On the first anniversary of the Russo-Ukraine War, U.S. President Joe Biden made a surprise visit to Kiev and met with Volodymyr Zelensky (Taiwan translated Zelensky), which affected the geopolitical situation.
Beijing reiterated its stance of "promoting peace talks" and stated that it would "stop clamoring for today's Ukraine and tomorrow's Taiwan."
Regarding the direction of the war and the inspiration it brings, Zhou Yangshan, an expert from Taiwan, interprets three possible outcomes from the perspective of the game of great powers. He believes that the outdated view of confrontation between the East and West of the Cold War should not be used, and the conflict between Russia and Ukraine should be simply understood as black and white. Choose, and China will show its strategic determination, and Taiwan must avoid wars caused by misfires.
Taiwan's "Taipei Forum Foundation" held a lecture on "Deep Factors Exposed in the Russo-Ukrainian War: History, Ethnicity, System, and Great Power Game" on February 2. The lecture was given by Zhou Yangshan, a professor at Taiwan's Chinese Culture University who has studied Eastern Europe for more than 30 years. , detailed the historical relationship between Russia and Ukraine, and then analyzed the complex game of great powers behind the war, and looked forward to the prospect of the war, China's role and the Taiwan Strait crisis.
The lecture was presided over by He Siyin, CEO of the Taipei Forum Foundation and former deputy secretary-general of Taiwan’s National Security Council (National Security Council). Su Qi, chairman of the Taipei Forum Foundation and former secretary-general of the National Security Council, attended the entire meeting.
The Three Schools of Views under the Game of Great Powers
One year after the Russo-Ukraine war, many people are asking, where will this war go?
Zhou Yangshan mentioned old American strategists such as Zbigniew Brzezinski (Taiwan’s translation as Bryshinski), Henry Kissinger (Taiwan’s translation as Ji Xinji), and Samuel Huntington (Taiwan’s translation as Hang Tinton) and other theorists of the clash of civilizations are opposed to falling out with Russia.
Because they believe that in the Soviet Union and the East, the West still has no way to popularize its value system in the end.
At the same time, international conflicts caused by wars are difficult to resolve.
After a year of war, although most people in the American public opinion circle strongly condemned Russia, more and more people have adopted a highly critical and introspective attitude towards the strategic choices made by the United States and the West.
Under this premise, Zhou Yangshan discusses the three views of the possible future outcome of the Russia-Uzbekistan war from the perspective of the game of great powers.
The first school of opinion believes that the United States must end the Russia-Ukraine War as soon as possible. Although the United States is planning to invest more than 60 billion U.S. dollars here to hold Russia back, which will cause Russia's status to plummet, the United States may not be able to "win miserably" in the end, similar to the last U.S. military Hastily withdraw from Afghanistan, the Americans do not want to see the second Afghan-style war ending.
This faction is represented by Trump (Donald Trump, translated as Trump in Taiwan) and the Republicans in the U.S. Congress. If we follow this view, we will stop supplying weapons to Ukraine and force Ukraine to hold peace talks. The fact that the four Udon states will be recognized is of course a very embarrassing thing for the West.
Taiwanese scholar Zhou Yangshan gave a speech titled "The Deep Factors Exposed in the Russo-Ukrainian War: History, Ethnicity, System, and Great Power Game". with white options.
(YouTube/Taipei Forum Foundation live screenshot)
The second view is that this is an "unjust war" defined by the West, and it must be fought no matter how long it takes, mainly represented by the views of the British.
Zhou Yangshan said that they would often express their support for Ukraine to the end, but they did not want to understand the background and context of the Russia-Ukraine war. They only had one principle, that is, they must fight until Russia is defeated.
As for how much it will cost?
Can Western European countries afford it?
This is a big problem.
The third faction believes that the final end of this war cannot lack the roles of China and Russia.
Zhou Yangshan recalled that at the beginning of the war, there were always calls for China to join in the mediation, but the Chinese leaders were still unwilling to intervene.
From the perspective of post-war recovery, it is currently estimated to cost about 750 billion U.S. dollars, and some people estimate it to be as high as 1 trillion U.S. dollars.
Of all the countries in the world that can undertake such a large post-war recovery plan, of course China ranks first. The question is how can China play such a role?
According to Zhou Yangshan's analysis, China has long been the largest trading partner of these two countries, Russia and Ukraine.
So far, regardless of the direction of public opinion, Chinese officials have always maintained a relatively balanced attitude.
On the other hand, Ukraine is still quite friendly to China. This is mainly due to the post-war recovery and the close exchanges between China and Ukraine over the past 30 years.
Zhou Yangshan judged that before the final end of the war, the United States and Europe must bring China in and deal with it together.
War is not a simple black and white choice
After clarifying the views of the three factions in the game of great powers on ending the war, there is another question: after a year or so of fighting, who will benefit from it?
Zhou Yangshan explained that, first of all, many people believe that the United States has benefited from selling arms and dragged Russia into a war that has so far been difficult to win.
However, some people say that the United States and Western Europe have exported 300 tanks to the Udong battlefield, but Russia still has 15,000 tanks, which is probably a drop in the bucket.
Zhou Yangshan assessed that in order to win this battle by military means, both sides actually have difficulties, and at most one side will "tragedy win".
On February 20, in Kiev, Ukraine, Biden and Zelensky unveiled the inscription with Biden's name on the Alley of Bravery.
The Path of the Brave was laid to commemorate the 31st anniversary of Ukraine's independence and to honor politicians who provided aid to Ukraine during the Russo-Ukrainian War.
(Reuters)
Secondly, everyone is concerned about how many people have been killed or injured in this war so far?
Zhou Yangshan gave an example, according to the inadvertent announcement by the leaders of the European Union, the Ukrainian army had killed or injured 100,000 people by August of last year (2022), and at least 100,000 people had sacrificed their lives.
According to the data of the United Nations Refugee Agency, there are at least 8 million people fleeing westward from Ukraine.
In addition, according to unofficial statistics, there are about 2 million to 3 million people fleeing from Belarus and Russia to the east and north, but Russia has never released specific figures in this regard.
Furthermore, looking deeply at the internal political situation in Ukraine and Russia, there will be quite different views on the situation.
Zhou Yangshan pointed out that the support rate of Zelensky in Ukraine dropped to 20% a year ago, but after the war, because of his resolute resistance to Russia, the support rate once climbed to 90%.
In contrast, Putin's approval rating in the past was around 70%, reaching a peak of 80% during wartime, but now it has started to drop again because it has been unable to attack for a long time.
In other words, this war has a great incentive to encourage nationalism on both sides, but the unresolved outcome has caused a major loss of prestige for the leaders of both sides.
Looking back at the outbreak of the Russo-Ukrainian War a year later, Zhou Yangshan believed that the cause behind the scenes was the unresolved issues at the Paris Peace Conference and the League of Nations after World War I. After a whole century of brewing, because of the basic ethnic relations , demographic structure, religious beliefs, language issues, and international conflicts have not been resolved, and finally accumulated a "general outbreak" after nearly a hundred years.
Regarding the most important inspiration for today's world situation, Zhou Yangshan reminded that the so-called "victory of freedom and democracy" represented by Francis Fukuyama in the post-Cold War period, or "The End of History" (The End of History) view, this The logic of liberal democracy in the post-Cold War era has now been proven completely wrong and failed.
Although the political and strategic circles have deeply reflected on this issue, many politicians still cannot help but want to use populist politics, media manipulation, and various forms of propaganda to make everyone think that the Russo-Ukraine war is A simple black and white choice, that is, wanting to return to the logic of confrontation between East and West during the Cold War.
Zhou Yangshan criticized that going back to the time and space background, war logic and details of the Cold War confrontation, there are major problems today.
Even Fukuyama has begun to revise the view of "the end of history", but the media and politicians still have no way to know the fallacy in it, let alone understand the complicated background.
Wang Yi (right), member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and director of the Office of the Central Foreign Affairs Commission, met with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba (left) on February 18, 2023, while attending the Munich Security Conference.
(Chinese Foreign Ministry)
China's strategic determination plays a role
After Zhou Yangshan’s speech, questions from the audience in Taiwan focused on the role China will play in the Russo-Ukraine war and whether this war can bring enlightenment to the people of Taiwan.
Regarding the first question, Zhou Yangshan enlarged his vision to the more than 40 years since China's reform and opening up. He believes that even if the West wants to let China end the rapid development route early, no matter who sits in the leadership position of China, no matter what it faces For such a provocation, his top priority is to prevent the continuous development of the war, and he lists "strategic determination" as the highest principle.
Zhou Yangshan said that the principle of the highest position is impossible for all important political figures to give up.
For Zelensky, his highest principle is to fight the war; but if the United States no longer supports him in the end, he will of course be sacrificed. This is a helpless choice.
As a leader of a major country, Putin and Zelensky, who is supported by the West, have different positions, roles, missions, and living situations.
From this perspective, no matter what challenges China faces today, it can only grit its teeth and stick to its strategic focus.
Regarding the question of whether Taiwanese can learn lessons from Ukraine's experience, Zhou Yangshan emphasized that the situation on both sides of the Taiwan Strait is different from that of Ukraine and Russia.
Russia and Ukraine are each other's sovereign states, but the two sides are "one China".
If the "1992 Consensus" does not come back, there will be no way to negotiate between the two sides of the strait, and the United States will not recognize Taiwan as an independent country internationally.
Therefore, Taiwan's operating space is completely different from that of Russia and Ukraine.
However, Zhou Yangshan also believes that the solution to the cross-strait issue will of course depend on the mutual trust between China and the United States.
However, in the foreseeable 20 years, the US dominance will be lost. This is something Americans are absolutely unwilling to accept. Therefore, the US will continue to use the "Ukrainization of the Taiwan issue" to touch China's most sensitive heartstrings; With strategic determination and domestic public opinion, another counter force will be shaped.
Under such circumstances, Zhou Yangshan warned that the most important thing for Taiwan to avoid is misfires, because no war can be dominated by rational judgment in the game process, and all wars may be caused by misfires.
Since the situation of the Russia-Uzbekistan conflict and the structure of sovereign state interaction do not apply to the two sides of the strait, if the two sides of the strait due to the deliberate manipulation of political figures cause a misfire, it may start a war that was not expected to happen.
After the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine war, what is the position of various countries?
According to the vote of the United Nations General Assembly, 143 countries supported Ukraine's territorial integrity and condemned Russia's move to annex parts of Ukraine, 5 opposed and 35 abstained.
What is China's position on Russia's invasion of Ukraine?
On February 21, 2023, China's top diplomatic official Wang Yi arrived in Moscow, Russia, expressing his intention to serve as a neutral mediator between Russia and Ukraine.
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