This week on Sinica, a special taping of an online event I moderated on February 22, just two days shy of the second anniversary of Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. The session was titled “The Ukrainian Factor in China’s Strategy,” and it was organized by the Ukrainian Association of Sinologists, and featured that organization’s chairperson, Vita Golod; Bartosz Kowalski, senior analyst at the Center for Asian Affairs at the University of Lodz; Lü Xiaoyu of Peking University’s School of International Studies; and Klaus Larres, distinguished professor of history and international affairs, at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
This was a very important and fruitful discussion. Thank you for making this possible. The idea which you might want to consider in future is to which extent the Ukraine issue is an issue the US and China are talking about. I think this aspect of the problem was totally neglected in your discussion. But it might be of major importance. Despite the fact that Blinken talked about China being 100% on the Russian side right from the first day of the war, China and the US have had several talks in multiple places since the war started. With the Ukraine sticking to the position our colleague desribed in your discussion and with China having no major impact on Russian positions, the only actor China can talk to is the US. And as we all know, the US is having and will certainly have a major impact on what is going to happen in Ukraine. Best wishes from Vienna, Susanne
This was a very important and fruitful discussion. Thank you for making this possible. The idea which you might want to consider in future is to which extent the Ukraine issue is an issue the US and China are talking about. I think this aspect of the problem was totally neglected in your discussion. But it might be of major importance. Despite the fact that Blinken talked about China being 100% on the Russian side right from the first day of the war, China and the US have had several talks in multiple places since the war started. With the Ukraine sticking to the position our colleague desribed in your discussion and with China having no major impact on Russian positions, the only actor China can talk to is the US. And as we all know, the US is having and will certainly have a major impact on what is going to happen in Ukraine. Best wishes from Vienna, Susanne