China has gained nothing from Ukraine war and it will only prompt further breaches of international rules, says leading scholar
- Yan Xuetong from Tsinghua University says ‘Russia is going to pay a huge price’ for the conflict, which benefits no one
- He warns that China will also lose out because it has accelerated the reverse of globalisation, which will damage its international trade
Russian diplomats spurned in Europe as anger boils over Ukraine war
Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, describing it as “special military operation”, but the conflict has dragged on with Ukraine putting up a stronger fight than expected.
Yan said in an interview with Phoenix TV on Tuesday: “Russia’s finance ministry has already predicted a 10 per cent contraction in the nation’s GDP this year, and the World Bank predicted a negative growth of 11 per cent.
“The war has made it difficult for Russia to have a global influence on the world in the future.
“I didn’t expect Russia would decide to go into this war, and Russia is going to pay a huge price for this war”.
Yan said all nations, except oil-producing countries, had suffered from the crisis, which led to a series of problems such as rising food costs. The US and Europe suffered less, but they did not gain any benefit, he added.
The war has had a big impact on international order, he said, as both Washington and Moscow do not follow international rules.
“This war has exacerbated the situation that the international community is even more non-compliant with international rules. Russia did not abide by the UN Charter when launching the war this time, and the US sanctions against it also did not comply with the rules,” he said.
Yan argued that using economic sanctions was the most typical way for major nations to not play by the rules.
“At least I say that in the next 10 years, there will be more and more non-compliance with international rules”.
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China has refused to condemn Russia for invading Ukraine, and continued trade with Moscow, while blaming the expansion of Nato as the cause of the crisis.
But Yan said China had nothing to gain from the crisis.
“China is the world’s largest trading country, the development trend of deglobalisation is not beneficial to China at all. The conflict between Russia and Ukraine has intensified the trend of deglobalisation,” he said.
He said the European Union now aimed to develop the industrial chain within the bloc in the coming years, with more focus on “internal circulation”.
On China’s relations with its neighbours, Yan said Beijing should consider providing security backup to them to improve relations.
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“China should consider providing security guarantees for neighbouring countries. This is not to help them invade others, but to provide security guarantees when others invade them,” he said.
“When you don’t provide security for others, others will ask you why you need so many weapons? When you say ‘I made this gun to protect you’, he is not afraid of you having too many guns, but when you tell him ‘the gun I made will never protect you’, he will be very scared”.
