Gauging Beijing’s position in the Russo-Ukrainian War

Below is a complete transcript of the Sinica Podcast with Dingding Chen.

Kaiser Kuo: Welcome to the Sinica Podcast, a weekly discussion of current affairs in China produced in partnership with The China Project. Subscribe to The China Project’s daily, newly-designed China Access newsletter to keep on top of all the latest news from China, from hundreds of different news sources, or check out all the original writing on our website at supchina.com. We’ve got reported stories, essays, and editorials, great explainers and trackers, regular columns and, of course, a growing library of podcasts.

We cover everything from China’s fraught foreign relations to its ingenious entrepreneurs, from the ongoing repression of Uyghurs and other Muslim peoples in China’s Xinjiang region to the tectonic shifts underway as China rolls out what we call the Red New Deal. It’s a feast of business, political and cultural news about a nation that is reshaping the world. We cover China with neither fear nor favor. I’m Kaiser Kuo, coming to you from Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

This week, we continue our ongoing discussion of the dilemma China faces as the Russo-Ukrainian war is about to enter its fourth week at the time of recording on March 17th. Let me note that, in the weeks ahead, I’ve got some shows lined up with guests, including former Acting Secretary of State for East Asia and Pacific Affairs, Susan Thornton.

I’ve got Yun Sun, who heads the China Program at the Stimson Center, who, by the way, wrote one of the best pieces I have yet read on China’s situation in War on the Rocks. So definitely check that out, especially ahead of our conversation. And with the historian and former National Intelligence Officer for East Asia, Paul Heer, who has been a guest on the program before.

I’m sure listeners all agree that it’s very important to try and understand how this whole thing is viewed from Beijing, how the Chinese leadership is taking in this situation and weighing China’s options against its own strategic goals. With this in mind, I am really excited to introduce today’s guest, Dingding Chen, 陈定定 Chén Dìngdìng. He is Professor of International Relations at Jinan University in Guangzhou, China, where he joins us from.

He’s also a Non-Resident Fellow at the Global Public Policy Institute, GPPI, in Berlin. He’s also the Founding Director of 海国图智研究院 hǎiguó túzhì yánjiùyuàn, the Intellisia Institute, an independent think tank focusing on artificial intelligence and international affairs in China, which is itself a fascinating topic, but one that we’ll have to wait for another time when I can have him back on. Anyway, he writes frequently for the Diplomat and you can find many of his excellent essays there. Dingding Chen, welcome to Sinica.

Dingding: Thank you, Kaiser. It’s a great pleasure to be here.

Kaiser: Well, Dingding, since you are new to the show, perhaps you could introduce yourself a bit and talk about what you work on typically and what you teach there at Jinan University.

Dingding: Sure. Since my focus is on international relations, I teach courses, including Chinese foreign policy, U.S.-China relations, East Asian security, so on and so forth. And because my background is political science, I got my Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, back a long time ago, 2007. So I follow international relations, hot topics, whenever possible. Basically, I’m a scholar of international relations with a focus on China, Chinese foreign policy, and Asian security.

Kaiser: Fantastic. Well, as I said, I want to focus in our conversation this hour on the view from China. I think by now most everybody, and certainly, people who listen to the show, understand some of the major considerations in the Chinese perspective, that guests like Evan Feigenbaum and others have laid out clearly enough. On the one hand, China sees alignment with Russia as a fellow aggrieved victim of American hegemony and, like Russia, China would like to see the end of unipolar American dominance, so it makes some strategic sense.

On the other hand, China also recognizes that the invasion of Ukraine was an unambiguous violation of this principle of sovereignty and territorial integrity that it always touts and they oppose this on principle. And Beijing doesn’t want to suffer secondary sanctions or even primary sanctions when their total trade with Russia is just one seventh of their combined U.S. plus EU trade.

So I don’t think that there’s much debate now on the broad contours of the dilemma that Beijing faces, but I want to go deeper with you. I want to ask you for your take on something that I should give credit where it’s due. I mean, Yún Sūn 孙云 gets into this really in her excellent piece.

What does China’s leadership when it looks at Russia? What is China’s honest assessment, in other words, of Russia, of Russian comprehensive power, of Russian intentions in the short and long term? Whether those intentions actually align with China’s own intentions, and the reliability of Russia as a partner. Can you talk about these things? How does it size up Russia?

Dingding: Okay. That’s a very good question, but also a very big question. I can only speculate sort of from my perspective, because I’m in Guangzhou, so kind of far away from Beijing. But anyway, I think what the government sees Russia now can be understood from two different factors. One is the short- to medium-term relationship with Russia. And also the other factor is the long-term development of China itself.

So, if you put that into context, then in the short to medium run, of course, China and Russia enjoy a very high level of partnership. We call it in many different terms, strategic partnership and comprehensive strategic partnership. Whatever the name, I think the essence is that China and Russia do share many common interests with regard to national security, regional security and China and Russia do, in some ways, see an international order in similar ways, not identical ways.

Of course, we can discuss that maybe later in more details, but they’re similar. Meaning at least in one respect that both China and Russia do not, I mean, they don’t think the U.S.-led order is totally legitimate or even can be detrimental to their national interests, so and so forth. So I think, in the short and medium run, in this sense, China and Russia do share many views, do share many common interests, so their relationship is going to be very strong, but in the long run, I think if you look at economic terms, Russia’s economy, of course, is not even, if I remember correctly, top 20 in the world.

Kaiser: Just a quick aside here, it’s not in the top 10, according to the IMF and the World Bank. It actually ranks number 11.

Dingding: So Russia’s economy is quite, in a way, small. Even my home province now, Guangdong’s economy is larger than Russia’s economy in terms of GDP. Of course, it’s just one indicator. And Russia’s comprehensive power or strengths, I would say, has stalled for the last 20 or something years. And it looks like, judging by the current indicators, it’s not going to be very positive in the next 10 to 20 years because of its population and its basic industrial structure, so on and so forth.

So in that sense, China, like I’ve been saying for some time now, China’s number one goal is to become a global power by 2050. So if you take that into consideration then, China-Russia relationship is a little bit different, from this perspective. So I would say, depending on whether you look at the long term or whether you look at the short to medium-term, there you could have actually somewhat different conclusions.

Kaiser: So China was pretty confident in the utility of Russia as a short to medium-term partner, certainly before February 24th. But in the last couple of weeks, has that assessment changed because now, three weeks into the invasion of Ukraine, Russia is not really covering itself in glory, exactly.

Dingding: Well, I would say any kind of strategical-level assessment at that level, at the government level, simply cannot change in the short period, because it’s still too early to make any kind of a conclusion with regarding the war. Now it’s only been a little bit over three weeks. It’s not even one month. The U.S. war in Iraq, if I remember correctly, last time in early 2000s, also at least lasted more than one month before they defeated Hussein and all that.

So, it’s not totally comparable, of course, but my point is we need to give it a little bit more time to make a more accurate assessment. But of course, even if three months later or six months later, I don’t think this kind of a very high-level strategic assessment would fundamentally change, unless of course, unless there is a very fundamental change within Russia or Russia’s relations with NATO, the U.S., or the West, in general.

So as long as that doesn’t happen, I don’t think this would change either. So that means Russia in the short run and in the medium run is China’s strong partner overall. That said, it doesn’t mean that, in some more aspects, in terms of what I would call tactics, the kind of small adjustments are likely to happen. Which again, it’s not surprising because this is an era of unprecedented change in 100 years, as our President Xí Jìnpíng 习近平 likes to emphasize.

So we are prepared to see this kind of unexpected events, like COVID, like this war, like maybe many other things to come in the coming years. So we are prepared. I think the government is prepared to make some adjustments, but the fundamental assessment still remain the same.

Kaiser: Thank you. So let’s zoom out a little bit and look at this sort of more historically. At what point would you say did relations between Russia and China move onto this course toward conversions, toward this, as you described it, comprehensive partnership? Do you think that it started, say, with the Yugoslav breakup, especially with the Kosovo war and things like… Because that was of course taken up by NATO outside of the auspices of the United Nations. China and Russia both opposed it. China, of course, had its embassy blown up in May of 1999.

My feeling was it always started right around then, but there were other people who would maybe argue for a later date, maybe after 2007, with Putin’s Munich Security Conference speech in that year. And then the shared sense that both of them had, that they were in the American crosshairs for regime change, for people power, call it a revolution-style regime change. What’s your sense? When did it start?

Dingding: Yeah. As you said, it’s always a long process. It’s maybe difficult to pinpoint the exact turning point of this relationship because it’s a process. But if you ask me, I would say maybe around… Well, there were two key turning points, sort of. One is 2007, like you said, Putin’s address at the Munich Security Conference, the other is, of course, 2014, the Crimea crisis. So I think that, too, more or less facilitated, I would say, facilitated this relationship.

Again, I’m not saying this relationship is, as some would say, already so settled. In the sense, they are forming a kind of a real alliance, like U.S. relationship with Japan or South Korea. It’s nothing like that, but it has its own very unique characteristics, of course. But, remember, if I remember correctly, Putin, in the early 2000s, even proposed to join NATO. Maybe not real, very sincere, but nonetheless, you get a sense, right? You get a sense he was hoping to have a good relationship with NATO and the West.

And somehow, in the following years, something happened and he probably lost hope and decided to act against NATO, et cetera. But anyway, I think the most important turning point is 2014, the Crimea crisis. That, I think, pushed the relationship between Russia and the West into a no-turning-point direction. And after that, I think, because of a few other events, smaller events, I think China and the Russia relationship became warmer and warmer, until today.

Kaiser: So is your sense that this relationship is built on anything more than a shared dissatisfaction with the unipolar American-led world order? Is there more to it than just the common enemy, as it were?

Dingding: Well, we scholars of international relations, of social sciences in general, tend to look at any outcome as a result of multiple factors. We are not accustomed to assign just one single factor in explaining whatever or any outcome. So of course, there is this kind of displeasure or unhappiness with the U.S.-led international order, but that’s very broad. That’s very big. I don’t think that’s the only reason and possibly not the most important reason in understanding this relationship.

I’m not saying that it’s not true. It is true. And the unhappiness with the U.S.-led international order is deep, with historical roots and it cannot be underestimated. But I think also it’s really because they have different waterwheels. They have different understandings of the future, so to speak, of international order, other than the U.S. and the West.

So this is really about what the future, the global future, would look like from different countries’ perspectives. For China, certainly it means the current international order has benefited China, actually, enormously for the last 30, 40 years and China has made much contribution to that, as well. For Russia, maybe it’s a different story. For Russia, the current international order, of course, I don’t speak Russian, I don’t read the newspapers, but from a very limited understanding, the Russians, or a large number of elites within Russia, they do not see this international order benefiting Russia very much for the last maybe 20 or even 30 years, at least since the breakup of the Soviet Union.

So they very much dislike this international order and maybe even wanting to establish a new kind of order or going back to some parts of the old order, if we will. But China is different. So I think when we say China and Russia sharing some common interest, sharing some similar world views, that doesn’t mean they’re identical. China has different world view than the Russian one, for many different historical, cultural and current reasons.

So I think, if you ask me to list the three reasons why China and Russia are joined hands, sort of, against the U.S.-led international order, I would say number one is, of course, national interest. U.S. is increasingly, in China, seen as a national security threat. It’s not a done conclusion yet, but increasingly, more and more every day we see issues like we’re talking about very soon. And Russia, I think, already sees U.S. as the most significant national security threat for the last, at least 10 to 15 years. So this national security, this national interest argument, there is of course the world view argument, like I just mentioned. They have similar world views but not identical.

And of course, the third reason, I think, is more incidental. Incidents or crises, like Crimea, like the Ukraine war now, can push these two countries much closer. Very much like the U.S. relationship with Europe. I mean, without the Crimea crisis, back in 2014, now the Ukraine war, we probably would not expect such a strong or close relationship between the U.S. and some European countries, EU, as a whole.

Kaiser: Yeah. No, that makes a lot of sense. But I still sense that there is significant difference. I mean, you pointed out some of this. In the world view, as you say, Russia is deeply dissatisfied with the hand it’s been dealt, whereas China has thrived under this order. It has played largely by the rules of the game and it’s done very well at it. It’s not interested in overturning the order. It wants to change some of the rules, for sure. It wants more representation at the table for its team, for sure. But it’s a very different approach.

Now, if the basis of the relationship still is chiefly in its shared dissatisfaction with the American-led order, doesn’t it make sense that the United States could undo that relationship if the Biden administration were willing to make certain concessions to Beijing, perhaps even use some negative inducements as well, sticks as well as carrots?

You said yourself you don’t think that China is at that point right now where it’s absolutely convinced of America as a primary national security threat, so is there still an opportunity right now for the United States, through skillful diplomacy, to pull China in its direction and away from Russia in this moment of crisis, given the penalty that China is likely to pay for having sided as much as it has with Russia?

Dingding: I would frame the issue a little bit differently. I think it’s not about, as some would say or suggest, prying China away from Russia. That’s one way to frame the issue. But I think the issue for me is China, from the very beginning and for the next 10 or 20 years, very likely is not interested in overthrowing, if you will, the international order, even led by the U.S., China very much is still a reformer of the international order, broadly speaking.

So China wants to, if you will, modify some of the rules, some of the standards, some of the international institutions, more favorable to China’s interest. It’s not really interested or willing to overthrow the international order. So I think that’s a fundamental difference from maybe Russia’s perspective or action. So the U.S. certainly can, in my view, accommodate some of China’s demands or interests in this way, in reforming some of the international institutions, such as IMF, World Bank.

I’ll give you an example of this, which is the AIIB, Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, which of course, from the very beginning, was led by China, but it’s actually quite open. One important difference is China does not have the veto power within the AIIB, which means whatever China doesn’t like, it doesn’t have the power to stop it from actually happening, on a large scale. So China has to consult with other member states within the institution when it comes to lending decisions.

And one more thing that many people might not be aware of is actually India has been, maybe surprising, has been the largest recipient of AIIB lending for the last 10 years. That’s very interesting. That shows China’s not going to just establish its own kitchen, so to speak, as Chairman Mao once said, and eat at a separate kitchen. We still want to eat at the same kitchen, maybe with different food.

Americans may like McDonald’s or pizza or Italian food more, and Chinese may prefer some days to have sushi, rice and curry, Southeast Asian food. It’s analogy, of course, but you get the point. China is not really interested in overthrowing the whole international structure, whether it’s a post-Cold War international order, or whether it’s a post-World War II international order, I don’t think that’s the question. The question is can the international order be modified in a way that China’s interest would be more accommodated in a friendly way.

Kaiser: Does Beijing see Russia in largely the same way that many Americans do, that is, as a fundamentally disruptive kind of a spoiler player, as a player that is truly revisionist, as revisionist as it comes? Or do they have a more tempered view of what Russia wants?

Dingding: My sense is that Beijing, of course, sees things differently from the U.S. and the West. And of course, in this regard, it sees Russia different from the U.S. and the West in general. Of course, it’s my guess. I think Beijing sees Russia more as sort of a normal major power in international politics. I mean, after Soviet Union, Russia probably no longer is a great power. It’s no longer a superpower like it was during the Cold War.

But Russia, given its geography, given its history, given its many other advantages, still cannot be underestimated. So this is more from a realistic thinking that Russia is still a major power. It’s a big power. It has influence in the world. It can really impact Europe, of course, but also the whole world. So China sees Russia as a major player and that player needs to be respected, needs to be dealt with with extreme care and attention.

China also understands Russia is deeply, deeply dissatisfied with the international order, but that’s something maybe a result of the collapse of the Soviet Union in that fashion, and not necessarily about Russia, in essence, always being a spoiler, so to speak, of the international order. So I think the sense is from Beijing is, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the European security structure has not been properly managed, after the Cold War. So it’s a lingering question from the end of the Cold War and I think that’s at least partly how Beijing sees the current Ukraine war, as sort of an unresolved question from the collapse of the Soviet Union. But certainly very different from the U.S. perspective.

Kaiser: Yeah. No, certainly. Just now you mentioned that the Chinese perspective sees Russia as capable of playing a role outside of Europe and two of the geographies where it has played a role that might not be conducive to Chinese interests are in India and in Vietnam. These are countries with which China has had traditional rivalries. We even saw skirmishes, unarmed skirmishes, or without firearms, but still deadly skirmishes, last summer. How do these relationships between Russia, between Moscow and New Delhi and between Moscow and Hanoi figure into Beijing’s thinking?

Dingding: I think for the moment, of course, we have to take things into perspective and China for the moment, and for the short run, certainly will, in a way, tolerate Russia’s relationships with India or Vietnam or other countries. As you know, India is the biggest importer of Russian weaponry. India imports a lot of weapons and advanced weapons from Russia, and India is in a very tense relationship with China, and now actually for the last few years.

And, by the way, Chinese Foreign Minister, Wáng Yì 王毅, might visit India later this month, according to some reports. Still unconfirmed, but that’s an interesting kind of twist in this relationship. So if you talk about China, India, Russia triangle relationship, I think it’s a little bit more complicated. My sense is Beijing is more likely to tolerate this kind of, I would say, normal foreign relationship between Russia and India and Russia and Vietnam, despite China’s own issues with these two countries, India and Vietnam.

Of course, China is very realistic. China understands, I cannot stop other countries from developing their normal relationships. Or maybe what I should care about is my relationship with this country, particularly for the moment. And after 20 years, we all know a lot of things can change, but for the moment, what’s important for me is Russia’s support for China’s position in the world and vice versa, because of the shared interests and the shared unhappiness with U.S., so on and so forth. But things can change, of course, but for the moment that’s the picture.

Kaiser: I know that you can’t see inside Xi Jinping’s head, but there are a lot of people who claim that the relationship, the personal relationship between Xi and Putin, is an important piece of the overall China-Russia relationship. What do you think of this? I mean, I could be entirely wrong, but it’s hard for me to imagine that they could know each other well, just communicating through translation, through interlocutors in very stiff and formal settings. It’s hard for me to imagine that they have an actual read on one another’s personality across that cultural chasm. What’s your position on this?

Dingding: I would say I tend to agree with you because, as we know, leaders, when they meet, it’s usually a few hours, not including translation time, and there is not much the kind of, I would say, personal, real personal kind of interaction. It’s always about business, so to speak. So I don’t think they would, or any other foreign readers would, if you look at history, they would develop a very strong sense of a personal relationship.

But then again, I think it’s more about they might share similar world views. They might have similar understandings of what constitutes national interest and what constitutes national security threat. So that kind of similar understandings and world views, I think are more important than the personal relationship I think other people are referring to, which is usually always nonexistent between state leaders.

Kaiser: Interesting. Let’s talk a little bit about what’s happened just earlier this week. Again, we’re recording on the 17th here, but beginning with the leaks, just on the eve of National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan’s trip to Rome, where he was meeting with State Consular Yang Jiechi, these leaks that were given by unnamed administration officials to U.S. and UK-based news outlets, the Washington Post and Financial Times, claimed that American intelligence services have learned that Moscow has asked Beijing for military aid.

Later, it was reported to be in the form of things like drones and other gear. Then, of course, Sullivan and Yang had their meeting in Rome and the readouts from that were thin, you might say, and sort of strange. I want to ask you a little bit about that. Then, on Tuesday, the Ambassador to the United States from China, Qín Gāng 秦刚, published an op-ed in the Washington Post that sought to clarify China’s position.

He denied that any such request for military assistance had been made. He emphasized the humanitarian aid that China was sending. He tried to sort make it sound like China is intending to play a more constructive role. So let’s start with these leaks. What did you hear, if anything, about Chinese official reaction to these claims, prior to Qin Gang’s statement?

Dingding: Well, about the leaks, now it has kind of become a pattern. If you look at U.S.-China relations for the last three or four years, since Donald Trump taking over, every time when there was important meeting or negotiation between the two sides, there’s always some kind of story from major Western media, whether it’s the New York Times or Washington Post or, this time, Financial Times. That’s one unique feature of the Western system, of course. The reporters could talk to government officials very regularly, very closely.

But for China, I think the perception is, this time, like before Times, it was kind of a pressure mechanism to pressure the Chinese officials in advance before the negotiation actually started. And the pattern always looks like, again, this time is that, after the negotiation is done, the stories disappears from the media so nobody really following that very closely or paying too much attention to that.

So I think again, from the readout by the White House officials after the meeting in Rome, I think one of the, or maybe we don’t know who the senior official, administration official, did not offer any more details about that story, that leak. There was also another reporting saying that we don’t know whether it’s confirmed or not. It was maybe a request by Russia to China about some food packages, because maybe the weather and other issues, they’re lacking.

And also these ongoing normal negotiations between Russia and China, in terms of military recruitment, because they do have this exporting-importing relationship, the normal one. China actually imports a lot of military equipment from Russia so it’s part of the normal negotiation. So if you mix things together, you could get the impression, “Oh, Russia is asking some kind of advanced military equipment assistance from China,” which I think is not plausible. Because Russia, first of all, exports military equipments to China. Russia does not need China’s military help, at least not in this stage. This is very early. Yeah.

Kaiser: Yeah. Three weeks into the war, there’s no way that Russia would need war material from China, of all places. I mean, it struck me as very implausible. Yeah.

Dingding: If that really happened, then Russia’s war is really in big trouble. You could actually see a different result on the battlefield. So anyway, I think, back to the point, I think the kind of interaction mechanism between China and the U.S. is very interesting, but I think both countries maybe get used to this. It’s one of the negotiation tactics, so to speak, and China’s fine with that. Although, Ambassador Qin Gang pointed out, it’s not true, it’s disinformation, and all that. But I think that’s part of the pattern.

Kaiser: Yeah. Yeah. A lot of my friends had theories about what was really going on. Some people thought that somebody in the administration wanted to undermine Jake Sullivan before he wound up thinking that he would be too lenient and that he wanted to stiffen his resolve or whatever. Another theory was that this was sort of a good cop/bad cop routine, where Jake could go to Rome and say, “Well, sorry, I have all these people back home. You see, they’re making trouble for me. I’m the good cop here.”

And then there were other people who just thought that it was maybe something Putin had wanted to do to test Xi Jinping’s commitment, that there really was such a request but it was just sort of to put pressure on Xi to see whether he would really come through for his partner. Anyway, who knows what was really happening. But let’s talk about the meeting itself. I saw you had tweeted about this with a little bit of optimism. Were you disappointed? Were you surprised at how little mention, for example, there was of Ukraine in the readouts, both in the Chinese and the English versions?

Dingding: Well, I’m not disappointed because I think, in these kind of meetings, the readouts are usually very vague because they don’t want to reveal too many details. It’s a pattern. If you look at last November, the meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and President Joe Biden, the readout was, as usual, kind of vague and short. But I think the few other details that I would remain positive about, number one, the conversation or the dialogue between the two lasted more than seven hours.

Kaiser: Seven hours? Yeah.

Dingding: That’s unusually long. I don’t know whether it’s the longest for one-on-one discussion, but it’s very long. Yeah, it lasted more than seven hours. You cannot have a seven-hour discussion only with shouting at each other. It’s not possible. So you must have discussed very substantive issues. And of course you don’t agree with each other and maybe you cannot come to agreement with regarding to certain terms. And I think that’s expected.

So the one thing is it’s very long and they discussed many issues, like North Korea issue, and of course, Taiwan and Ukraine and all that. So they must have reached some kind of, I wouldn’t say consensus, but they must have reached some kind of understanding with regard to certain issues. I think also, number two, you see some of the post-meeting actions by China or Chinese government or the tone or the media coverage.

Number one is Chinese ambassador had a meeting with the Ukrainian government and you could see that the tone is different. The Chinese ambassador, actually, if I remember correctly, admired the unity of the Ukrainian people. I mean, that’s first time, I would say, that we read such a reporting. And also, within China, the media coverage, I think, is of course diverse views, there are different people, different scholars expressing their views.

But I think, at least from my point of view, you see some media discussion coverage of the Ukrainian government reporting. That’s also a slight change, I would say. So if you combine all this together, I would say the meeting in Rome probably, we cannot call it a success, but I think it’s an ongoing step toward more collaboration and even cooperation in the coming weeks, months or even longer. So I was not disappointed by the meeting.

I think that, based on programs and they agreed to have maybe a next meeting, we don’t know when, and it’s a mechanism to keep the communications open and they also keep the communication very direct, not through media. I think this time, in the readout, I don’t think the kind of leaks to the media would be very, very productive for the meetings between the two countries.

Kaiser: You mentioned just now that there are different scholars in China, airing diverse viewpoints. I think maybe you were making reference to an essay that was circulated briefly in China, by Hú Wěi 胡伟, who heads a think tank that’s affiliated with the State Council itself, with the 国务院 guówùyuàn. This was translated and published by the Carter Center’s U.S.-China Perception Monitor. And I’m curious what you thought of that essay, whether it was representative of more voices than just his, what the significance was that was silenced as quickly as it was?

Because he called very plainly for a break with Putin, and among the many things that he argued in this piece is that the war will actually help restore American primacy and result in a more unified cohesive West. He said France and Germany will fall in line, even ostensibly neutral countries, Switzerland and Sweden of course, will become defacto parts of this U.S.-lead alliance. So right now it’s hard to see it happening any other way. What did Beijing make of Huai’s piece and what’s the significance of it?

Dingding: Well, it’s, of course, difficult for me to really assess the importance of this essay. And by the way, I think we can still access the article on WeChat or other platforms, maybe the website itself…

Kaiser: Oh, good. Oh, good.

Dingding: … Is no longer accessible, but we can read it. Anyway, it’s been widely circulated within the Chinese media platform. So everybody, I mean, at least the scholars and the people who pay attention to this current ongoing event crisis know about this article. And Professor Hu is, of course, a respected scholar. He’s based in Shanghai. He used to be the Dean of School of International Relations at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and he’s well known within China.

So I would say his voice is of course, first of all, represents himself. And I would say also that maybe he echos some other people’s understanding of this issue, which in my view is totally normal because China actually is a big country. Sometimes this is underestimated, that outsiders and our U.S. friends or media tend to see China as a unitary voice.

But in terms of scholars, I think it’s actually quite diverse. You can find many different voices within the scholarly community, just that they might come from different spectrum, they might have different level of impact, influence, so on and so forth. So for this one, I would say it’s not, at least not yet, maybe not likely to be the dominant voice of China, regardless of the government view. At least among scholars and experts this is not certainly the majority view.

I think, as some people I know have pointed out, actually the essay itself has kind of a logical inconsistency because, in his article, he actually identifies the U.S. as the most serious kind of challenge or threat to China’s national security. So if we follow that logic, if that’s what he meant in the essay, then, cutting off relationship with Russia probably doesn’t help China’s situation, because this would only further, for example, isolate China’s position vis-a-vis the U.S.

So some people pointed out that. Some people pointed out also, it’s impossible to cut off our relationship with Russia for many reasons. So it’s an impractical sort of policy recommendation. But either way, I think this article is interesting and it’s causing some thinking and maybe rethinking and debating within the Chinese circle, at least in the scholarly community. But I think the impact of that for now is not significant and would remain to be seen.

Kaiser: Thank you. There’s been quite a bit of buzz about the possibility that Beijing could play a role, even a pivotal role, as a peacemaker, that it could host five-party talks with Ukraine, with Russia, the U.S. and the EU and China, of course. Do you think that’s a possibility, or a likelihood even, and if so, how do you think such a thing could come about? How would that come into being?

Dingding: Well, I think it is a possibility, but it’s a very small one for two reasons. Number one, China is not a direct party of the world crisis in Ukraine or in Europe, as a whole. So I don’t think the countries would really, in a way, welcome or want China to be involved because this is really far away from China. So whether they would like to have China’s involvement, I think it’s quite skeptical, for me.

Number two, even if they wanted to involve China, because China is a permanent member of the UN Security Council, China now enjoys a very good relationship with Russia, and China certainly wants to maintain its normal good relationship with U.S., and certainly China has a very good relationship, economically speaking, with the U.S. as a whole, and particularly with Germany and France. So China wants to basically, as some in the U.S. would say, have the cake and also eat it.

So China wants to play that role, I think, for sure. If it gets to the point that everybody wants China to play that role, then the second issue is whether China has the capability to play that role. Here, I’m more skeptical because I don’t think China has the kind of authority or even, in the eyes of many Western experts, credibility to be that neutral and that even-handed when it comes to the relationships with Russia.

So I think, for those two reasons, I don’t think it’s a very… It’s possible, of course, but it’s a small possibility. But China can play the role maybe in an indirect way, in a small-step way. China can encourage both Russia, which I’m sure is happening quietly, to have a plan to exit this Ukraine crisis. And China can also encourage EU member countries to come to the negotiation table with Russia. And, of course, China can also talk to, as they have done just two days ago, with the Ukrainian government as to how to stop the war and restore peace, so on and so forth. But it’s not going to be as significant as some would suggest or recommend.

Kaiser: Yeah. I mean, there are some hopeful signs that has nothing to do with China, of course, but some hopeful signs. There’s been some reporting that we saw in the FT about a neutrality plan that’s been drawn up between Russian and Ukrainian negotiators. Supposedly there’s going to be a peace agreement in exchange for a promise of Ukraine, not joining NATO, declaring neutrality and actually accepting limits on its armed forces, which sounds like a defeat. To me, it sounds like not a very good option, although, considering the brutality of what we’ve seen, who knows. Not my place to say.

I’m wondering, how do domestic considerations factor in Xi Jinping’s thinking right now? I mean, it looks like, I may be wrong here, I’m relying, I have to admit, mostly on Western reporting, but there’s a big piece by Lingling Wei today in the Wall Street Journal saying that Xi Jinping’s ambitious Common Prosperity Agenda, this program that we’ve been calling this Red New Deal, as a shorthand, has stalled a bit.

And the major factors include the obvious ones, like the threat of a COVID-19 outbreak, of an Omicron outbreak, which has already seen Jilin province and the city of Shenzhen basically locked down. But obviously the Russian invasion has hurt as well. How are domestic considerations playing into Xi Jinping’s thinking about the Ukraine war?

Dingding: Well, as we always say, you always need to look at two big pictures. One is international, one is domestic. They are always interconnected with each other. You cannot ignore one just by focusing on the other one. So I think, if you say from just the two sessions meetings that the Chinese government is maybe re-shifting or refocusing on domestic economic growth issues, I think you are right. Because again, the COVID is causing so much damage to the global economy, certainly, including China’s economy. Actually, the Chinese economy last year grew about six, yeah 8%.

Kaiser: 8%.

Dingding: That’s because of the low base of the previous years. So there is always, I think since last year, since the second half of last year, this worry that Chinese economy could further slow down this year, 2022. And I think, since last December, last quarter of the year, there were some worrying signs of further slowing Chinese economy. So I think, in that sense, if you also look at the stock market, some of the tech companies and combined with some pressure and penalties from the U.S., this really causing kind of confidence-shaking, I would say, or even a crisis among some Chinese entrepreneurs or businesses community. So I think it’s about time to reassure that Chinese economy will continue to grow and to stabilize. This year, the target is not quite high, but it’s also not low either. It’s something between five –

Kaiser: 5.5%. Yeah. Around 5.5.

Dingding: Right. That’s quite ambitious, if you look at the global economy outlook. So I think there must be something in terms of policy that the Chinese government can do to facilitate, to restart sort of, if you will, this economy. I think that’s why common prosperity is always there. It cannot be underestimated. It’s just maybe, for the moment, for the sake of confidence restoring or maintaining, they don’t want to put too much emphasis on that because that could cause some unnecessary thinking about the Chinese economy or policy direction. It doesn’t mean it’s not important or it has been changed. It’s just that, for the moment, maybe for the first six months or nine months of 2022, let’s try to work out this economy growth issue first and then I’m sure when the time is ready, it will be again in the narrative.

Kaiser: It’s frustrating for me still, and I think maybe people can sort of tell that I know what I would like to see happen. And it sounds like nobody thinks that that’s a likelihood right now, including you.

Dingding: Nobody knows. Nobody knows, Kaiser. Yes. Nobody knows.

Kaiser: Nobody knows, right.

Dingding: Nobody knew the invasion was coming. The thing about international politics, if you follow closely, that every 20 or 30 years, there’s going to be such a big change in terms of international politics, broadly. And everybody, including all the scholars would be surprised, “Oh, how come I didn’t see this coming?” But it’s very difficult to foresee changes in international politics, which can be quite frustrating, but also can be, on the other hand, quite interesting. Because we need to be humble about our projections of the future. We need to be humble about our own analysis in everything. I mean, as a scholar, that’s interesting.

Kaiser: Those are words to live by, absolutely. Professor Chen Dingding, thank you so much for taking the time to chat. That was terrific. I really enjoyed that conversation. Let’s move on now to recommendations. First, a quick reminder that the Sinica Podcast is powered by The China Project and if you want to support the work that we do with the podcast, the best way is to subscribe to the new China Access daily newsletter. It’s been fully revised. It’s got a different order. You need to check it out. It looks really, really great.

Not only do you support our podcast, but you also get this fabulous newsletter, which features an in-depth roundup of all the important China-related news of the day delivered right to your inbox every evening, U.S. time. Okay, so recommendations. Hopefully, Professor Chen, you’ve had some time to think about it. What do you have for us?

Dingding: Well, of course I have many, many excellent and great books to recommend if I were a teacher, for my class, for my students. But my principle is I actually like to go back to history and read some of the great classic books that endure time change, that can give us a wisdom about, not only the past, but also the future. So this time I would actually recommend, because you said just one book, I would recommend the great book by the late Harvard professor, Vogel, the biography of Dèng Xiǎopíng 邓小平.

Kaiser: Oh, fantastic.

Dingding: That’s a classic book, not only for us to understand in the past, through the years, how China has gotten where we are today. I think a lot of people have forgotten that, either because of their personal experience or they’re so focused on the moment, the current crisis. I think we need to step back a little bit and look at maybe your experience, my experience, would tell a little bit of different story, how in the 1980s China was like, and how Deng Xiaoping initiated the reforms and how his thinking is still, I think, is very, very important and very, very relevant for today’s China and the future of China.

And don’t forget, Deng Xiaoping said, by the middle of this century, he said already in the 1980s, so sometimes hard to believe, that China would achieve the middle power status, 中等强国 zhōngděng qiángguó. It’s not even the superpower. So I think we need to, again, re-read Deng Xiaoping and reflect some of his wisdom words. I think it’s just invaluable. I think it deserves our special attention, the book by Professor Vogel.

Kaiser: I really miss Ezra Vogel. I had the chance to get to know him in the last few years of his life and I have a copy of his book that he signed to me. It was really, really sad that he passed when he did. His wisdom would be much needed.

Dingding: With the book, he’s always with us. I think that’s the beauty of intellectual life.

Kaiser: That’s right.

Dingding: Your book will endure time.

Kaiser: Absolutely. Absolutely. So I’m going to recommend a book, too, that I hope will endure as well. It’s Jing Tsu’s new book, Kingdom of Characters: the Language Revolution That Made China Modern. It’s just a marvelously readable book that I imagine any precocious undergraduate, any layperson with no exposure to China, no exposure to the Chinese language or the writing system or to modern Chinese history, could really just pick up and read and come away just knowing a whole lot more.

It basically follows the struggle to first create, bopomofo [注音符號 zhùyīn fúhào], a way to transliterate the written Chinese language. Then about the typewriter, about telegraphy, about the simplification of characters, about 汉语拼音hànyǔ pīnyīn. Eventually, digital input into computers, where it ends. It’s got really well chosen individuals on whom it focuses, including some people everyone knows, like Lǐ Yùtáng 李玉堂, and it gives you a good sense of their historical circumstances, the challenges that they faced in their times.

I listened to it on audio book and I did it in just a few long epic stretches and it’s so good. So Jing Tsu (石静远 Shí Jìngyuǎn) herself, who teaches at Yale, she reads it and has a really lovely reading voice and of course pronounces all the Chinese correctly, which is very nice, because we hate it when people pronounce the Chinese so badly.

It’s a lovely book. I’m looking forward to having her on the show to talk about her book once I finish, I have quite a number more of shows that are going to focus on Ukraine, but we’ll double up on some of them and hopefully the war will end soon. Anyway, thank you so much, Chen Dingding, for joining me. It was such a pleasure to talk to you.

Dingding: Thank you, Kaiser. It’s been wonderful. I hope to be with you again.

Kaiser: You will be.

Dingding: Thank you.

Kaiser: This Sinica Podcast is powered by The China Project and is a proud part of the Sinica Network. Our show is produced and edited by me, Kaiser Kuo. We would be delighted if you would drop us an email at sinica@thechinaproject.com or just give us a rating and a review on Apple Podcasts, as this really does help people discover the show. Meanwhile, follow us on Twitter or on Facebook at The China Project News and be sure to check out all the shows on the Sinica Network. Thanks for listening and we’ll see you next week. Take care.