Russia and China need an alliance in order to withstand the pressure from USA, says one of the most prominent Chinese political scientists, head of the department of international relations of the Tsinghua University, Yang Suetung

The scientist has talked to Russian Kommersant in an interview, about Beijing politics, its relations with Moscow and its plans for Central Asia.

China and globalization

Discussing the rise of populism and nationalism in the world, Chinese scientist has noted, that in his opinion it is more forces of economic protectionism that are winning. “USA has headed this movement, and other countries will be forced to follow”.

However, the professor disagrees with the notion that nationalism is growing in the world. “I think that it is movements against the elites that are taking over” – he said. The reasons for it are “mistakes of globalization and liberalism”.

Globalization has two sides. A good one – free movement of goods, services and people, and a bad one – terrorism, inequality, human trafficking, pollution, illnesses, etc. At some point the downsides had become more noticeable than upsides. As for the liberalism, USA has taught everyone that such a regime is ideal. However, in its extreme form it only worsens the problems of globalization! And that fact became obvious to people” – professor noted. He also emphasized that despite what many say, China is not striving to replace USA as the leader in the processes of globalization, because the country never welcomed them in the first place only standing for the increase in economic cooperation.

China and USA

Considering the prospects of relations between US and China, after Donald Trump became the president, professor from China has noted that he is unreliable.

“I assume that by and large, his policy will be a confrontational one. His advisors are very aggressive… He has a lot of problems at home. We don’t even know what does he base his decisions on. Possibly, based on his own opinions, or those of his advisors or his daughter. That is something that is impossible to work with or analyze” – Yang Suetung elaborates.

China and Russia

Chinese scientist calls for a creation of a union between Russia and China, as he is convinced that these countries are currently under the pressure from the US. The goal of such an alliance is to “increase political might of our countries, protect our territories and decrease the military threat from the USA”.

“China has territorial arguments with Japan, which has a support of US. Russia has territorial arguments with Ukraine, which has a support of US. We have a common source of threat” – Yang Suetung says.

And what about the Shanghai Cooperation organization? In his opinion, its status has been compromised by Russia.

“This organization has started with the Shanghai five, which dealt with the issues of preventive security and prevented conflicts between its members. Thankfully, it was possible to transform it towards the issues of active security and cooperation, when members collectively fought against the threats of separatism and terrorism along the borders and inside the members’ states. Unfortunately, at some point, your government started lobbying for the inclusion of India and Pakistan, who are strategic opponents” – professor reminded.

In his opinion, the inclusion of India and Pakistan into Shanghai Cooperation Organization, seriously undermined organization’s potential. “It is practically dead, even though it looked very promising! Many of my American students were writing papers on SCO ten years ago, as it looked like a new type of entity. It could’ve become a real alliance!”

Today, however, SCO “has lost its depth, and went a step down: from active security to preventive security” i.e. like before, it now has to focus on preventing conflicts between its own member states.

China and the Silk Way

Interesting remarks were given by Chinese professor, concerning the “One belt, one road” policy. As it turns out “nobody understood what Si Jinping has proposed”.

“Everybody thought that it was a project based on Chinese investment capabilities. That it is completely wrong. China has proposed that all countries work together – China itself doesn’t have the money to make everyone happy. Secondly, everyone hoped that China would build an infrastructure for them, which is impossible. It is beyond China’s capabilities, as we don’t even have an opportunity to better our own infrastructure. Investments into infrastructure within China are still paying off much better than investing in this area in other countries” – professor says. He states that the “One belt, one way” policy is just a proposal for everyone to think about.

As for Central Asian countries, that seriously counted on China, in Yang Suetung’s personal opinion. There are more prospects to do something in cooperation, in the Southern China sea, then there are in that region. “This is because there are very few people living in Central Asia, which makes investing unprofitable”.

In other words, the initiative to put silk road on a new path, is not what everyone hoped it would be, because, as professor said: “In the entire history, no one country was able to build that much infrastructure, and there won’t be such a country in the next 100 years”.

Professor Yang Suetung of Tsinghua University is well known in scientific circles. Being an adjunct professor of the University of national defense of the people’s liberation army of China and a vice president of the Chinese association for American studies, he is the author of tens of books and publications.