of violence and bloodshed in Kosovo prior to the intervention was not only inferior that of Rwanda and Cambodia, but also not necessarily as great as in some other parts of the world, such as Somalia. Kosovo, if it were in Africa, might have been neglected like Somalia, or if not completely neglected, at least it may not have been taken very seriously. In the light of this, it is not completely unreasonable to accuse the international community, or specifically Europe and the United States, of ‘double standards.’ The moral justification for European and American intervention in Kosovo obviously cannot be said to be a mere "pretext," (otherwise it is impossible to understand why many European leftists, such as Habermas, who were strongly opposed to the Vietnam War and not long ago to the Gulf War, actively supported the intervention in Kosovo; in their eyes, the use of force in the Gulf because of oil, while in the case of Kosovo, which had no oil, the point of military intervention was to protect the weak, in this case, Muslim Albanians who were not part of “Western culture”), even if interest-based geopolitical considerations are also evident.
 
So what about Crimea? We know that Putin is using Kosovo as an example to attack the West's ‘double standards’ and claiming that he is treating Crimea with the same logic. Some people in China have also said that it is brilliant move for Putin to give the West a taste of its own medicine.
 
But Putin himself, in his March 18 speech before the Russian State Duma, explicitly mentioned a clear difference between Kosovo and Crimea: prior to the intervention in Kosovo ‘the conflict had produced a large number of deaths and injuries,’ while in Crimea, as Putin himself said, ‘there was not a single armed conflict and no casualties’ throughout the affair.
 
But according to Putin's unique logic, this proves that Russia’s intervention was correct, because people said that in the absence of intervention, there might be a bloody conflict in Crimea. Putin berated the West for this, saying, ‘When it cites casualties as a reason for independence, is the West arguing that all conflicts must result in casualties before being eligible for a settlement?’
 
In my view, Putin's own rhetoric, more than any ‘Western slander,’ proves that there is no realistic justification for Russia's words and deeds in Crimea, because Putin can simply use the excuse of ‘possible’ future bloodshed to employ military force to dismember a country! It's like breaking a man's hand in advance on the pretext that he ‘might’ stab you in the future, or forcibly breaking up a couple on the pretext that they ‘might’ engage in future domestic violence. If reasons like this stand up, then what kind of invasion or conquest is not justified?” 
 
Translation
 
The "New Tsar" Rails against Leninism 
 
At the very moment that the world was watching the escalating crisis in Ukraine, Putin broadcast a long, televised, manifesto-like address on the night of February 21, 2022.  A certain “Public Opinion Field,”[2] which had been ridiculing the West for nearly a month for its alarmism in exaggerating the seriousness of the crisis, while in fact everything was hunky-dory, finally cried out in alarm that the wolf was here after all! 
 
Putin's manifesto was indeed out of the ordinary. It is 13,000 words long (in Chinese translation), of which the introductory 3,000 words are devoted entirely to denouncing the Bolsheviks, Lenin, and the Soviet Union they established as the starting point or basis of the current crisis: 
 
“So, I will start with the fact that modern Ukraine was entirely created by Russia or, to be more precise, by Bolshevik, Communist Russia. This process started practically right after the 1917 revolution, and Lenin and his associates did it in a way that was extremely harsh on Russia—by separating, severing what was historically Russian land.  Nobody asked the millions of people living there what they thought…”  “In 1954, Khrushchev took Crimea away from Russia for some reason and also gave it to Ukraine…”  “Lenin suggested making concessions to the (non-Russian) nationalists, whom he called ‘independents’ at the time. The foundation of Soviet statehood consisted of Leninism’s ideas of what amounted in essence to a confederative state arrangement and a slogan about the right of nations to self-determination, and even to secession:  Initially, these ideas were confirmed in the ‘Declaration of the Creation of the USSR’ in 1922, and later on, after Lenin’s death, they were enshrined in the 1924 Soviet Constitution.” 
 
Putin argued that what Lenin did “satisfied the ever-expanding nationalist ambitions of the marginal areas of the former empire,” and “transferred vast, often unrelated territories to new, often arbitrarily formed administrative units which were combined to make up the Republics,” on whom he bestowed “the unconditional right to secede from the Soviet state, something which even the most ardent nationalists had never before dreamed of.”  The reason for this “incomprehensibly mad behavior” was:  “After the revolution, the Bolsheviks’ main goal was to stay in power at all costs.  Everything they did was to achieve this:  at Russia’s expense, they met the humiliating conditions (set by Germany) of the Brest-Livosk Treaty, even though imperial Germany and its allies were in the most difficult military and economic situation and the end of World War I was practically within sight. This was to satisfy any demand, any wishes the nationalists at home might put on the table.” 
 
Putin concluded that "from the point of view of the historical destiny of Russia and its people, Leninist principles of state-building were not only a mistake, but were even worse than a mistake." In other words, Putin saw it as a crime: "This became very clear after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991." The lesson is that "however beneficial [such doctrines and principles] may appear to be at a given time, they should not and cannot under any circumstances be the foundation for the basic principles of the state." 
 
In Putin's view, this is precisely how the Ukrainian situation was created: "The Bolshevik policy led to the emergence of Soviet Ukraine…which can reasonably be called 'Vladimir Lenin’s Ukraine'…According to Lenin's stern instructions to the Donbas, the region was literally forced upon Ukraine." 
 
After Lenin, "the Red Terror and the rapid transition to Stalin’s dictatorship, the domination of Communist ideology and the Communist Party's monopoly on power" turned the so-called “union" into an “empty affirmation" in which "the constituent republics had no sovereign rights," but Stalin "did not rethink the Leninist principles that had guided the construction of the Soviet Union. Apparently, there seemed to be no need to do so, because everything functioned according to the logic of the totalitarian system, which on the surface looked very attractive."  According to "those odious utopian fantasies which had been inspired by the revolution, but which were absolutely destructive to any normal state," "the Communist leaders seemed to believe that they had succeeded…in solving the nationalities problem. But the price of cheating, playing fast and loose with concepts, and manipulating and deceiving public opinion has been high." 
 
And as the crisis drew near, "the leaders of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) once again instead limited themselves to pure rhetoric about restoring the Leninist principle of national self-determination instead of engaging in a thoughtful and prudent transformation of the economy, the political system, or the state structure." "The ambitions of the nationalist elite had been nurtured within the Party itself, and, thanks be to God, the tools required to keep power and sustain the state itself, such as state terror and the Stalinist dictatorship, were also in their hands." But they forgot that times had changed, that the Stalinist system had collapsed, and that "the notorious leadership role of the Party had disappeared like the morning mist." "The fate of the Soviet Union was basically sealed two years before its collapse." 
 
Putin even hinted that the ancestors of those he calls now calls "neo-Nazis" in Ukraine now were the Bolsheviks.  He said that now "radicals and nationalists, including and above all Ukrainian radicals and nationalists, boast about their contribution to the cause of independence," but "this is not the case, and the collapse of our united country was caused by historical, strategic mistakes made at different times by the Bolshevik leaders, the central leadership of the Socialist Union, in the areas of state-building, economics, and nationalities policy." 
 
Putin’s condemnation of the Soviet system, from the October Revolution until almost 1991, was as brutal as that of any “liberal,” but what is interesting is that although he basically repudiated Gorbachev and Yeltsin, he saved face for them by not naming them directly. He did name and denounce Lenin, Stalin, and Khrushchev, and he particularly singled out Lenin and "Leninism" several times. 
 
In fact, this is also Putin's habitual style. When discussing Russia's major problems over the years, his message has always been "the old Russia was good, the Communists messed things up, and the West made things worse, and only I can clean up the bad things the Communists and the West did and restore the glory of the old Russia." In his speech on March 18, 2014, when he announced the annexation of Crimea, he first denounced the Soviet Communist Party for stealing Crimea from Russian and giving it to Ukraine, only after which did he denounce Ukraine. Later, on the Donbas issue, he also blamed Lenin for ceding the Donbas to Ukraine, and then he talked about how bad Ukraine was. But his recent manifesto was particularly voluminous and systematic, and he really let himself go. 
 
It cannot be said the accusations Putin lodges against the Soviet system, including the fact that the system led to the collapse of the USSR and the series of crises that followed, are not justified. I might note that my own past arguments about the disintegration of the Soviet state due to the "Leninist federation" overlap quite a bit with Putin's analysis. Indeed, after reading Putin's masterpiece, a friend sent me a text message to tease me, saying: "Prof. Qin, did you and your wife maybe draft Putin's speech yesterday, because there was a whole lot in there about criticizing the 'Leninist federation'?” 
 
However, this is of course not the reason why myself and most of my friends, including those on the left or right of modern civilization, approve of Putin.[3] The reason is simple:  if Hitler jumped out of the grave and cursed Stalin, not a single liberal would applaud him. 
 
Of course, it might be controversial to compare Putin to Hitler at the moment. However, more than 20 years ago, in a series of articles commenting on the crisis in the former Yugoslavia, I analyzed the role of Tito’s alliance system in the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia, and pointed out that Slobodan Milošević (1941-2006) relied on the "new Chetnikism"[4] to bring down Tito’s system and hasten the bloodshed of the disintegration, which included the assassination of his Tito-era mentor, Petar Stambolić (1912-2007) the former leader of the Workers’ Communist Party of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the mocking of those ignorant friends who regarded Milosevic as "the last Bolshevik" because of his anti-Americanism and his hatred of the West. Putin's denunciation of Lenin today is indeed quite similar to Milosevic's denunciation of Tito back then. 
 
We should note that while Putin condemns Lenin and the Bolsheviks, he does not say a word about Tsarist Russia's oppression of ethnic groups or imperial expansion, and between the lines, he clearly expresses his yearning for the legacy of imperial Russia and his resentment of the Bolsheviks for destroying it. Back in the day, when Mao Zedong, in an anti-Soviet moment, famously labeled the CPSU a "new Tsar," this was perhaps not entirely appropriate, at least from an ideological point of view, but “emperor Putin” can’t wait to wear this crown. This is also a mockery of those naive friends who fantasize about Putin being a “new Bolshevik” who "never forgot his original intentions 不忘初心,"[5] or perhaps one of the "pink boys" that emerged in the new era following the collapse of the CPSU, which contained not a single "real man.”[6]  Putin's policy is not only geopolitically harmful to neighboring countries and harmful to world peace, but in ideological terms is also a slap in the face of those who made such arguments about him! Where is his "theoretical self-confidence 理论自信?”[7] If the CPSU contained not a “single real man,” then where are the “real men” when Putin takes aim at Leninism and lets fly?[8] 
 
Putin's arguments are clearly from the heart. But at the same time that he has become increasingly anti-Western, his anti-Communist tone has also become more pronounced, which is understandable. The Russian Communist Party, which became a party for senior citizens during Putin’s first decade in power, has made considerable progress as the largest opposition party in the last five years as the Russian economy has deteriorated, social problems have increased, and the liberals have been the focus of state suppression.  In the two general elections in 2016 and 2021, the Communist share of the vote rose from 13% to 19%, and they now compete with Putin for the great banner of Russian nationalism. Putin's attacks on Lenin for "betraying the country" are also aimed at suppressing the Russian Communist Party.

In fact, over the course of the Russo-Ukrainian war, the two separatist forces of the "far left" and "far right" in the eastern part of Ukraine were originally both anti-Ukrainian, and the head of the Donetsk Communist Party, Boris Litvinov, was also the chairman of the parliament of the Donetsk "republic."  However, before long, the far-right forces supported by Putin deprived Litvinov and all the members of the Donetsk Communist Party of their seats in the parliament in 2016. Clearly, totalitarians are not friends of the masses. Putin not only needs a foreign hysteria to distract attention from his internal problems, he also needs to prevent other hysterics from sharing his "glory." 
 
In Fact, the “Russia-Ukraine War” Began Long Ago 
 
The international reaction to Putin's declaration was predictably strong, because this was the first time that he openly announced to the world his ambition to repudiate the actions of the Bolshevik "traitors" and restore the geopolitical heritage of imperial Russia (not that of the Soviet Union, mind you).  Of course, he did not explicitly say that he did not want those parts of the Soviet Union that were beyond the reach of imperial Russia (such as the Warsaw Pact satellites in Central Europe), but he does not intend to respect the Soviet-era geopolitical changes that he sees as detrimental to imperial Russia, such as the allegedly "crazy" boundaries of the Soviet-era republics. Especially when he says that Ukraine has been "an integral part" of Russia "since time immemorial," it is impossible for the majority of Ukrainians not to feel a chill down their spine.

But this of course is not limited to Ukraine, as the "historical territories" that were "part of” imperial Russia and were later "extremely rudely" abandoned by Lenin's revolution include not only all of the 14 "constituent parts" of the former Soviet Union with the exception of Russia, which are now independent states, but also countries outside the former Soviet Union, such as Poland and Finland! Given this, who says that the desire of these countries to join the EU and NATO is the result of "Western provocation"? 
 
But in terms of concrete measures, the declaration itself does not contain much that is new and alarming, or at least it is not as alarming as people had feared it might be. There is a lot of talk at in China and elsewhere these days about whether Ukraine and Russia will go to war, but don't they know that there has been a war going on in eastern Ukraine since 2014? Since that moment, neither the two Minsk agreements nor the countless proclaimed ceasefires have ever really functioned. And at least since August of 2014, when the so-called Donbas "militia" suddenly counterattacked the Ukrainian army, the "pro-Russian forces" have been on the offensive.

It is also a well-known fact that heavily armed Russian regular troops are involved, and Putin's previous denials were only that these Russian soldiers were "volunteers" and not sent by him, whereas now he is officially sending "peacekeeping troops," but everyone knows there is no difference between "volunteers" and government troops in such a system, and the same is true for the "security companies" run by the Russian Defense Ministry, such as the "Wagner Group" and others. Therefore, as long as the Russian "peacekeeping force" does not launch a large-scale offensive, Putin's declaration will still have more political than military significance. 
 
As for the recognition of the "independence" of the Donetsk and Luhansk "republics", this is not the first time Putin has done this, nor even the most serious example of such behavior. He has already "recognized" the "independence" of two "republics" created by the Russian army—Abkhazia and South Ossetia—and maintains a relationship with two other similar "republics"—Artsakh and Transnistria­—which is much like the relationship between Russia and Ukraine prior to Putin’s recent declaration, meaning "support without formal recognition." The common feature of these four "political entities" is that Russia or a Russian-backed party changed Soviet-era administrative borders by force—the same borders that all "post-Soviet states" had pledged to recognize at the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union—thus openly dismembering part of the territory of an internationally recognized sovereign state and incorporating it into a new “country” that previously did not exist. 
 
Of course, discrepancies between the various international rules (or "international law") to be discussed below, such as "non-interference in internal affairs" and "humanitarian intervention," "territorial integrity," and "national self-determination," create what we call the problem of “double standards.” The four cases just mentioned and the two new ones created by Putin in his declaration of February 21 are not exactly the same. For example, the issue of Artsakh (formerly known as Nagorno-Karabakh or "NK") a conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan is, in some ways, open to interpretation, given that Armenia, which initially took the initiative to change the border, was actually weaker than Azerbaijan, and the NK conflict had already spilled a great deal of blood over a long period during the Soviet era.

Armenia did not recognize this border at the time of independence, and their initiative to change it, whether right or wrong, can hardly be considered an example of bullying.  But in the 2020 conflict over NK between Armenia and Azerbaijan (this time the aggressor), Russia ignored its obligations as a signatory of the Collective Security Treaty Organization to its ally Armenia, and sat back and watched while Armenia was defeated by Azerbaijan. (In fact, Putin betrayed Armenia to please Turkey, which was backing Azerbaijan). But in the five remaining cases, Russia played the role of active cross-border aggressor against Moldova, Georgia, and Ukraine, and it was increasingly clear—and increasingly outrageous—in each case. 
 
So, although Donetsk and Luhansk are larger and more important than the four "countries" mentioned above, this is actually "normal behavior" as far as Russia's own "rules" are concerned. 
 
Prior to this, Russia had of course already done something even more "normal," which was the annexation of Crimea in 2014!  Please note: this was not "supporting Crimea's independence" as in the six cases mentioned above, but directly annexing it!  Not "interfering in the internal politics" and supporting the "pro-Russians" against the "pro-Westerners" as in the six cases mentioned above, but directly instructing Russian citizens (not Russian-speaking Ukrainians) and a Russian (not pro-Russian) government in Crimea, Ukraine, to overthrow by force of arms a pro-Russian (not pro-Western) regime.  In other words, both the pro-Russians and the pro-Westerners in Crimea were disenfranchised at gunpoint by Putin's Russian armed men in masks. If in the case of Abkhazia, Russia can rail about Kosovo and the "double standards" employed there, in Crimea, there is really only one standard, and the only other example that comes to mind is the Sudetenland. 
 
If Russia can do whatever it wants in Crimea, then there is no point talking about the Donbas issue.  And sure enough, just three days after the February 21 speech, while the West was making a fuss about Russia's "recognition" of the "independence" of the two regions of the Ukraine, Russia did something that really broke the "rules" established in Crimea:  a direct and massive attack on all of Ukraine, including Kharkov, Kiev and Odessa!  Which reminds me of a saying from the 1930s:  “It won’t end with Sudetenland!”
 
Sudetenland will not be the end! 
 
The "Double Standard" and the Dissimilarity between Crimea and Kosovo 
 
It should be said that it is hard not to blame the shortcomings of the Ukrainian people and the West's long-standing tradition of appeasement for today’s state of affairs. But none of the mistakes committed the Ukrainians can be compared with the brutal aggression on the part of Putin’s Russian government, and these mistakes cannot serve as an excuse for Russian aggression. This is not to say that Russia cannot interfere in Ukraine under any circumstances, although it is true that there are conflicts and contradictions in modern international law and political practices.  For example, we talk about "national self-determination," but also "respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity."  We talk about "non-interference in internal affairs of other nations," but also about "massacres," "ethnic cleansing," and other humanitarian disasters.

There are also examples of international interference in the "internal affairs of other countries" in the event of serious problems such as nuclear proliferation.  These contradictions have given rise to behaviors of some states that are subject to interpretation, in which there exists not only controversy over legitimacy in legal terms, but also a certain ambiguity in terms of morality.  When the parties concerned take what they need from these contradictory principles for their own interests, this creates an obvious problem of "double standards," and the resulting hegemony and injustice cannot be ignored.
 
But this absolutely does not mean that today's international politics merely follows the law of the jungle and is without principle.
  
There is a general consensus concerning how serious "internal" problems must be before "external" intervention is justified. After the Rwandan genocide, the international community generally agreed that the lesson was not that the intervention should not have occurred, but that it was too late and too weak. When the Khmer Rouge massacre took place, Vietnam took the opportunity to overthrow the regime with the support of the Soviet Union, and although this action was criticized for its efforts to dominate Indochina, the international community demanded only that Vietnam withdraw its troops, not that the bloody Khmer Rouge regime be restored. 

Later on, the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia was established to cooperate with the Heng Samrin/Hun Sen regime, which actually ruled Cambodia with the support of Vietnam, organizing multi-party elections, promoting the establishment of democratic politics in Cambodia, and even organizing an international tribunal to try the criminals responsible for the Khmer Rouge massacre. At the time, the United States, Europe, China, Russia, and Japan all supported and participated in the actions of UNTAC and the International Tribunal, which are now no longer controversial. 
 
The international community would undoubtedly have supported intervention if what happened in Rwanda and Cambodia had occurred in Crimea. Of course, the best outcome would be if the international community were united in a mechanism such as the United Nations, but if Russia were to go it alone on the grounds that it had special concerns there, the international community might debate the issue, but there would not be fierce opposition. 
 
Compared to the horrors of Rwanda and Cambodia, where millions died and populations were reduced by significant numbers, the tragedy in Kosovo was much less dramatic, although it lasted a long time. After Milosevic came to power in Serbia in the late 1980s, he eventually abandoned Tito's policy (which was flawed, a topic for later discussion), tore up the Yugoslavian constitution, eliminated Kosovo’s autonomy, and destroyed the regime of the Communist League of Kosovo under Tito (note that what Milosevic overthrew was the regime run by the Communist League and the Communist Party, not some "Albanian separatist” regime).  In February of 1989, the Serbian military and police suppressed demonstrations, officially claiming that 22 demonstrators were killed, along with two soldiers, while ethnic Albanians said that hundreds had died. Tragedy struck again in February of 1990, when officials announced that 27 demonstrators were killed, 110 were injured, and 83 were wounded by police forces. The Albanians claimed that more than a thousand had died.

Subsequently, such incidents were no longer news, and were replaced by a real war.  In November of 1997, the "Kosovo Liberation Army" exchanged fire with Serbian internal affairs forces for the first time. In February of 1998, according to Chinese (i.e., not Western) journalists, "Milosevic launched a brutal counter-offensive against Kosovo's guerrillas, a conflict in which countless civilians and children were also killed." In February of 1999, Serbian regular mechanized forces swept Kosovo, and the "ethnic cleansing," as it was called in the West, reached a climax as 800,000 ethnic Albanians were reportedly expelled and tens of thousands died in Kosovo, whose population at the time was 1.96 million.

Although investigations carried out after things calmed down showed that some of the reports at the time were exaggerated, if we believe that China’s Global Times is not part of the "pro-Western media" and that it does not "fabricate rumors," we may get a glimpse of things from this newspaper's reporters' interviews with the Yugoslav army. When reporters noted that large numbers of Albanian villages in Kosovo had been bombed out of existence, they asked Yugoslav soldiers why this was happening, and their answer was "frank:" "The Yugoslav army shelled them, and it is impossible that there be no civilian casualties in the extermination of the 'Kosovo Liberation Army'." "Armed Albanian militants are hiding in the villagers’ houses, and they will never come out unless we bomb them."

This tragic, scorched-earth bombing of residential areas by "a few terrorists with limited combat power" was criticized even by pro-Serbian Russian public opinion, with then-Prime Minister Primakov stating explicitly that "Milosevic is pursuing a policy with which I cannot agree." Yet Milosevic's madness eventually triggered international intervention, namely the brutal NATO bombing of Yugoslavia that began on March 24. This was followed by Milosevic's capitulation and the de facto secession of the Kosovo region from Serbia, beginning with a transitional period under the UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (similar to Cambodia's "UNTAC"), established by UN Security Council Resolution 1244 on June 10, 1999. 
 
This was followed by nine years of UN and EU mediation between Serbia and the Kosovo Albanians, and the brokering of final status negotiations between the two sides beginning in 2006. Although some technical progress was made, the UN itself, as mediator, was unable to reach agreement due to Russian intransigence, and four successive attempts by the UN mediation envoy, the former Finnish President Martti Oiva Kalevi Ahtisaari (b. 1937), to revise the draft to allay Russian concerns were rejected by the Russians, who failed to present their own draft. Ahtisaari's mission finally failed. In 2008 Kosovo finally declared its independence and in the following years was recognized by 108 UN member states; it subsequently joined many international organizations such as the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the International Road and Transport Union.

In 2010 the International Court of Justice ruled that Kosovo's independence did not violate international law. Although Serbia never recognized Kosovo's independence, it nonetheless accepted the Brussels agreement with the European Union in 2013, in which it agreed to treat Kosovo as a "separate entity in terms of European integration” with which it would carry out normal relations. Four Serbian towns in northern Kosovo, including northern Mitrovica, do not recognize Kosovan independence and still declare themselves to be the "Autonomous Province of Kosovo-Metohija" under Serbian sovereignty and act on their own in administrative matters, but are also largely at peace with the rest of Kosovo and cooperate in criminal investigations and other matters. It is clear that the parties to the once-deadly struggle in Kosovo have reached a de facto reconciliation, while the formal reunification is expected to include both Serbia and Kosovo in future European integration. 
 
What is Putin's "Single Standard"? 
 
To be fair, the level of violence and bloodshed in Kosovo prior to the intervention was not only inferior that of Rwanda and Cambodia, but also not necessarily as great as in some other parts of the world, such as Somalia. Kosovo, if it were in Africa, might have been neglected like Somalia, or if not completely neglected, at least it may not have been taken very seriously. In the light of this, it is not completely unreasonable to accuse the international community, or specifically Europe and the United States, of "double standards."

The moral justification for European and American intervention in Kosovo obviously cannot be said to be a mere "pretext," (otherwise it is impossible to understand why many European leftists, such as Habermas, who were strongly opposed to the Vietnam War and not long ago to the Gulf War, actively supported the intervention in Kosovo; in their eyes, the use of force in the Gulf because of oil, while in the case of Kosovo, which had no oil, the point of military intervention was to protect the weak, in this case, Muslim Albanians who were not part of “Western culture”), even if interest-based geopolitical considerations are also evident. 
 
So what about Crimea? We know that Putin is using Kosovo as an example to attack the West's "double standards" and claiming that he is treating Crimea with the same logic. Some people in China have also said that it is brilliant move for Putin to give the West a taste of its own medicine. 
 
But Putin himself, in his March 18 speech before the Russian State Duma, explicitly mentioned a clear difference between Kosovo and Crimea: prior to the intervention in Kosovo "the conflict had produced a large number of deaths and injuries," while in Crimea, as Putin himself said, "there was not a single armed conflict and no casualties" throughout the affair. 
 
But according to Putin's unique logic, this proves that Russia’s intervention was correct, because people said that in the absence of intervention, there might be a bloody conflict in Crimea. Putin berated the West for this, saying, "When it cites casualties as a reason for independence, is the West arguing that all conflicts must result in casualties before being eligible for a settlement?" 
 
In my view, Putin's own rhetoric, more than any "Western slander," proves that there is no realistic justification for Russia's words and deeds in Crimea, because Putin can simply use the excuse of "possible" future bloodshed to employ military force to dismember a country! It's like breaking a man's hand in advance on the pretext that he "might" stab you in the future, or forcibly breaking up a couple on the pretext that they "might" engage in future domestic violence. If reasons like this stand up, then what kind of invasion or conquest is not justified? 
 
Of course, there is a question of "degree" here, or of when to choose the lesser of two evils. The mainstream view of the international community on the Rwandan massacre today is that the intervention was too late. The intervention in the massacre in Kosovo massacre occurred before things reached the level of Rwanda, but whether this was a matter of “too early” or “too late” remains subject to dispute.  Today, if we follow Putin’s logic, the West seems to have intervened too late in Kosovo: the fact that the West “waited for casualties” means that the West was immoral. If Putin really thinks this way, he is not alone.  But people have not forgotten that effective international intervention in Kosovo was not possible because of Russia's repeated obstruction, which seems to suggest that at the time, Russia believed that there had not yet been enough bloodshed in Kosovo to "merit a settlement." So how is it that Putin is now advocating the use of an iron fist before blood is shed, in order to "prevent problems before they occur?"
 
Putin's criticism of the West's "double standard" is not without reason. But Putin has only one standard, which is whether he is happy or not.  If he is happy, then there will be no intervention even if "many people killed and injured," and if he is unhappy, forced intervention can begin even before the blood starts to flow. In ancient times, kings and emperors were wont to say "l’État, c’est moi."  In all fairness, although “democracy has regressed” in Putin’s Russia, it has not gotten to that point, but is this not the “single standard” Putin applies outside the country?  
 
Clearly, since the international realm does not have the same kind of police force responsible to “public power” as exists in the domestic realm, those who have “policed the world” through the ages have inevitably been selfish—sometimes the “selflessness” they proclaim is nothing more than the selfishness of the sovereign standing in for the selfishness of national interests in a kind of illicit transfer—and a "police department" composed of several such "world police" (such as the UN Security Council) may therefore not necessarily be consistently fair. But what distinguishes modern international society and civilized humanity from the jungle politics of might makes right is that such selfishness has to have a limit.

The "double standard" is an inescapable reality, but the space for ambiguity should be limited:  because of the double standard, there may not be one absolute solution to a problem of whether or not to intervene in a situation like Kosovo. But not to intervene in a situation like Rwanda, with its mountains of corpses and rivers of blood, would be callous and inhumane; and "preemptive intervention" before the "conflict" has produced any bloodshed would be an act of bullying and hegemonism, the equivalent of saying “I am the international arena.”  We should have no trouble distinguishing right from wrong in this case! 
 
Is Crimea Another Kosovo? 
 
It is obvious that, regardless of all the criticism of the motives and outcomes of the Western intervention in Kosovo in 1999, in terms of basic facts, it is an entirely different matter from Crimea in 2014. 
 
Intervention in a blood-soaked Kosovo is different from the annexation of a bloodless Crimea, as I have already said.
 
After the intervention in Kosovo, the mediation of the international community lasted for nine years, and the independence of Kosovo emerged as an option only after it was clear that there was no way to repair the damage.  By contrast, after the "coup of the masked men" supported by the Russian army in Crimea, Putin could not wait, and the date of the "Russian referendum" was repeatedly moved up, so that the annexation of Crimea was a fait accompli only 20 days after the coup. 
 
Kosovo is still "independent" today, and despite the fact that there are calls to create a "Greater Albania" among the ethnic Albanians who make up 90% of Kosovo's population, Kosovo has not been annexed by Albania. In theory, it is "possible" that autonomous Kosovo Albanians will someday choose to merge with Albania, or to rejoin Serbia, or even that in a future development of European integration, Serbia, Kosovo, and Albania will all jointly become subjects of the "European Union," which suggests that “anything can happen,” and in fact this is the direction in which the three appear to be heading. 

By contrast, the "independence" of Crimea lasted only one day before it was incorporated into Russia together with Sevastopol, and moreover, Russia, unlike the Soviet Union, has now abolished the "free association of independent republics," so that Crimea is free to merge with Russia but not free to leave.  This means that not only the Russian Crimeans, who make up 58% of the Crimean population, no longer have a choice, but also the 42% of non-Russians (Ukrainians, Crimean Tatars, etc.), and even the 20% of the population who did not agree to join Russia in the referendum imposed at gunpoint (those who did not vote and those who opposed it), no longer have a choice. 
 
I should point out that the question of whether or under what conditions the so-called "right to self-determination" of a part of a country that demands its independence can be established is extremely controversial. It is generally accepted that such a right of self-determination cannot be easily established in the absence of a prior agreement (e.g., the constitutions of "Leninist federations" contain provisions for the self-determination of the members of the federation to withdraw). However, there is a significant difference in international law between the right to self-determination and one state’s taking the territory of another. 
 
If the right to self-determination cannot be easily established, then territorial seizure is completely inadmissible, and the principle of "territorial integrity" constitutes an absolute denial of such. The 2010 decision of the International Court of Justice in The Hague on Kosovo's independence stated that: “The international community is deeply divided on the right to self-determination and remedial separation outside of colonial situations. In the present case, there is no need to discuss either the right to self-determination or the right to remedial secession.

Whether in the UN Charter or the Helsinki Accords, ‘the principle of territorial integrity applies only in relations between states.' Therefore, Kosovo's declaration of independence does not violate the principle of territorial integrity." In other words, the principle of the right to self-determination means that some people within a state can claim independence, while the principle of territorial integrity means that a state cannot annex territory that was previously owned by another state. The two principles are each applicable in their own sphere.
  
In fact, this is not only the particular interpretation of the ruling in this case, but also the general understanding in international politics at present. Although this does not completely resolve the conflict between the two principles—for example, one can exercise the "right of self-determination" to become "independent" from one state, and then exercise the "sovereignty" that comes with independence to claim membership in another state, and the ultimate result would still be that one state had taken possession of land that originally belonged to another.

But, at the very least, the process takes a certain amount of time!  It can be said that the reason why the Kosovo Albanians could only "become independent" instead of declaring their membership in Albania reflects the same set of considerations we see in the separatist regimes that have emerged so far as a result of ethnic conflicts in the former Soviet Union, such as the "Nagorno-Karabakh Republic," established by ethnic Armenians demanding secession from Azerbaijan, and the "Transnistrian Republic" established by Russians and Ukrainians demanding secession from Moldova, who also declared their "independence" instead of joining Albania, and even the 2008 cases of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which were forcibly seized by Russia and taken from Georgia, which are also "independent" and have not "joined" Russia in a legal sense. 
 
In this instance, however, Crimea joined Russia despite having experienced less than a day of "independence," and the referendum did not include “independence” as an option, so in fact, Crimea was directly integrated into Russia.  Obviously, even taking into account the reality of "double standards,” such an approach is still too much like mob violence. 
 
Of course, the "independence" of Crimea, like that of Abkhazia, would not have hindered Russia's control over Crimea in the slightest, and had they been "independent" for a time, allowing the outside world to become accustomed to the fait accompli, after which the Crimean people could have exercised their sovereignty and demand to “become part of Russia”—this surely would have looked a bit better than direct annexation. 

Why was Russia so impatient?  In my view, one reason is that Putin actually knew he did not have a leg to stand on, and hoped to get the thing over and done with, taking advantage of the chaos in Ukraine and the fact that the West would be caught off guard, thus avoiding the problems that would arrive should things drag on. The second reason is that Putin is actually doing this in order to rope China in, thinking “Hey China, isn’t there someone’s ‘independence’ you worry about and would like to see ‘returned to the motherland?’  I just ‘returned’ Crimea.  Are you on board with that?” 
 
But in any event, Putin's "one-step" annexation of Crimea will have a greater impact on international law than instigating "independence," and even with the reality of "double standards" and the contradictory principles of international law, it is true that it takes a lot of "moxie" to act this way.  Whether this "moxie" is praiseworthy or not is another matter. 
 
Finally, ever since Kosovo's "independence", the Serbs in Mitrovica and other places have exercised another option, and while their "Kosovo Metosia Autonomous Province of Serbia" has not been recognized, neither has it been suppressed. It retains a de facto "country within a country" status, which actually reflects the pluralism and relative tolerance of today’s Kosovo.  Can Russia practice a similar tolerance in Crimea? The proportion of non-Russians in Crimea is much higher than the proportion of non-Albanians in Kosovo, and while the "pro-Russian" faction in Crimea was dominant before the "Russian" coup, the pro-Russian and pro-European factions growing out of the "Maidan Uprising" had been the dominant players. After the coup, the pro-European faction completely disappeared, and there was not even room for those who were “pro-Russia” without wanting to be “part of Russia.”  Was Kosovo a precedent for this?  
 
Of course, if there is any comparison to be made between the state of affairs in Crimea and Kosovo, it is not that the two forms of "independence" are similar, but that Putin's actions in Crimea are somewhat similar to those of Milosevic in Kosovo, although Putin claimed to be supporting the majority (Russian) and Milosevic was suppressing the majority (Albanian), which means that many people see them as opposites.  But what is the same is that the regime change carried in both cases did not immediately target the “opposing party,” but instead first excluded the moderate forces on their "own side," got rid of their own proxies and went straight for the jugular, employing mob-like violence. 
 
Is this not the case? Milosevic actually overthrew the "pro-Serbian" regime in Kosovo first, replacing the pro-Serbian Albanian communists (note: not "independentist" Albanian dissidents) with a "Serbian" Serb regime, thus completely eliminating the possibility of compromise between the pro-Serb and pro-Albanian factions. In the spring of 2014, the first thing that happened in Crimea was a coup by "Russian" forces backed by Russian troops to overthrow a "pro-Russian" (not pro-European) regime. This is what we need to analyze further. 
 
Another Kosovo, or another Sudetenland?
 
From Crimea to Full-Scale War
 
To a certain extent, it is possible to see the internal problems of Ukraine as a conflict between pro-European and pro-Russian factions, and the "Maidan Revolution" as a pro-European overthrow of the pro-Russian faction.  Prior to late February of 2014, there was also a pro-European and pro-Russian struggle in Crimea, although it was much more moderate than in Kiev.  This is because in Crimea, the vulnerable pro-European faction could not have launched as vociferous a protest as in Kiev, and the mainstream pro-Russian population did not show strong sentiments in favor of Yanukovych. So as Putin says, no blood had been spilled here, and there had been no local regime change. 
 
But just two days after the regime change in Kiev, the Crimea changed suddenly and the pro-Russian regime was ended, but the people who took power were not pro-Europeans—they were "Russians," i.e., they were not loyal to Yanukovych, hoping to help him take back power in Kiev, but instead to Putin. While Putin went through the motions of protesting the "coup" that overthrew Yanukovych in Kiev, he launched a coup in Crimea to overthrow Yanukovych's local government, and the coup in Crimea was much more typical, a pure use of force. If what happened in Kiev was a massive street protest, creating pressure that led to a parliamentary decision, with elements of force on both sides (leaving aside the fact that the vast majority of observers inside and outside of Ukraine argue that the government was the first and most important aggressor), in Crimea it started with masked armed men on the ground, all of whom were "pro-Russian" ( if not simply Russian). In other words, what happened in Crimea was not a pro-European and pro-Russian struggle in which the latter won, but the overthrow of Yanukovych loyalists by Putin loyalists:  the bosses dumped their proxies and took power directly, as illustrated below. 
 
On February 27, in the Crimean capital of Simferopol, to quote the admiring tone of one of China’s official propaganda pamphlets [Xinhua], "a group of armed men dressed in camouflage, wearing masks and with no markings on their bodies, suddenly appeared at the Crimean government building, where they quickly broke in and planted the white, blue and red Russian tricolor flag on the roof. " The masked armed men thus occupied the Crimean parliament and government buildings, forcing a "re-election" of the parliament and ousting the Prime Minister of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, Anatolii Mohyliov. 

In addition, the Crimean government overthrown by the armed invaders was not "pro-European"—on the contrary, 82% of the members of the local parliament were from the party of former Ukrainian pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych, who was overthrown by the pro-European groups in Kiev, i.e. the authentic pro-Russian party of Ukraine, the Party of Regions.  In fact, the Crimean regime was Yanukovych’s strongest local base, and the Party of Regions had been firmly in control of the local parliament and government, and Mogilev was a hard-core crony of Yanukovych's, having been the Minister of the Interior and a high-ranking police officer in his government, and had only recently been parachuted into Crimea by Yanukovych to take control of the old pro-Russian base. The "police mayor" once famously said that "Crimea's military and police should serve the Party of Regions." 
 
But in Putin's view today, such pro-Russians, even hardcore pro-Russians, can no longer be relied on, and what Putin needs now are…"Russians!" In Crimea, where the pro-European group has never been mainstream, and the pro-Russian group (which demands that the Russian language be on equal footing with the Ukrainian language and that friendly relations with Russia be maintained) is strong, although a "Russia group" (which demands to leave Ukraine and join Russia) surfaced from time to time, but there had never been an openly "Russian" faction.  In other "pro-Russian" regions of eastern Ukraine, the population and authorities are generally pro-Russian (of course, being pro-Russian does not necessarily meant being anti-European, and by the same token being pro-Russian may not mean being willing to be part of Russia). The Russian group in Crimea, despite appearing in public, had only a 3-4% support rate, and virtually no impact. 
 
Of course, there is no insurmountable gap between "pro-Russian" and "Russian." If the pro-Russian and pro-European conflicts and the conflicts between eastern and western Ukraine continue to grow, it would not be surprising that the demands of the pro-Russian population could escalate from particular rights to calls for full autonomy, federalization, independence, and even merger with Russia. In particular, if the conflicts between the pro-European central government and the pro-Russian local forces in the east escalate and become irreconcilable, it is entirely possible that the pro-Russian groups, which have no hope of returning to the political center and can hardly protect themselves, could become a Russian faction under Russia’s influence. 

At the time, Crimea's democratically elected pro-Russian parliament and Party of Regions government were trying to negotiate with Kiev, and if the two sides failed to reach an agreement, the democratically elected government could move toward "independence," and Russia would back it.  Although the outcome would have been much the same as what actually happened, in terms of form, this would have looked more like "national self-determination"—and while the two principles of "national self-determination" and "sovereign territorial integrity" are widely understood to be contradictory, and each party inevitably pursues its own interests according to the existing “double standards,” you nonetheless have to allow the “double standards” to play themselves out, right?  The violent overthrow of the democratically elected pro-Russian regime by masked men to create a fait accompli in which Crimea "belongs to Russia" certainly destroyed the "sovereign territorial integrity" of Ukraine, but surely we cannot call this the “national self-determination” of the local people, even of the Crimeans who are ethnic Russian Crimeans. 
 
Putin Did Not Want to Wait for the "Pro-Russia" Group to Evolve Naturally into a "Russian" Group 
 
However, Putin was not willing to wait for the "pro-Russian" group to naturally evolve into a "Russian group" due to the intensification of conflicts with the central government, let alone for the Russian group to naturally expand its influence. Despite his seemingly bold self-assurance, Putin actually lacked self-confidence, because he knew that his original proxy in Ukraine, Yanukovych, was not only unpopular in pro-European central and western Ukraine for being pro-Russian, but also in pro-Russian eastern Ukraine for being corrupt. Throughout the entire period of the Maidan Uprising, he received little support from people in the east, and even in Crimea and Sevastopol, which are the most pro-Russian regions, the size of the demonstrations organized by the opposition (i.e., the same "pro-European" camp that opposed Yanukovych in Kiev's Independence Square) and those organized by the pro-Russians were about the same, because most people in Crimea, though pro-Russian, were not necessarily pro-Yanukovych, so there was limited resistance to the Kiev "revolution" that toppled him.

After fleeing Kiev, Yanukovych went to Crimea but did not stay, probably because Moscow, which had already decided to cut ties with its proxy, did not approve his stay, or because he no longer had any local appeal, both of which in fact stemmed from the same reason:  Crimean public opinion at the time was pro-Russian but not pro-Yanukovych, and not necessarily anti-European or in favor of becoming part of Russia. At the time, the Party of Regions central offices in Kiev had already expelled Yanukovych, and local Party of Regions governments throughout Eastern Ukraine, including Crimea, were preparing to bargain with the interim government in Kiev. If Kiev played its hand well, the conflict might have been resolved (as it was in 2004), but even if it played its hand badly, the territorial breakup would have followed a certain process.

​In fact, resolution was possible before the Kiev parliament introduced the absurd bill to revoke the official status of the Russian language, which seriously deepened the resentment of the Russian-speaking population in Crimea, but the interim Kiev president immediately vetoed the bill, preserving the possibility of a resolution or at least slowing down the pace of the breakup. Putin knew that once the democratically elected pro-Russian government started to bargain with Kiev, it would be difficult to change Crimea from pro-Russian to Russian, or at least the transformation would not come soon enough. 
 
So Russia could not wait, and Putin himself was particularly impatient. First of all, Russia's economy has been failing badly in the past two years, entering a crisis while the global economy, including the Western economy, is emerging from a crisis. As a result, domestic conflicts have multiplied and Putin's reputation has declined, and if he makes another mess in Ukraine his rule could well be at stake. And in a situation with dramatic changes in Kiev and the elected pro-Russian governments in the east, not taking direct action would be making another mess. In this sense, while Putin's statement that Russia has been" backed into a corner" may be exaggerated, it is completely understandable that he himself felt cornered and had to lash out.
 
Secondly, the cards Putin is holding with which he can blackmail other countries are becoming fewer with the passage of time, and if he does not play them now they will be gone. This is especially true of natural gas. Europe is currently quite dependent on Russian gas, which means that Putin’s threats to "cut off the gas" to strangle the European Union can still be very effective. But since the "fracking revolution" in the United States in 2006, the supply and demand situation in the international energy market, especially in the gas market, has changed in ways that do not favor Russia, with gas prices tending to fall and competition from sellers beginning to emerge, a change that is still continuing. Even in the absence of a crisis in Ukraine, Europe's dependence on Russian gas will gradually decrease. So Putin’s trump card might work now, but will not in a few years. 
 
Therefore, Putin could not wait for the existing pro-Russian groups to become Russian groups, and had no choice but to use extraordinary means to forcefully replace the existing elected pro-Russian government with the existing “imported” Russian group. This led to the peculiar spectacle of the overthrow of the pro-Russian government in Crimea, not by Kiev, not by the pro-Europeans, but by a Russian-inspired coup. 
 
Before the overthrow by the masked men, the Crimean parliament and government were in an emergency session, calling on Yanukovych supporters and the opposition to reach an agreement. But the masked men installed a "new prime minister," Sergei Aksyonov, an ethnic Russian born in Moldova.  In Crimea, which was controlled by the pro-Russian Party of Regions, Aksyonov was a member of the small "Russianist" United Russia Party in Crimea, which bore the same name as Putin's old ruling party in Russia and was basically the latter's branch in Crimea, but even in Crimea, where the population is generally pro-Russian, this party had only 4% support in recent elections, and only three of the 100 seats in Crimea’s parliament.  But with the backing of the masked men (and more importantly, the Russian Black Sea Fleet who had their backs), the 3% of MPs tamed the rest in one fell swoop and took both the parliament and power into their hands. 
 
The scene in Sevastopol four days earlier, on February 23, was even more classic:  a group from the “People's Anti-Fascist Conference besieged” the city's Party of Regions leader and pro-Russian mayor, Vladimir Yatsuba. The mayor "urged the people to remain calm, not to give in to provocations, and to keep Ukraine united." As a result, he was removed from office on the spot, and the group did not even look for a local "United Russia" Party member, but directly "elected" a foreigner, a Russian national named Aleksei Chaliy. This “people’s mayor” is the grandson of the former commander of the Soviet Black Sea Fleet, and had been doing business exploiting his military connections and, as a Russian citizen, had never been involved in the politics of the Ukrainian city. But with the clamor of the masked men, this Russian citizen, who had never even been on the city council before, became the mayor of one of the two Ukrainian municipalities! 
 
Clearly, looking back at what happened eight years ago, Crimea at the time looks a lot like the Sudetenland, so isn’t the Ukraine today the equivalent of what Poland was back then?  What will the world look like tomorrow?
 
Notes

[1]秦晖, “西方的’双重标准’和普京的’一重标准’——从克里米亚危机到普京2.21宣言,” published in FT Chinese (pay walled) on February 24, 2022.

[2]Translator’s note:  Qin is referring to China Public Opinion Field, a weekly political commentary program broadcast on CCTV every Sunday night.

[3]Translator’s note:  Qin is clearly being ironic here.

[4]Translator’s note:  The Chetniks were a Serbian nationalist movement and guerilla force in Axis-occupied Yugoslavia.

[5]Translator’s note:  “Not forgetting original intentions” is an expressed used frequently by Xi Jinping and CCP propaganda organs to describe one the virtues of a true Communist. 

[6]Translator’s note:  This is a reference to Xi Jinping’s remark that the USSR collapsed because “In the end, nobody was a real man, nobody came out to resist."  See here.

[7]Translator’s note:  This is one of the “four confidences” that make up Xi Jinping’s “confidence doctrine.” 

[8]Translator’s note :  It is extremely rare for a Chinese author to take pot shots at Xi Jinping and the CCP as Qin is doing here.