Chinese international relations scholar Dingding Chen on Beijing's position in the Russo-Ukrainian War
Sinica Podcast
Kaiser Kuo
4.8 • 676 Ratings
🗓️ 23 March 2022
⏱️ 58 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week on Sinica: Chén Dìngdìng 陈定定, professor of international relations at Jinan University in Guangzhou, offers his perspective on how Beijing views the war in Ukraine that began on February 24 with the Russian invasion. He concludes that while Beijing's short-term alignment with Russia is fairly locked in and unlikely to shift soon, the long-term prospects for the partnership are far less certain. Kaiser and Dingding discuss where Russian and Chinese worldviews are congruent, the unlikelihood that China will put itself forward as some kind of mediator in the war, and China's domestic considerations in the Russo-Ukrainian War.
4:37 – China's assessment of Russia's comprehensive national power
8:09 – Has the course of the war and Russian underperformance caused Beijing to recalibrate?
10:37 – When did the Sino-Russian convergence really happen?
24:47 – India and Vietnam as complicating factors in the Russo-Chinese relationship
27:26 – Does Xi's personal relationship with Putin matter?
29:16 – The leaks of alleged intel showing Russia asked for Chinese military assistance
38:23 – The significance of the Hu Wei essay calling for Beijing to break with Moscow over the war
46:38 – Domestic considerations
A transcript of this interview is available on SupChina.com.
Recommendations
Dingding: The late Ezra Vogel's Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China
Kaiser: Kingdom of Characters: the Language Revolution That Made China Modern by Jing Tsu
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Cynical Podcast, a weekly discussion of current affairs in China, produced in partnership with SubChina. |
| 0:15.1 | Subscribe to SubChina's daily, newly designed China Access newsletter to keep on top of all the latest news from China |
| 0:21.8 | from hundreds of different news sources or check out all the original writing on our website |
| 0:26.5 | at supChina.com. We've got reported stories, essays, and editorials, great explainers, and |
| 0:32.5 | trackers, regular columns, and of course, a growing library of podcasts. |
| 0:41.6 | We cover everything from China's fraught foreign relations to its ingenious entrepreneurs, |
| 0:46.3 | from the ongoing repression of Uyghurs and other Muslim peoples in China's Xinjiang region, |
| 0:51.5 | to the tectonic shifts underway as China rolls out what we call the Red New Deal. |
| 0:55.6 | 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 Guo, coming to you |
| 1:02.1 | from Chapel Hill, North Carolina. This week, we continue our ongoing discussion of the dilemma |
| 1:08.0 | China faces as the Russo-Ukrainian War is about to enter its fourth week |
| 1:13.0 | at the time of recording on March 17th. Let me note that in the weeks ahead, I've got some shows |
| 1:19.5 | lined up with guests, including former acting assistant secretary of State, East Asian Pacific |
| 1:23.9 | Affairs, Susan Thornton. I've got Yunsun, who heads the China program at the |
| 1:29.2 | Stimson Center, who, by the way, wrote one of the best pieces I have yet read on China's |
| 1:33.4 | situation in War on the Rocks, so definitely check that out, especially ahead of our conversation. |
| 1:39.7 | And with the historian and former National Intelligence officer for East Asia, Paul Here, |
| 1:45.0 | who has been a guest on the program before. I'm sure listeners all agree that it's very important |
| 1:50.2 | to try and understand how this whole thing is viewed from Beijing, how the Chinese leadership |
| 1:56.1 | is taking in this situation and weighing China's options against its own strategic goals. With this in mind, |
| 2:03.1 | I am really excited to introduce today's guest Ding Ding Chen, Chen, who is professor of international |
| 2:09.5 | relations at Jinan University in Guangzhou, China, where he joins us from. He is also a non-resident |
... |
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