After War in Ukraine, Moscow will Strengthen Its Position within Its Sphere of Influence but That Sphere Will Be Smaller,’ Beijing Commentator Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Dec. 1 – Zhou Bo, a retired PLA colonel and now a senior fellow at Tsinghua University’s Center for International Security and Strategy, says that once the war in Ukraine ends, Moscow will strengthen its position in what it defines as its sphere of influence but that that sphere will become smaller than it was before 2022.

            The Chinese security analyst and commentator made that comment in the course of a South China Morning Post article about great power relations and the Taiwan issue (scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3334626/taiwan-complicated-issue-way-out-simple-ex-pla-colonel-zhou-bo).

            Not surprisingly, given Moscow’s increasing dependence on Beijing, Moscow media have picked up on precisely this point, one that many Russians will read as an indication that China believes almost any outcome of the Russian war will be at best mixed for the Russian leadership and may be worse than that.

            On the one hand, Zhou Bo’s argument suggests that many in Beijing believe that Moscow will recover some if not all of the influence it has lost during the war in the former Soviet space. But on the other, it also means that from China’s point of view, Moscow is not going to be the world power with influence across the globe that Putin clearly seeks. 

            If the Chinese analyst is correct, that would likely mean that Moscow would dramatically increase its attention to the former Soviet space, a move that could bring it into conflict with other powers but that elsewhere Moscow would see a continuing decline of its positions, a trend that could allow China as well as others to try to fill the void.