Zhao Yanjing on the War in Ukraine

Zhao Yanjing, “China’s Choice in the Russia-Ukraine War”[1]
 
Introduction and Translation by David Ownby
 
Introduction
 
Zhao Yanjing is a professor of urban planning at Xiamen University in Fujian, and a frequent commentator on national and international affairs (see his Aisixiang profile here).  I don’t think he is particularly famous, but he writes interesting articles on timely topics in a very feisty style, adopting a “truth-telling tone” similar to that of Sun Liping in Sun’s blog posts (see here for an example of Sun in truth-telling mode). 
 
I first noticed Zhao right after the pandemic hit, because he wrote an interesting piece that I translated on how China should “get its narrative” right on the virus.  This month (May 2022) I noticed an article by Zhao on the crisis in China’s real estate market, and translated it because it was a timely commentary on a topic that is not often treated in the sources I read.  While reading up on Zhao, I discovered that remarks he had made at a conference in May 2021 to the effect that people who have more children should receive benefits in terms of housing and pensions (or, as his detractors put it, “let’s punish people who don’t have children”) went viral on the Internet in China some months later.  This prompted him to pen an interesting response to his detractors, which I also translated.
 
The piece translated here conveys Zhao’s thoughts on the war in Ukraine, published roughly a month after the beginning of the conflict.  I keep my eyes open for texts on the war that differ from the central government’s stance, which Zhao’s does, so I decided to translate it was well.
 
Zhao’s argument is that China should stay out of the conflict, and support neither Russia nor Ukraine.  His argument has nothing to do with the morality of the situation and is based completely on great power politics and how China can best exploit such great power politics.  He believes that the war is a manifestation of domestic politics in the U.S., which is divided between the forces of Biden, who represents Wall Street and globalization, and those of Trump, who represents working people and America first. 

Biden provoked the war in Ukraine to prevent an alliance between the Euro and Russian energy resources, thus ensuring that Europe remain loyal to the United States.  China, like the United States, profits from globalization, so to some extent should support Biden, whose interests they share, but at the same time cannot allow Putin to fall, because the Eurozone would be at China’s border the next morning.
 
In fact, Zhao continues, Trump originally intended to use Hong Kong in the same way Biden has used Ukraine, i.e., to rally the world against China in opposition to China’s “invasion” of Hong Kong, but China was too smart to fall for Trump’s tricks, the pandemic cost Trump his reelection, and Biden manipulated Russia into invading Ukraine.  If Trump is reelected in 2024, however, he will simply recycle his Hong Kong strategy in Taiwan, and if the U.S. manipulates Taiwan into declaring its independence, China will have no choice but to intervene.  Zhao’s conclusion?  China should stay out of the Ukraine mess and devote all of its preparations to the coming conflict in Taiwan.
 
My head is spinning.  I confess that I find this highly convoluted.  I do not think Donald Trump had any particular strategy in mind for Hong Kong, nor do I think Joe Biden wanted to see a war in Ukraine.  I suppose there are Kissinger-like “grand strategy” thinkers who view the global chessboard in terms of powers and pawns, but everything looks a lot messier and more haphazard to me, which means Zhao’s arguments strike me as something out of a spy thriller.  Still, it is always healthy to be reminded that people do not think like I do,  especially when these people have shown themselves to have thoughtful things to say on other topics, like real estate and fertility.      
　　
Translation
 
Let me start with my conclusion:  choosing sides in the Russia-Ukraine war is a mistake. 
 
For hundreds of years, China was a pawn, so now that it is a great power, it is not easy to sit on sidelines when others are fighting. By contrast, the United States started out by sitting on the sidelines during both world wars.  China is also a great power, like the United States, and should learn from the Americans.  A lot of Hitler’s start-up money came from the U.S., because there if there is money to be made, why not make it?  When Japan invaded China, many of their resources came from the United States, and you didn’t see the Americans getting embarrassed about this. 

Biden is the same way, forever encouraging Russia and Ukraine to go to war and then turning around and announcing that the United States will absolutely not intervene…China should not choose sides in the Russia-Ukraine dispute either.  Only those who do not take sides have the capacity to mediate.  Some people say that China should do what is right and good, or put national interests first, but what is right and good?  Isn’t mediating right and good?  Aren’t both sides currently wanting China to mediate?  But if you choose a side from the get-go, how can you mediate? 
 
Biden’s strategy is actually focused on 2024, and is designed to keep Trump from linking up with Putin, and European capital from linking up with Russian energy resources.  These are common interests shared by China and the United States.  Have you seen who is supporting Putin this time?  Trump, Modi, Bolsonaro,  Fox News, Mearsheimer...they’re all anti-China and anti-globalization. The reason why they risk universal condemnation to support Putin is because their bottom-line interests are the same as his.  China should support "war in Ukraine," and not Russia!

Who do you think Russia will turn to after Putin is gone? China? Dream on!  And it won’t be the U.S., either, it will be Europe! At which point, NATO will be at China's border, and the Eurozone will emerge as a world power overnight! America's interest is to keep Putin and Europe apart. And if they are to succeed, Putin has to stay in power! And as long as Russia and the United States are at loggerheads, both sides will be looking to China. At that point, China will be a player, not a pawn.
 
Superficial enemies may be friends at a deeper level; superficial friends may be potential enemies. China and the United States will not let Putin fall, because the Euro would be the only beneficiary. Without Putin, Russia and Europe will get together in the blink of an eye, and depending on how things play out, Japan might join as well.  You think the United States wants this? Europe is the biggest enemy of the United States! The United States is using Russia as a pawn to keep Europe, Japan, and Trump down…so why would they want Russia to collapse?

Some Chinese people ridicule the United States for not seizing the opportunity of absorbing Russia into the West after the collapse of the USSR, but it’s these people who are the idiots.  On the world stage, China has always been a pawn at the mercy of others, and now for the first time she might—or might not—have a seat at the table, so before we play we need to pay close attention to everyone else’s game so that we don’t get taken. 
 
We should not get carried away when we think about the United States. There are two authentic Americas—the America of capital, which is backed by Wall Street, and the true America, which is backed by the military-industrial complex and the rednecks. The former relies on Chinese labor and is a friend to China; the latter has its industries and jobs stolen by Chinese labor and is an enemy of China. Biden represents the former, Trump represents the latter. Whether America is an enemy or a friend depends on which faction wins. Trump himself was a creation[2] of Putin, and if the pandemic had not brought Trump down, China and the U.S. would have been at war a long time ago, and Putin would be watching from the sidelines.

But what will happen in two years if Trump wins again?   China and Russia won’t know where to turn! But the game must go on. And if the U.S. has another contested election, maybe China and Russia will form a trans-Eurasian monetary union or even a confederation! You can't gamble on your country's future. Only when you have considered all your options can you choose the right strategy.  Other great powers will scoff at you if you talk about what is “right and moral.” 
 
We have seriously underestimated the divisions within the United States and the impact of these divisions on world trends. Why is American public opinion condemning those Congressman who voted against aid to Ukraine? The point is to make allying with Russia politically incorrect, which is a way of smearing the Trump faction. And the point of linking Trump and Putin is to block Trump's path to power in two years, or at least to block the possibility of a U.S.-Russian alliance once Trump takes power. Isn't that exactly what China is trying to do?  This makes Biden China’s ally! 

Putin is only a pawn in Biden’s game to defeat Trump.   People who say China should support Putin are strategically short-sighted, because whoever heard of a chess master “supporting” a pawn? Pawns are only there to be used! If Putin does not fall, China can be the mediator;  if he falls, China is the direct opponent of the United States.  So neither China nor the U.S. can afford to let Putin fall. 
 
Behind the Russia-Ukraine war is the battle between U.S. capital and labor, between Wall Street and rednecks, between the virtual economy and the real economy, between globalization and anti-globalization, and, more specifically, between Biden and Trump. The Russia-Ukraine conflict is just an extension of the internal struggle in the United States. Who should China stand for? Don't tell me to stand for the American proletariat, to stand for the rednecks, because China is stealing their jobs. China should stand for American capital, for Wall Street, for globalization! 
 
Why? Because globalization’s biggest winners are the United States and China! Of the $18 trillion in new wealth generated in the past decade, $6 trillion went to the United States, $8 trillion to China, and the remaining $4 trillion were shared by the other countries.  Most countries, including Europe and Japan, have not grown at all. Do you think they don’t hate China and the U.S.?  Everyone knows they do! The United States has the world's cheapest capital, China has the world's cheapest labor, and the point of globalization is for China and the United States to cash in.

As long as China and the United States do not cut ties, no one has a chance! Trump being in power makes the rest of the world happy! In today’s globalization, the United States is the developed country that benefits the most, and China is the developing country that benefits the most. Other countries are all marginalized. Only China and the U.S. are making out like bandits! But if the Sino-U.S. relationship were to fall apart, then American capital would have nowhere to go, and the U.S. dollar would be finished, while Chinese exports would have nowhere to go, and globalization would be over, and the advantages currently enjoyed by China and the U.S. would disappear in a flash. 
 
The essence of the war between Russia and Ukraine, when all is said and done, is to defend globalization, to block Trump and the Republican Party, to stop the integration of Russia in Europe.  As long as globalization continues, Japan, South Korea, Germany, and a host of other countries will have to set aside their dreams of normalization.  If Trump comes to power, the world will see a return to the law of the jungle.

​Just take a look, none of China’s neighbors are at ease. In every case, the United States is helping us to pressure them.  The current relations between the China and the U.S. are like the Liao and the Song after the treaty of Chanyuan (1005).[3] The Song payments fed the Liao cavalry, making the Liao strong enough to keep the peace on the northern plains.  As long as they cooperated,  they both thrived. But if the cooperation fell apart and one collapsed, the other would not live long. 
 
To return to the original question, it is a mistake for China to support either Ukraine or Russia! 
 
Russia and Ukraine are pawns, while China is the chess master, and China's chess board is much bigger than Russia and Ukraine! The real choice we are facing is between Trump and Biden. If Trump had stayed in office, the odds are that the war in Ukraine would be happening in the Taiwan Strait, with Taiwan as Ukraine, Tsai Ing-wen as Zelenskyy, and China as Russia. Biden's unexpected rise to power and his instigating of the Russia-Ukraine conflict has earned China at least a four-year period to prepare itself. Instead of worrying about the war in Ukraine, China should seize this two-year window and prepare for the upcoming crisis in the Taiwan Strait. 
 
It is in China's interest for Putin to invade Ukraine, whether he was forced by the United States or based on his own regime needs. When two powers are fighting, it is always a third party that reaps the greatest reward. But if you think Putin is fighting Ukraine for China, then you’re stupid. All of China’s neighbors are dreaming of a divided China, and this includes Russia.  Take a look at Alexander Dugin's book as to what role China plays in the Russian chess game. 
 
Both China and Ukraine belong to Eurasian frontier zones where land power contests with maritime power.  Whether the conflict takes place first in the Taiwan Strait in the east of Eurasia or in Ukraine the west determines whether the strategic opportunity period for China's rise will be is long or short. Russia, of course, wants China to be preoccupied with maritime power, so it did all it could to back Trump. In this sense, Trump, who represents the interests of manufacturing and real economy, shares the same interests with Putin.

In fact, the battleground Trump chose from the beginning was Hong Kong, not Ukraine, at which point Russia became the onlooker with the greatest interest in the game. But Trump's biggest miscalculation was not to anticipate that the coronavirus, tailor-made for China, would mutate and that the pandemic would turn on the United States. The result was a game changer, which brought the U.S. down instead of China.  Without the pandemic, Trump had it in the bag. 
 
Trump's exit has once again changed the course of China's national fortunes. Since Biden represents Wall Street, which has huge interests in China, a natural consequence of a situation in which U.S. finances are in jeopardy and interest rate hikes are the order of the day is that Biden turned his focus to the West and chose Ukraine, the idea being to push European capital toward higher interests rates and preclude the integration European capital and Russian energy. On the face of things, the war was initiated by Russia, but the choice was actually made in Washington. The return of the United States to Europe is of course a huge boon to China! That the Russia-Ukraine war has stirred up Trump's return to the Asia-Pacific is evident in Mearsheimer's angry accusations directed at the Biden administration!
 
Now some people are saying that most countries in the world are supporting Ukraine, so China has to choose sides too so as not to be left behind. This is the thinking of a pawn, not a chess master. In the world game, there are only great powers, not "most countries." The great powers are the players, and the "most countries" are the pawns. The destiny of pawns is to be sacrificed for the needs of the great powers. When China was a pawn, this is what happened to China, but at the present juncture we are a player, which is nothing to be ashamed of.  If Trump comes back and the Sino-American relationship goes south, will Russia support China? Putin has said that he would watch from the sidelines, which is the thinking of a great power. 
 
In fact, Trump's original thinking was to use Hong Kong to anger China and then coerce countries into imposing sanctions on China. In other words, his scheme was to sacrifice Hong Kong in exchange for global sanctions against China. But against all expectations, the mainland held back in the face of the Hong Kong riots. This is a scenario that was never envisioned in the color revolutions script, and if China does not act, then the world sanctions do not appear. By the time he got around to fomenting Taiwan’s independence, Trump's term was unexpectedly brought to an end by Biden, helped along by the pandemic.   Taiwan thus escaped a disaster, and did not become Ukraine.
 
In retrospect, the idea of sanctions against Russia was originally cooked up by Trump for mainland China in response to the crisis in Hong Kong and Taiwan. But he did not anticipate Biden's shocking rise to power. This worked out fine, because Biden substituted Ukraine for Taiwan, and all the sanctions went in Russia’s direction. From today’s perspective, China made the right choice in Hong Kong, survived the Trump-made mess there, and was ready for today’s turn of events. Looking at Russia under sanctions can’t help but make you shudder. How long will it be before we recognize that successfully handling things in Hong Kong was the starting point in China’s becoming a great power? 
 
China's detached position on the Russian-Ukrainian war today depends on wisdom, but also on national luck. Without the coronavirus epidemic, Trump would not have lost. Otherwise, China might be in the place of Russia!  To say that Putin's invasion of Ukraine is reckless and unrestrained is to underestimate Putin. Like in Taiwan, the United States in fact is already in full control of Ukraine, which means that Russia has no choice but to fight. 

Let’s put ourselves in Putin’s place and think about it:  if Trump were in power [and pushed Taiwan toward a declaration of independence], could we not fight for Taiwan?  Obviously it is not for China to decide, to say nothing of Taiwan, but if the United States wants Taiwan to be independent, then China can only react as Russia did, by being forced to take up the challenge and launch a war of unification. 
 
Pawns cannot choose, nor can they escape being sacrificed. This is true of Taiwan, and it is true of Ukraine. And of all the chess players, only the United States can make the first move, and China and Russia can only passively accept the choice America makes.  Now that Biden has chosen to move a pawn in Ukraine, Putin can only follow the U.S. script.

But in any case, it was Russia who saddled up for China, who took on all of the sanctions prepared for China, and conducted a real-time test for the possible showdown between China and Trump in two years. In this sense, it's not too much to say that Putin saved China by fighting Ukraine! If we don't rush to prepare for what we now know about the United States, then Putin will have saddled up for nothing. Perhaps this is the value of the "alliance” [lit., “back to back 背靠背” as in “I’ve got your back and you’ve got mine”] between Russia and China.
 
Notes

[1]赵燕菁, “俄乌战争的中国选择,” published on the Aisixiang website on March 24, 2022.

[2]Translator’s note:  The word Zhao uses is yanggu 养蛊, which refers to a practice, often found in martial arts novels, of concocting a venomous poison by putting snakes, scorpions, etc., in a container and letting them fight it out, in the process producing the murderous substance.

[3]Translator’s note:  In this instance, the Chinese Song dynasty sued the Khitan Liao dynasty—located in the region now known as Manchuria—for peace following a Liao invasion.  The arrangement worked fairly well for a century or so.