Paul Goble
Staunton, Mar. 11 -- For at least two decades, many in the West have argued that China is a greater threat to the West than Russia and worried about Beijing possibly annexing Taiwan, Vladislav Inozemtsev says; but during that same period, Russia has attacked both Georgia and Ukraine and done far more to undermine the international order than China has.
Consequently, the US and Europe should be seeking not to "'detach' Russia from China" but "rather to 'isolate Russia with China's help' and working together with Beijing to force Russia to peace" in Ukraine and elsewhere and thus to "recreate a bipolar world" with the US and China as its centers (ridl.io/ru/geopoliticheskij-razvorot-pochemu-rossiya-opasnee-kitaya/).
In such a world, Washington and Beijing would be "capable of maintaining order by influencing their satellites and junior partners" and thus prevent a major conflict between themselves in much the same way the US and the USSR did successfully during the Cold War, Inozemtsev argues.
Indeed, he suggests, they would likely be able to do so even more successfully given that "China is not an ideological proselytizer bent on transforming the world, has a market economy, and is tied to the West by far stronger economic relations than the Soviet Union ever was," all things that would give the West greater influence.
In his article, the Russian analyst provides the economic bases for his argument, including both that Russia is far weaker than China and that Chinese and Western globalism are far more complementary than was true of the West and the USSR, an fact that means their competition need not be zero sum.
Inozemtsev acknowledges that "such a pivot may seem unrealistic: but suggests that "it is far more advantageous to the west than 'appeasing ' Russia and undermining the world order by openly acknowledging that altering international border by force as Moscow continue to try to do is something that the world can and will accept.
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