Looking at the current progression of world politics from a long historical perspective often gives us a deeper understanding of the significance of current events. We are experiencing a process of global transformation (全球转型) at the turn of the 21st century. This is a critical turning point in a grand historical process that has lasted for at least two centuries and perhaps as long as five hundred years. The current Russia-Ukraine crisis, which has arisen from a complex environment over many years, and the related contemporary relations between major powers including China and Russia, are all set against the backdrop of this global transformation.

The Russia-Ukraine crisis, as the largest regional conflict since the end of the Cold War and which has already lasted for two years, is like a “catalyst,” “oscillator,” and “mirror,” reacting to the global transformation in an in-depth manner and shaping the future format of foreign strategy and major power relations including those of China and Russia in a comprehensive, systematic, and endogenous way. In this process, the complex interactions among major powers such as China, Russia, the United States, and Europe will not only directly affect the prospects of the Russia-Ukraine crisis, but will also inevitably have a profound impact on the significance and direction of the global transformation.

This shows us that we are facing a moment of unprecedented challenges and constructs which intertwine the past and present, and domestic and external concerns.   This is a topic that needs to be explored and explained through profound theoretical research and creative thinking.

This article attempts to explore the relationship between the following three ongoing international phenomena: first, the global transformation as a long historical process and its contemporary implications; second, the interaction between the global transformation and the Russia-Ukraine crisis starting from the turn of the century; and third, Sino-Russian cooperation in the context of transformation and crisis. It is hoped that this article’s preliminary exploration can provide new ideas for understanding the global transformation.

I. The debate on the issue of the “cyclical evolution of the international order” and its implications

In all studies on global transformations, researchers focus on the future direction of the international order. The past half-century has seen systematic and pioneering research in the fields of international political economy, sociology, and history, which have also set off thought-provoking controversies. It is necessary to briefly review the relevant directions such research has taken over the years.

Generally speaking, there are at least three areas of international research that focus on the historical changes in the international order.

The first type of research is represented by the works of Dr. Henry Kissinger, a world historian and international strategist who also has unparalleled experience in practical diplomacy. In his view, after the Thirty Years’ War in Europe, the Westphalian system that emerged in 1648 changed the traditional view of the order of human society from an order based solely on “imperial unity” or “religious unity.” “The Westphalian concept took multiplicity as its starting point and drew a variety of multiple societies, each accepted as a reality, into a common search for order. By the mid-twentieth century, this international system was in place on every continent; it remains the scaffolding of international order such as it now exists.”¹ Kissinger explains how Europe made “pluralism [take] on the characteristics of a model of world order,” saying: “It is not that European monarchs were more immune to the glories of conquest than their counterparts in other civilizations or more committed to an ideal of diversity in the abstract. Rather, they lacked the strength to impose their will on each other decisively. In time, pluralism took on the characteristics of a model of world order.”²

In the system described by Kissinger, although the subsequent evolution of the international order has not consciously achieved the “restraint” against a backdrop of “pluralism” of the Westphalian system, the practice of constructing the international order, such as the Vienna Treaty in 1814, the Yalta Agreement in 1945, and at the end of the Cold War, has shown that the pluralistic and multipolar structure has indeed repeatedly avoided total war by maintaining balance. For example, although the Vienna System was not so “democratic” and was a result of “great power coordination” among the monarchical or semi-monarchical Eurasian powers, it avoided the outbreak of a pan-European war and generally maintained what Friedrich Engels called the “Hundred Years of Peace.” Although the Yalta system ushered in half a century of the terrible Cold War, it still maintained a demarcated and confrontational coexistence between the major powers with different social systems, such as the United States and the Soviet Union. Even after the end of the Cold War, although the United States was, for a time, the only dominant power, the trend toward multipolarity and diversity emerged at the turn of the century, and people from all over the world still maintained their expectations for peaceful development on this basis.

In short, Kissinger starts from the recognition and respect for the actual state of international “multipolarity” and “pluralism,” and through the application of the carefully crafted “balance of power” strategy and based on the foundational concept of “the unity of legitimacy and power,” advocates the pursuit of peaceful coexistence among various aspirations for “different types of world order” in an international environment where “there has never been a truly global ‘world order.’” It is in this sense that Niall Ferguson argues that Kissinger is not only a realist, but also an idealist. Although this statement is inconsistent with the definitions used in traditional international political theory, it makes sense.³

The second type of research is from a group of researchers who are regarded by the international academic community as engaged in the study of the “modern world system” or the “evolutionary cycle of world order.” These researchers include Fernand Braudel, a representative figure of the French Annales School, and Giovanni Arrighi, a representative scholar of Italian “world-system theory.” Although there are debates within this group, the author believes that this group should also include Immanuel Wallerstein, an American left-wing historical sociologist and author of the four-volume The Modern World-System.

The core idea of this group is that in the many changes the international order has undergone since modern times, the key moment was the rise of a capitalist system with Western hegemonic powers at its core. The result of the “Thirty Years’ War” in Europe in the 17th century was not only what Kissinger called “multiplicity within Europe,” but also the rise of the Dutch Republic. The result of the Napoleonic Wars after the French Revolution was not only the coexistence of the great powers of the Vienna system, but also the rise of the British Empire. The Second World War led to the creation of the UN Security Council with a coexistence of five major powers, but the United States not only achieved a more dominant world hegemony than the Soviet Union at the time, but even after the end of the Cold War and a global shift towards multipolarity and diversity, the United States remains the most powerful hegemonic country today.⁴ In other words, the normal state in the context of a changing world order is the coexistence of multipolarity and international centers of power.

In the preface to the first volume of the 2011 English edition of The Modern World-System, Wallerstein made a confession: “I was following a bad idea—that I might better understand the trajectories of the “new nations” of the twentieth century by studying how the nations that had been “new” in the sixteenth century had come to “develop.” This was a bad idea because it presumed that all states followed parallel independent paths to something called “development.”⁵ Although Wallerstein later revised his original ideas, he insisted on observing this issue from the perspective of the “world-system” rather than from the perspective of a single country. Wallerstein criticized Max Weber’s sociological theory, especially the view that the Protestant ethic gave rise to capitalism, saying: “The values in question followed rather than preceded the economic transformations that were occurring. I suggested that it was only by placing the various states in their relation to each other that we could understand why it was that some became the leaders in productive efficiency and the accumulation of wealth.”⁶ At the same time, Wallerstein recognizes Stephen Mennell’s assessment of “world-system” research. Mennell points out that Wallerstein’s work “is in effect a massive attempt at an historical disproof of David Ricardo’s apparently timeless “law of comparative advantage,” showing how initially small inequalities in ties of interdependence between societies and economies have been magnified over time to produce massive differences today between what are euphemistically called the ‘North’ and the ‘South.’” Furthermore, despite their differences, Wallerstein and Braudel both agree that there is “…no evidence of an autonomous economic development of capitalism, wholly detached from the state and politics. They show rather that the affairs of the state and of capitalism are inextricably interrelated, that they are only two sides, or aspects, of one and the same historical development.”⁷ It can be seen that the reason why the views of Wallerstein and the French Annales School have caused controversy is that they are no longer limited to the issue of the evolution and supersession of the world system. They have systematically and intrinsically questioned and challenged the most basic parts of Western political economy theory.

It is worth noting that Giovanni Arrighi inherited Braudel’s views and more systematically emphasized that every transfer of hegemony is also accompanied by the following phenomena:

First, total war—such as the Thirty Years’ War that accompanied the Westphalian system, the Napoleonic Wars that led to the Vienna system, and the Second World War that gave rise to the Yalta system.

Second, transition from financial expansion to decline—this is meant to contradict the traditional view that the entire capitalist system has developed over hundreds of years from industrial capitalism, through commercial capitalism, and then to financial capitalism. In fact, every hegemonic cycle from the Dutch Republic to the British Empire to U.S. hegemony has experienced the cyclical ups and downs of the transition from industrial capitalism to commercial capitalism to financial capitalism to varying degrees.

Third, a strong territorially based state—“The traditional view is that capitalism and the market economy are more or less the same thing; state power is the antithesis of both. Braudel [author’s note: should also include Wallerstein] holds that capitalism, from its emergence to its expansion, is completely dependent on state power and constitutes the reverse side of the market economy.”⁸ In fact, the idea of the Annales School that the “market economy does not equal capitalism” has profoundly influenced China’s reform and opening up process. Giovanni Arrighi concluded that every change in the international order is the product of the “trinity” of the three phenomena above: total war, transition of financial expansion to decline, and a strong territorially based state. There is no doubt that Arrighi’s historical summary of the changes in the world order is of direct relevance to the current global transformation.

It is particularly noteworthy that in 2009, Arrighi pointed out in the afterword to his 1999 book The Long Twentieth Century: Money, Power, and the Origins of Our Times that “while the possibility of a Western-led global empire remains, today, compared with 15 years ago, a world market society centered on East Asia seems more likely to be the result of the current global economic and political transformation… China has begun to replace the United States as the main driver of commercial and economic expansion in East Asia and beyond.”⁹

The third view is represented by the German historian Jürgen Osterhammel, an authoritative historian who challenges the above-mentioned “world system” and “world order cycle” theories. In the preface to the Chinese edition of his three-volume masterpiece The Transformation of the World: A Global History of the Nineteenth Century, published in 2010, he wrote: “I decided to write a history composed of countless small connections because this type of historical writing is relatively rare compared to works that expound grand theories.”¹⁰ The first type of “grand theory” historical works that Osterhammel is reluctant to associate with includes the work of Immanuel Wallerstein. In his later collection of essays, Global History, he said: “The last confrontation between world history and a sociology open to history took place in the 1970s and 1980s under the banner of ‘world system theory.’ The founder of the world system theory was Immanuel Wallerstein, an Africa expert and development theorist from the U.S. Wallerstein was one of the top social science scholars in the world at that time. He also gained a high reputation in the field of history through his dialogue with the great French historian Braudel. Because Wallerstein’s theory is rather mechanical and tied to a specific terminology, only a few historians accept the orthodoxy defended by Wallerstein and his followers.”¹¹ Osterhammel’s attitude towards Braudel is more reserved. He once wrote that Braudel, “in his history of capitalism and material life from the fifteenth to the eighteenth century, literally brought the whole world into view, as if it was nothing but a matter of course. Braudel was careful not to get drawn into debates about world history. His topic of interest was not the major shifts in science and technology, trade structures, or worldviews during this time frame, but the way societies and the networks within them functioned. It is surprising that Braudel’s panoramic vision has not been imitated by many others.”¹²

Although Osterhammel’s language is euphemistic, his position is clear. First, he explicitly states that his important work “abandoned regional divisions based on national, civilizational, or land space criteria.” Obviously, this is different from the view of Braudel and Wallerstein that the state, civilization, and territorial spaces must be observed and analyzed along with capitalist development in a holistic perspective. Second, Osterhammel admits that he “stresses the importance of colonialism and imperialism.”¹³ Obviously, this is significantly different from the Annales School and Wallerstein’s critical standpoint as regards colonialism. Third, from a methodological point of view, Osterhammel does not advocate over-emphasizing the predictive function of historical science. For example, Arrighi held that, after the turn of the 20th to 21st century, East Asia might become the world’s dominant force replacing Europe and the United States, while Osterhammel wrote more obscurely in his new book, Global History, that“There is nothing to predict: Asia’s future is its past.”¹⁴ In his view, Asia’s past history of “stagnation” is bound to foreshadow the difficulty it will face in progressing in the future. In addition, although Osterhammel did not completely deny the existence of temporal and spatial unities in the development of modern world history, and even made systematic arguments for what were in his view some important and common nodes in world history, the difference between him and the Annales School and Wallerstein was that he did not advocate viewing the world historical process as an interconnected and globally unified process. He also did not quite believe that such a grand, complex, diverse, and even repetitive world historical process would be dominated by some kind of innate destiny of “law” (something to which Braudel gives a heavy emphasis). On the contrary, he is more concerned with details, localities, diversity, contingency, asynchronicity, and multiple paths, rather than with macro-wholeness, uniformity of process, or the development of world history along a single line.

If we simply summarize the various different views on the “cyclical evolution of the international order” mentioned above, and focus on their mutual complementarities and mutual corrections, then we will propose the following preliminary judgment:

First, the process of world history is not one of evolution along a single line. Instead, it is full of contingency, diversity, and twists and turns. However, in different eras, different fields, and different levels, there are indeed historical trends and characteristics of the times that are connected in a whole, dialectically unified, and evolve in a spiral manner. The cyclical evolution of the international order is not a fabrication. It is a complex process that is not external to human initiative, a combination of subjective and objective factors, and constantly inspired by history.

Second, since modern times, the evolution of the international order has presented two basic characteristics: On the one hand, each change of the international order has moved towards multipolarity and diversity, but there remain centers of power in a global sense. This coexistence of “multipolarity” and “centers of power” is the key to understanding the evolution of the international order. On the other hand, almost every change in the international order is the product of the “trinity” of “total war,” “transition of financial expansion to decline,” and “the emergence of a dominant power.” This provides a very important reference for observing the current evolution of the international order.

Third, the evolution and supersession of the international order at the turn of the 21st century may herald a “change of track.” In other words, it is not as it was in the past that only Western civilized countries can dominate the world. Rather, in an unprecedented change, power centers outside the Western civilization may become candidates to replace current power centers under certain conditions.

Fourth, we cannot ignore the need to think systematically and thoughtfully about future changes from a broader, more diverse, and multi-dimensional perspective that takes in more lines of advance and allows for recurrence, while encompassing more fields, more cases, and knowledge from more disciplines, rather than indulging in so-called “predictions” that lack any basis and are subjective and arbitrary. When thinking about the complex issues related to the change of the international order, we should avoid “premature advancement” when conditions are not yet mature or the cost is too high, and be highly vigilant about the “absence” of influence of the dominant countries in key areas in the context of international chaos. The highly uncertain nature of global transformation processes necessitates this attitude.

II. The interaction between the contemporary global transformation and the Russia-Ukraine conflict

The Russia-Ukraine conflict is a “mirror” that reflects the global transformation since the turn of the century. This crisis highlights the issues confronting the global transformation at this critical moment. It is necessary to conduct a thorough analysis of the crisis, comprehensively and objectively assess the role and impact of this conflict on the current global transformation, objectively separate the true from the false in the psychological perspectives and narrative systems arising from the interaction between transformation and crisis, deeply explore the profound structural changes brought about by the global transformation process at this stage, and comprehensively collate the key phenomena in this crisis and transformation—the actual trends of the process of globalization. Only in this way can we respond to the challenges of the transformation and truly find a way out of large-scale conflicts such as the Russia-Ukraine crisis. The author believes that the Russia-Ukraine conflict has a profound impact on contemporary global transformation in at least the following four aspects.

(i) The conflict accelerates the pace of global transformation, but also breeds a “decisive battle mentality”

The outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine conflict has greatly accelerated the pace of the global transformation. It has not only ruthlessly revealed various contradictions, but also catalyzed a surge in “decisive battle mentality” among countries.

Adopting a vertical linear perspective, Professor Barry Buzan of the London School of Economics and Political Science proposed that the events from Western colonialism in the 19th century, the United States’ dominance in world affairs after World War II, and the United States’ global hegemony after the Cold War, to the emergence of a “decentralized” historical trend at the turn of the 21st century have marked the gradual formation of a long-term process of global transformation.¹⁵

From a horizontal system structure perspective, in the words of Andrei Tsygankov, a Russian scholar living in the United States, global transformation refers to a systematic complex of three structural processes: changes in the international order; evolution of domestic institutions; and the foreign strategy and international relations that connect the two.¹⁶

Judging from the motivations of the opposing parties, it goes without saying that the Russia-Ukraine conflict affects the “global transformation” from both “vertical” and “horizontal” perspectives.

In terms of domestic transformation, Russia and Ukraine represent two different social transformations. The former focuses on its own territory, while the latter focuses on Europe and the United States; the former adheres to local autonomy, while the latter rushes towards the “democratic camp.” People with different ideals cannot work for the same end. The Russia-Ukraine conflict originated from differences in internal institutional choices, and will inevitably further strengthen the view of internal institution building as the basis for resolving external conflicts.

From a regional perspective, in 2014, I wrote an article in the Chinese Journal of European Studies, proposing that although the integration promoted by the European Union and the Eurasian Economic Union are both in line with market principles and pay attention to internal equality to varying degrees, their competition for Ukraine reflects the defects of exclusive regional construction, which not only already caused the Crimean crisis, but would also inevitably affect the formation of the future geo-economic, political, and security structure of Europe.¹⁷

From a global perspective, Russia wants to put an end to the unipolar world, but the United States and Europe are trying hard to maintain Western dominance. As President Putin said at the Valdai Discussion Club meeting on October 5, 2023, “Special military operations have nothing to do with territorial occupation, or even geopolitics [Author’s note: As I understand it, ‘geopolitics’ here should refer to NATO’s eastward expansion], but rather with the reconstruction of the international order.”¹⁸ However, for the Western world, the issue of a change in the international order is not only about interests, but also about honor. At the West Point graduation ceremony in May 2014, President Obama stated: “Our military has no peer, … our economy remains the most dynamic on Earth, … we are the hub of alliances unrivaled in the history of nations… So the United States is and remains the one indispensable nation.  That has been true for the century passed and it will be true for the century to come.”¹⁹ From this standpoint, it is inevitable that the United States and Europe returned to their alliance and took a strong stand against Russia. Given their opposing views, which concern the overall international order, the two sides eventually found themselves in military conflict in the area with the most fragile security of the international structure—the relationship between Russia and NATO with Ukraine as the focal point. Judging from the consequences, this conflict has revealed the structural flaws in the existing international system—the existing functions of various global and regional organizations are still unable to prevent large-scale crises like the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Therefore, it is imperative to reform, improve, and strengthen the relevant fields. Otherwise, the world will not be at peace.

At the same time, this conflict has prompted people to more comprehensively consider how to reconcile the relationship between local changes and development and the wider environment of the external world. For example, a country has the right to independently handle its internal affairs and external development issues, but how should it coordinate with the external international environment? For example, a country has the right to choose its own external alliances. However, can the principles of independence and autonomy in a country’s handling of its own affairs coexist with the objective need of maintaining an appropriate spatial isolation and buffer zone between major powers as emphasized by geopolitics? For example, how can we reconcile the two basic principles of international law: the internationally recognized principle of a country’s territorial sovereignty and the respect for the right of the people within a country to self-determination? How did people mediate when conflicts and disputes arose between these principles in the Kosovo crisis and the Russia-Ukraine conflict? In short, how should the universal principles of reform, development, and independence emphasized in the early stages of the global transformation be applied in different situations after certain changes have occurred in the international environment, so as to reduce external resistance and avoid international conflicts? Obviously, the Russia-Ukraine conflict has sharply exposed the fact that these problems have long existed in the global transformation, but are still far from a resolution.

Objectively speaking, whether from the perspective of vertical linearity or horizontal system structure, whether from the perspective of grand objectives or from the perspective of the material basis and ideological and psychological conditions that are actually required to promote the global transformation, the contemporary global transformation is likely to be a protracted and relatively long historical process. However, the Russia-Ukraine conflict, a regional conflict that had been brewing for years, escalated into a large-scale military conflict in 2022, rapidly accelerating the pace of global transformation, which was originally seen as a “long and gradual process.” During the conflict, all kinds of hidden contradictions have been ruthlessly exposed, especially the life-and-death game on the battlefield, which coupled with the already widespread radical emotions, catalyzed a more general “decisive battle mentality.”

The motivations for this “decisive battle mentality” come from various places: driven by patriotic enthusiasm, driven by ideology, instigated by modern media, inspired by strategic policies, and fostered by party interests. In terms of the parties to the Russia-Ukraine conflict, even after Ukraine’s failed “Spring Counteroffensive” in 2023 and its shift to the “strategic defense,” there are still a considerable number of people who, regardless of the huge cost and national sacrifice, call for a complete victory over Russia on the battlefield. As for Russia, under the tremendous pressure of collective suppression from the West, senior elites have repeatedly stated that they will not rule out the use of tactical nuclear weapons to resolve the crisis. This was the case until Putin made it clear that the current situation was not a matter of life and death that required the use of nuclear weapons. Then, this stance gradually faded away. Even so, Russia’s original intention to decisively counter NATO’s eastward expansion has not changed. Even if they cannot accomplish that goal in one fell swoop, they hope to greatly accelerate the process and bring an early end to U.S. hegemony. The behavior of the Western countries is especially noteworthy. After the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine crisis, European and U.S. decision-making elites were not completely unrestrained. However, at least due to the absence of accurate predictions and careful planning, the crisis was allowed to escalate step by step, despite the threat of huge, unexpected risks. This point has long been criticized by European and American public opinion. Of the contributing factors, first, domestic electoral political considerations have greatly overwhelmed the objective and calm assessment of the risks of war. In this respect, Europe is particularly of note. When partisan disputes in the United States forced the suspension of aid to Ukraine in early 2024, the European Union stepped forward and, at a stroke, passed a 54 billion euro aid package to Ukraine. The EU’s move was not only an attempt at strategic autonomy, but to a considerable extent, it also uses the so-called “changing times” as an excuse to use support for Ukraine to signal its political ambition to take on regional and even global leadership, something it has long been prepared to do but had yet to take the decisive step. To this end, the EU completely ignored its deteriorating economy and public protests, and took risks contrary to the calm rationality of the European decision-making elites. A 2023 opinion piece in the Economist had already anticipated this trend, pointing out that “Europe, not America, is now Ukraine’s largest backer.”²⁰ Such a rare occurrence shows that the Russia-Ukraine conflict is the “fuel” for this “decisive battle mentality.”

(ii) The conflict promotes “re-transformation,” while ideological narratives distort this process

The second important impact of the Russia-Ukraine conflict is that its emergence has profoundly affected the “re-transformation” (再转型) process of the contemporary global transformation, but exclusive ideological narratives have become widespread, causing negative interference to global public opinion, and the positive connotation of “re-transformation” has been seriously distorted.

The global transformation since the end of the Cold War has undergone a profound “re-transformation” at the turn of the century.

In the experience of my generation, “transformation” means reform. After the end of the Cold War, the main goal of almost all planned economies was to shift from a highly centralized political and economic system in the direction of institutional reform centered on the market, democracy, and the rule of law, and learning from the West was the main method. At the same time, we also studied how the former Soviet Union and Eastern European countries reflected on their traditional systems and promoted reforms. This was one of the major causes for the formation of the academic field of Russian and Eurasian studies in China more than 40 years ago.

By the turn of the century, that is, in the second half of the 1990s and the first few years of the 21st century, reforms were still moving forward, but the environment was changing. At that time, Russia was faced with the eastward expansion of NATO, while China confronted the Taiwan Strait crisis; the East Asian financial crisis in 1997-1998, which was caused by the simultaneous influence of the International Monetary Fund and hot money from the West, actually occurred simultaneously in Russia; and in 1999, the United States bombed Russia’s ally Yugoslavia, and the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade struck by U.S. missiles at the same time. In short, external pressure at the turn of the century pushed China and Russia to move closer to each other without any intentional choice on their part.

In 2001, I was a visiting researcher at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University in the United States. David Calleo, then director of the European Department of the school and a U.S. authority on European issues, asked me in a conversation: “You always talk about ‘transformation,’ so does the United States itself need to ‘transform?’” In fact, at that time, it was not only David Calleo, but also a group of U.S. and European scholars who called for a reform of Western society itself, including through a large number of profound and serious academic criticisms. It suddenly dawned on me that transformation is actually a global process that encompasses the West, including the United States itself.

Since the “9/11” incident, and especially after the Iraq War in 2003, self-criticism in Western society has also deepened. At the same time, however, the neo-conservative political elites in the United States have done the opposite, loudly advocating the promotion of ideology, a return to traditional Western values, and using tough measures to promote democracy around the world in order to safeguard the geopolitical interests of the United States. The expansion of American hegemony under the domination of neo-conservatism is somewhat similar to Leon Trotsky’s advocacy of “permanent revolution.” In fact, although the two are polar opposites, they do have some connections in the history of thought. Soon after the 9/11 incident, waves of “color revolutions” swept across Eurasia. In 1994, a time of harmonious relations between Russia and the West made the signing of the Budapest Agreement possible, by which Ukraine transferred its strategic nuclear weapons to Moscow. However, after several rounds of “color revolutions” at the beginning of the new century, the original intention of the “transitional countries” to learn about market economics and democracy suffered serious setbacks. Although countries like Russia and Ukraine are both in the process of “reform and transformation,” they have already parted ways due to the influence of the complex international environment. There is no doubt that the “color revolutions” were a major background factor for promoting the “re-transformation” of the global transformation.

The author clearly remembers that between 2003 and 2004, Putin pushed for strengthening the power of the central government in the country, taking back the autonomy that had been given to local governments, and arresting Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the president of Yukos, Russia’s largest private company, which controlled a large amount of national strategic resources. Around the same time, China established the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council in 2003 to plan the development of state-owned enterprises at home and abroad. At the same time, a major economic debate on “the advance of the state and retreat of the private sector” emerged. Obviously, this is a change compared with the general atmosphere of “learning from the West” that prevailed in the 1980s and 1990s. China and Russia have undergone a “re-transformation” that emphasizes the combination of autonomy and openness reforms. Against the backdrop of this trend, Ukraine, located at the westernmost end of the junction of Eurasia and Eastern and Western civilizations, was gradually moving closer to Europe and the United States.

In the 2020s, as the Russia-Ukraine crisis worsened, the Cold War ideology of “democracy versus authoritarianism” resurfaced and became the main tool for rebuilding and expanding the U.S.-European military alliance in the Russia-Ukraine conflict. After 2022, as the Russia-Ukraine conflict escalated into a large-scale military confrontation, public opinion dominated by European and U.S. discourse further spread the narrative of “the confrontation between democracy and authoritarianism,” making it an essential narrative for countries involved in the conflict to mobilize domestic forces and confront Russia, and allowing the ideological Cold War-style confrontation to seemingly return to the mainstream.

The facts show us that European countries and the U.S.  have accumulated far more experience in democratic practice over several centuries than non-Western countries, and non-Western countries still have a long way to go in learning and improving their democratic systems. However, the specific democratic practices of European and American countries cannot necessarily be copied to non-Western countries. In the words of Francis Fukuyama, the national institutions of Denmark and the United Kingdom “are not something that any country can imitate.”²¹ Although the construction of democracy in non-Western countries does require certain external conditions, this does not mean that democracy can be forcibly introduced from the outside. Whether democratic or authoritarian, when the “sacred goals” of different internal governance systems are used as geopolitical tools for external expansion, the result is bound to be bloody conflicts and brutal wars. On the one hand, in times of international turmoil and frequent crises, there is a widespread resurgence of nationalism and a re-strengthening of state and government power. Preventing this from triggering and intensifying international disputes not only requires control and regulation at the strategic and policy levels, but also further improvement in the interpretation of theory. On the other hand, the chaos within the contemporary European and U.S. systems has seriously distorted the nature and image of “democracy” and “freedom,” which are common values and goals of mankind. It is really absurd to continue to forcibly implement the “export of democracy” under such circumstances.

In principle, I do not agree with the view of John Mearsheimer, an American realist theorist, that a clash of great powers inevitably leads to war. However, in his view, during the period of the United States’ unipolar hegemony starting at the end of the Cold War, the internal transformation of countries under the guidance of liberal principles could still be promoted, and the development trend toward multipolarization could also be tolerated. However, once the trend of multipolarization among emerging powers strengthens, the tension between local autonomy and the “universality” of liberalism will emerge, and the principles of liberalism will inevitably give way to the national interests and geopolitical interests of Europe and the United States themselves. To a certain extent, Mearsheimer’s sharp judgment that liberalism would be defeated in an encounter with nationalism and geopolitics reveals the crux of the problem as seen from one side.²²

In short, the trend of “re-transformation” in the process of the global transformation at the turn of the century was completely distorted into a narrative of ideological confrontation in the context of the life-and-death struggle between Russia and Ukraine. There is no doubt that this topic calls for an objective, rational, and powerful analysis. On the other hand, we should also take this opportunity to fight back by strengthening and deepening the practical and effective practice of democracy.

(iii) The conflict highlights “deep structural changes,” but international power dynamics remain fluid and intertwined

Another important function of the Russia-Ukraine conflict has been to reveal the “trends of deep structural change” in the global transformation. Overall, the international power structure is still interwoven in confrontation, mutually advancing and retreating on offense and defense. However, the emergence of many new phenomena has prompted researchers to adopt new concepts or expand the meanings of old concepts to interpret them. This article attempts to use keywords such as “semi-order” (半秩序) “non-partisanship” (不选边), “big triangle” (大三角), and “shift of focus” (转焦点) to express some deep-seated structural changes that have emerged through the Russia-Ukraine conflict and have had a significant impact.

1. “Semi-order”

What the Russia-Ukraine crisis first revealed was the state of “semi-order” that has prevailed in the international system since the end of the Cold War. A key difference between this “semi-order” state and the changes to the international order brought about by world wars and revolutions is that the changes to the international order after the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War took place under relatively peaceful conditions. Under conditions of war and revolution, as Joseph Stalin said, wherever the tanks go, they can establish their preferred system. However, the transformation of the international order under peaceful conditions is different.

On the one hand, existing international institutional mechanisms undergo many changes, but there are gaps and gray areas. For example, the most critical UN Security Council mechanism is still serving its function, but the function of the Security Council has been greatly weakened because the parties involved in the Russia-Ukraine conflict have different opinions. International mechanisms that once played a coordinating and managing role, such as the OSCE and the Minsk Agreement, have been marginalized one after another.

On the other hand, however, the “semi-order” state is different from the anarchic state in which no international institutional mechanisms are in effect: the framework of international institutional mechanisms still exists; the communication channels between major powers remain open; and there are many precedents for international crisis management to refer to. Recent information shows that all parties in the international community have high expectations that the functions of key international organizations will be restored, especially the World Trade Organization (WTO), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the World Bank (WB). The recent accession of Zhang Wencai, Vice President of the Export-Import Bank of China, to Managing Director and Chief Administrative Officer of the World Bank proves that promoting the institutionalization and reform of international relations is in keeping with the wishes of most countries. At the same time, it also shows that the current “semi-order” state also reveals that the operating structure of the international organizations and institutions is in a “semi-crisis” state. Not only does this structure urgently require change, but there remains great potential for promoting reform.

2. “Non-partisanship”

Many of the emerging powers, as typified by the BRICS countries, are ancient civilizations with rich historical traditions. Almost all BRICS countries and G20 emerging countries were once powerful countries that previously dominated their parts of the world. The gathering of emerging forces in the “second rise” (第二次崛起) in the context of great international changes²³ is still the key feature of today’s international power structure and contrasts with the relative decline of the West. Emerging countries are not only driving economic growth with unprecedented momentum, but also demonstrating long-term development potential. What is particularly striking is that, in the face of this series of long-lasting conflicts, from the conflict between Russia and Georgia in 2008, to the Crimean crisis in 2014, to the large-scale military conflict between Russia and Ukraine in 2022, the vast majority of emerging and developing countries have adopted a non-aligned, non-partisan, neutral diplomatic line. They are unwilling to follow their Western allies in confronting Russia, while at the same time, they clearly oppose war and advocate resolving conflicts through peaceful and political means. As the Economist article pointed out, if we look at the overall opinion of the international community concerning the Russia-Ukraine conflict, countries accounting for more than two-thirds of the world’s population advocate not taking sides and not imposing sanctions. This primarily refers to the BRICS countries, the SCO countries, most ASEAN countries, and other emerging economies and developing countries. In fact, speaking of the BRICS countries, this is not the first time they have refrained from taking sides or imposing sanctions. For example, as early as 1956, India condemned the U.S. and Britain for sending troops to the Suez Canal, but did not condemn the Soviet Union’s sending troops to Hungary in October 1956. This is a phenomenon of international history worthy of attention. In short, emerging and developing countries have a long history of pursuing peaceful neutrality and non-alignment. However, compared with the past, the actions of these countries with respect to the Russia-Ukraine crisis have particularly demonstrated their great potential to mature rapidly in the political and security fields.

3. Big triangle

Looking at the process since the turn of the century, closely related to the above changes, the trilateral and triangular relationships among major powers have also shown an objective trend of shifting from the traditional balance of power among major powers to a growing reliance on the countries of the Global South.²⁴

As conflicts in Eurasia intensified, European countries had hoped to exert influence through trilateral interactions between Russia, the United States, and Europe. For example, in 2008, the United States persuaded Ukraine and Georgia to join with NATO in an effort to suppress Russia. Germany and France stepped in to stop this. Later, during the “Five-Day War” between Russia and Georgia, France stepped in to mediate, aiming to use the trilateral interaction between the United States, Europe, and Russia to restrain the confrontation between the United States and Russia and maintain stability in Europe.

On the other hand, since the turn of the century, almost every new U.S. government has obsessed over gaining an advantage in the triangular relationship between the United States, Russia, and China by allying with Russia to contain China.²⁵ However, the situation changed suddenly after 2016. In 2017, the United States openly identified both China and Russia as its competitors, indicating that its original expectations for the triangular interaction between the United States, China, and Russia could not be achieved. At the same time, the escalation of the Russia-Ukraine conflict showed that Europe’s efforts to seek a balance through trilateral interaction between Europe, the United States, and Russia had also failed. Against this backdrop, the previously dynamic post-Cold War trilateral relations between Russia, the United States, and Europe and the triangular relations between the United States, China, and Russia became relatively fixed.

In contrast, the Global South has now become the focus of all parties. In other words, the South has increasingly become a pivotal third party between the opposing sides involved in major conflicts. This is a new phenomenon in international trilateral relations that emerged following the Russia-Ukraine conflict. There are two structural trends here: First, with the two parties in the Russia-Ukraine conflict in a state of confrontation, China opposes war and respects sovereignty and territorial integrity. At the same time, given the “complex historical context” of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, China advocates ensuring mutual security and opposes the unilateral pursuit of absolute security. In this tripartite structure, China stands together with the vast majority of emerging and developing countries.

The Russia-Ukraine conflict has presented an objective trend of very important structural changes in the trilateral relationship. The trilateral relationship between Russia, the United States, and Europe, which once worked, has transitioned to a new trilateral relationship framework after repeated setbacks. The Western camp led by the United States supports Ukraine’s confrontation with Russia, while the “Global South” including China holds a strategic position of non-partisanship and non-alignment, advocating peace and autonomy. There is a very clear three-way balance of power between the three parties. The other trilateral relationships that exist in this overall context, such as China-U.S.-Russia, China-EU-Russia, China-U.S.-EU, and other multi-party groupings, also directly or indirectly affect the changes to the above-mentioned key trilateral relationship framework.

4. “Shift of focus”

The “shift of focus” here means that, consistent with the trend of structural changes in the above-mentioned trilateral relationship, the focus of contemporary conflicts and crises is shifting from east to west, exactly in contrast to the shift of the economic and political center of gravity to the east.

In recent years, as the Russia-Ukraine conflict has continued, the Gaza-Israel conflict has broken out, and the situation in the Taiwan Strait has become tense. These have become the three major conflict hotspots in the world. In the past, Western powers maintained a strategic balance in Europe and maintained the balance by creating and promoting wars and conflicts in Asia. Just as in the 1950s and 1960s, the Western powers maintained a balance of power in Europe, but launched the Korean War and the Vietnam War in Asia, extending their power games to Asia in order to maintain the balance in Europe. However, the situation is different now. This time, people saw that, for example, although the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) won the election in Taiwan, not only did the U.S. side clearly state that its policy of opposing “Taiwan independence” remained unchanged, but mainland China, while expressing its principled position of firmly opposing “Taiwan independence,” responded to the DPP victory with the most restrained attitude possible. This indicates that, although the situation between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait remains highly sensitive, it is not completely impossible to prevent accidental clashes or even larger-scale risks in the coming stage. An obvious contrast shown here is that, contrary to the past, Asia has temporarily maintained a state of peace, while it has proved difficult to end the Russia-Ukraine conflict in Eurasia and the Gaza-Israel conflict in the Middle East, so the wars continue. To a considerable extent, this new pattern reveals that, on the one hand, China-U.S. relations after the San Francisco Summit may enable the two countries to avoid confrontational conflicts for a period of time. Even if China-U.S. relations are only in a temporary period of stability, it will be beneficial to the security and development of Asia as a whole. On the other hand, reflecting public opinion and the will of the people at the current stage, even if other regions are in turmoil, Asia, as the main support for global economic growth at present and for the future, cannot afford chaos.

In short, Asia remains relatively stable, while Eurasia and the Middle East continue to be turbulent. If we compare regional patterns, this indicates a shift in the focus of conflict. From the deeper perspective of the balance of power, this is a sign of a shift in weight.

(iv) The conflict drives the transition to “plural globalizations,” but the threat of decoupling and disruption remains

In the first article of his book Lectures on Global History, Jurgen Osterhammel clearly states that it is an “unrealistic assumption” to believe that globalization has a uniform and clear definition. On this basis, when elaborating on the changes in the concept of “globalization” since the 1990s, he pointed out that by 2016, contrary to the previous process of globalization, what was prevalent was “trends of fragmentation and de-globalization, the retreat of democracy, and the emergence of a potent nationalism in many countries in the world.” Therefore, Osterhammel proposed that “the word globalization should often be understood in the plural.”²⁶ If, as in Osterhammel’s view, the new understanding of globalization in 2016 marked the beginning of a new stage, then 2022, when the Russia-Ukraine conflict broke out on a large scale four or five years after the book was written, should be regarded as a special moment worthy of attention in the process of transformation from the singular “globalization” to a situation of “plural” globalizations.

The phenomenon of “plural globalizations,” greatly intensified by the Russo-Ukrainian conflict, has manifested itself in several ways.

First, the Russia-Ukraine conflict and the subsequent severe Western sanctions against Russia have caused large-scale disruptions to traditional production, logistics, and financial chains in Eurasia and even on a larger scale. At the same time, they have also given rise to the creation of new industrial forms, the development of new trade channels, the adoption of new payment methods, and the exploration of new directions for regional cooperation. On the one hand, the reorganization of the geo-economic structure, with the development and opening up of Far Eastern Siberia as its fulcrum and symbolized by the eastward shift of Russia’s entire economy, is not limited to Russia and China, but includes vast areas of the Middle East, Central Asia, South Asia, and Southeast Asia. The formation of such a grand new geo-economic pattern differs from the traditional globalization that transcends national sovereignty. It will place more emphasis on sovereignty and adherence to local interests. This means that the above-mentioned regions and countries must promote regional and global cooperation in a more complex and diverse environment than in the past, needing to both open up to the outside world and safeguard their sovereignty. In this process, it will be much more difficult to attempt reforms. On the other hand, as globalization faces challenges and is forced to change course, will Russia, which was the first to absorb the shock, retreat to its “fortress” and cut off exchanges with the outside, or will it do everything possible to continue to maintain contact with the world’s major markets? Judging from the situation at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum in June 2023, even under such difficult conditions as prevailed at that time, Putin was unwilling to rewind history. He publicly announced that he would never follow the old path of the former Soviet Union’s closed-door policy, but instead advocated continued openness. In the 1990s, when I was conducting collaborative research at the Moscow Institute of Experts [莫莫斯科专家研究所, it is not clear what specific institution this refers to], I had the opportunity to observe the work of Elvira Nabiullina, an outstanding young expert at the time. Now governor of the Central Bank of Russia, she insists on maintaining the operation of the Russian economy through a market economy before all else, and her biggest supporter is Russian President Putin. This can be seen as a manifestation of “plural globalizations” set against the backdrop of the impact of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, even though it is only an expression of the position of one major power and has not yet been truly realized on a global scale.

Second, after the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the energy crisis that spread across Europe and the food crisis that impacted developing countries caused great panic. When the shock of the ‘Trump phenomenon’ that occurred in 2016 was fresh in everyone’s minds, this new wave of turmoil had a huge impact on world markets that were still feeling the effects of the pandemic. Since then, with the shift of the focus of Russia’s energy supply from Europe to Asia and its strengthening of cooperation with the Middle East, especially the Russian announcement that energy transactions would be settled in rubles rather than U.S. dollars or euros, it seems that a new international trade settlement method anchored on energy commodities is being explored as a possible future pattern and development path in unexpected ways. Compared with the introduction of the euro at the turn of the century and the challenge that the Japanese yen subsequently attempted to mount against the international financial system centered on the U.S. dollar, the changes in the international monetary structure brought about by the Russia-Ukraine conflict, although far from fully prepared and relatively limited in scale, have created imaginative expectations for future international monetary cooperation among emerging countries. After energy, it is worth observing to what extent the improvement in food trade and self-sufficiency among major developing countries since the Russia-Ukraine crisis, especially the BRICS countries, will lead to a corresponding expansion in the scale of non-U.S. dollar currency settlements. Against the backdrop of the U.S. dollar’s continuing dominance, the formation of a multi-currency international cooperation network can be seen as another aspect of the gradual emergence of the phenomenon of “plural globalizations.”

Third, as a key part of the “singular globalization” process, the global emissions reduction and decarbonization process requires countries to reduce the proportion of their traditional energy use. However, as a major energy exporter, Russia must rely on the profits from its oil and gas trade to withstand the wave of sanctions. This situation will have a profound impact on Russia’s emissions reduction process. In addition, European countries also re-activated traditional energy sources including coal during the crisis. As the world’s largest exporter of LNG, the United States relies on LNG exports to support stable economic growth, and this is not a short-term demand. We can see that it is the Russia-Ukraine conflict, including the resulting comprehensive Western sanctions against Russia, that has promoted the formation of another layer of tension between the “singular globalization” with its emission reduction and decarbonization and “plural globalizations” that reverts to the continued maintenance of the traditional energy economy.

In short, the transition from “singular globalization” to “plural globalizations” is itself a very complicated process. What the Russia-Ukraine conflict reveals is not only the opposition between “singular globalization” under the “Washington Consensus” and “plural globalizations” under the trend of multipolarization, but also the fact that “plural globalizations” are not the opposite of “singular globalization.” Some paths of globalization are just a restart and re-configuration of the combination of certain regions and fields. There is a complex interaction between these two concepts. Furthermore, the problem is that the isolation and decoupling caused by hostility will inevitably continue to exist for an extended period.

Based on the changes described above, my preliminary judgment is:

First, the Russia-Ukraine conflict has become a stalemate, reflecting the fact that the global power structure underpinning it has likewise entered a stage of overall stalemate, with both sides attacking and defending but also being stuck together. Each side has its own strengths, but it is difficult to tell who is stronger.

In this stalemate, there are at least two issues that deserve attention: On the one hand, the concept of “community of common destiny for mankind” [人类文明共同体, referring to 人类命运共同体] clearly declares that the present era is no longer an era in which one ideology replaces another or one civilization replaces another. The 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union also advocated “peaceful coexistence” that year, but failed to avoid the shoe-banging incident at the United Nations General Assembly, nor the Cuban Missile Crisis. What it all comes down to is the failure to avoid a “zero-sum contest mindset” [相互埋葬意识]. Therefore, if we truly base ourselves on the concept of “a community of common destiny for mankind” and actually put it into practice, although we will inevitably experience unavoidable and even very cruel confrontations and will inevitably face waves of shocks, after a long period of hard work, there will still be opportunities and possibilities for “a bright future after a period of darkness.” On the other hand, China’s correct strategic line during the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression has left profound historical inspiration that remains to this day. Experts and scholars of the older generation often mention that many of their contemporaries read Mao Zedong’s On Protracted War and realized that it was impossible to take the route of a quick victory at that time, but it was even more impossible to capitulate. Therefore, they resolutely joined the War of Resistance with the unyielding determination to fight a protracted war. Times have changed, but the principles of On Protracted War remain our important theoretical and strategic basis as we face unprecedented challenges and need to make major choices among a number of possible prospects.

Second, ending the conflict between Russia and Ukraine by adopting the same logic as in the Korean War is one possible prospect.

A year and a half ago, I tried to explain the war in connection with Russia’s domestic institutional transformation: On the one hand, from the perspective of about two hundred years of history, every worldwide war (the European anti-Napoleonic War in 1812, World War I, and World War II) always ended with victory for Russia and the Soviet Union (the Soviet Union’s emergence in World War I can also be regarded as a major success) and the country’s national strength grew and its international status rose, but on the contrary, in the past two hundred years, Russia has almost always failed in wars with its neighboring countries, which have triggered major reforms in Russia. For example, the failure of the Crimean War in the 1850s led to major changes that lasted for many years, such as the Emancipation Reform of 1861 that abolished serfdom; the failure of the Russo-Japanese War in 1904 led to the constitutional reform in 1905; the failure of the Polish-Soviet War in 1920 indirectly led to the advent of the New Economic Policy in 1921; the Afghan War in 1979 led to Gorbachev’s reforms, and so on. At that time, I was trying to make a preliminary logical deduction concerning the relationship between war and domestic transformation. However, the situation of the Russia-Ukraine conflict is more complicated. In fact, no large-scale international war in the history of warfare can be used as a simple analogy. The first issue is that the Russia-Ukraine conflict is both a peripheral conflict and one that occurs in the clear context of all-out confrontation. Therefore, the outcome of this conflict may be a mixed bag of good and bad. The second issue is, although Russia has reversed its defeat on the battlefield, will the entirety of NATO, which is arrayed against it, be willing to publicly accept this fact? The fact that the EU continues to provide large-scale support to Ukraine in its confrontation and that the United States will soon release a new overall aid package for Ukraine this spring indicates that the war may continue in 2024 until the U.S. election. The third issue is that 2024 is not only a general election year for almost all the countries involved, but a number of interested countries will also have general elections. These factors are bound to affect the development trajectory of the Russia-Ukraine conflict in various ways, and may give rise to various possibilities. Even if the conflict ends in a way similar to the Korean War, that is, if Russia and Ukraine (Russia and NATO to be more precise) stop the war while deferring any final outcome for an extended time, will it lead to a development trend in Russian society that is different from the two situations described above? It could be that, after the conflict, the country will neither greatly increase its national strength and status, nor will it see major liberal reforms domestically triggered by its failure. Russia could instead continue in its current system for an extended time, continuing to follow the so-called “authoritarian line.” While doing its best to maintain stability and security, it will neither return to the highly centralized state of the former Soviet Union, nor move towards Western democracy. It will not be completely closed off and will even pursue openness and cooperation under very difficult conditions, but it will certainly not return to the “laissez-faire free economy” of the 1990s. Or perhaps, it will hover between the two possibilities mentioned above for a relatively long time. Of course, it should be noted that the possibility that the Russia-Ukraine conflict will end in the manner of the Korean War is only a hypothesis based on logical deduction, and other options cannot be ruled out under the influence of various unexpected factors, including the possibility that the conflict will rapidly expand in scale and spiral out of control.

Third, the Russia-Ukraine conflict also highlights China’s wisdom and foresight in choosing a diplomatic line of non-alignment, non-partisanship, fairness, justice, and peaceful development.

After the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, one much-discussed question was whether China had no choice but to fight back by forming its own alliances in the face of the current craze for forming cliques and factions. The other side of the issue is, given the tremendous achievements of 40 years of reform and opening up, and the huge and far-reaching economic, technological, social, cultural, and other ties between China and the West that continue to this day, can we return to the era of “biding our time and concealing our strength” at the end of the 20th century? Judging from its behavior during the Russia-Ukraine conflict, China has neither easily moved towards an alliance for confrontation nor returned to “biding its time and concealing its strength.” China is trying to follow a strategic path that is both independent and non-aligned, but adheres to principles and links its national aspirations with international peace, security, justice, and stability to the greatest extent possible. Compared with rushing towards an alliance of confrontation or simply advocating a return to the 1980s, the choice of the third route mentioned above will certainly be put to the test in more complex environments, and actions will be more difficult because greater delicacy and subtlety are needed. However, taking the long view, given China’s current international status, the responsibilities it should assume, and the capabilities China currently possesses, this is a more appropriate historical choice. At the beginning of the 20th century, the Russo-Japanese War broke out on Chinese territory. China at that time also maintained a “neutral” stance in diplomacy, but the corrupt Qing government was simply unable to keep powerful enemies out of the country and had no choice but to tolerate powerful neighbors fighting on its own land. On the eve of the end of World War II, the Kuomintang government also considered adopting a strategy of “neutral diplomacy.” In a diary entry in January 1945, Chiang Kai-shek wrote: “If I can be independent and neutral, then they (Author’s note: referring to the Soviet Union) will respect my neutrality.”²⁷ However, the Chiang government’s idea of a neutral diplomatic line was simply impossible to achieve given the country’s weak national strength and the successive intervention by the great powers of the time. Following the founding of New China, after summarizing the experiences and lessons of the “leaning to one side” period and going through the test of the extraordinary period of the “Cultural Revolution,” after the Third Plenum of the 11th Party Central Committee and accompanied by the advancement of reform and opening up and the continuous increase of national strength, China’s diplomacy truly embarked on a broad path of independence, fairness, justice, and non-alignment, taking peaceful development as its goal. An independent non-aligned policy is more than simple “neutrality.” Moreover, although this may seem like nothing more than a diplomatic route, it is in fact also a question of path selection in the complex process of global transformation. China strives to safeguard its own rights and interests and advocate peace among all nations by ensuring security, promoting development, upholding justice, and adopting peaceful and mutually beneficial methods.

III. Sino-Russia Cooperation and a Vision for the Future of the “Asian Mediterranean”

Sino-Russian cooperation needs to demonstrate its strong and profound penetration in key areas and core regions of the global transformation. The “Asia Mediterranean” is a significant concept that can reflect the current level and forward-looking nature of Sino-Russia cooperation.

At the end of the 20th century, French economist François Gipouloux proposed the concept of the “Asian Mediterranean.” He believes that the developing Western Pacific region—specifically referring to the vast area of coastal countries and regions in the Western Pacific from the Sea of Japan to the Malacca Strait—can, like the European Mediterranean, not only promote cooperation among countries through long-term economic prosperity and development, but also make contributions to mankind in various fields such as politics, society, and civilization building. Professor Gipouloux was also invited to give a lecture at East China Normal University at that time, and his monograph entitled The Asian Mediterranean had also been translated into Chinese and published in China.²⁸

Faced with the challenges of the cliques forming in the Asia-Pacific region (AUKUS, the Indo-Pacific Four, the Five Eyes Alliance, and NATO’s attempt to get involved in Asia), while not abandoning strengthening national defense to resist foreign enemies, we must also give play to our huge advantages in geo-economics, resist confrontation through the greatest possible cooperation, win the hearts of the people through win-win cooperation, and focus on building an inclusive and open region. These are the openings we can use to find new breakthroughs to get out of the current crisis. Gipouloux’s concept of the “Asian Mediterranean” has such a function: it conforms closely to the problems faced by the international transformation, connects the strategic needs of all parties, and is in line with the comprehensive interests of global and regional multilateral development. Of course, to achieve this goal, all parties will have to commit to extremely arduous and long-term efforts.

The objective basis for promoting the concept of the “Asian Mediterranean” is this: First, after the Russia-Ukraine conflict, Russia’s strategic choice to shift its economic focus to the east has provided new factors and very important opportunities for the regionalized construction (区域化构建) of the Asia-Pacific region. At the same time, the long-term growth trend in Asia is an optimistic sign for the whole world. Asia will need energy, food, environmental and agricultural products, clean water, and other bulk materials in the long term, as well as a vast market environment to be developed, and Russia is one of the most convenient sources for these things. There are huge opportunities and prospects for complementary cooperation between Russia and Western Pacific countries.

Second, while China and the United States are in a tense standoff in the current world situation, there is also a vast middle ground. This includes most countries in the middle that have to strike a balance between security and economic considerations. In recent years, China’s diplomatic advancement in the Asia-Pacific region has shown that, if managed properly, it may be possible to seize opportunities for mutually beneficial cooperation with countries that have been drawn into the fold of the United States. The important initiative recently proposed by Foreign Minister Wang Yi to promote the negotiations on the China-Japan-ROK Free Trade Area can be viewed as a milestone in such arrangements. This shows that, in order to curb the trend of some countries in the Asia-Pacific region joining with the United States in containing China, it is necessary to deal with the issue from the perspective of politics and regional security. At the same time, it is also completely necessary to use economic levers to find a solution. Objectively speaking, the stability of Sino-U.S. relations also has hopes for and requires this sort of new regional construction.

Third, not only does cooperation between Russia and the Asia-Pacific region need to be strengthened, but also, with the change in climate conditions, the opening of sea lanes through the Arctic makes it possible for the Western Pacific region to conduct exchanges with Europe through the northern channel of the Eurasian continent. In the past decade, the Center for Russian Studies where I work has participated in a multinational research project called “The Last Frontier,” which involves scholars from Russia, Norway, Singapore, South Korea, Japan, and subsequently Germany. My continued participation in this research project over the years has shown me the great enthusiasm of scholars and experts from various countries for connecting the economies of Europe and the Western Pacific region through the Northern Sea Route. Although the Russia-Ukraine conflict has complicated the international situation, the shift of Russia’s economy to the east, the development and opening up of the Far East and Siberia, and the gradual opening of the Northern Sea Route provide a rare strategic opportunity to promote Eurasian cooperation over the long term.

Fourth, one very important change since 2021 has been the regional cooperation framework established by the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). This regional bloc, led by ASEAN with active assistance from China, has many years of experience in developing cooperative relations with partners to the north. Over the years, Russia has also worked to develop in-depth relations with ASEAN countries. They have made remarkable progress in cooperation in economics, politics, science and technology, defense, and other fields. At the current low ebb of globalization, there is a need for regional construction like the “Asian Mediterranean” as a means to reinvigorate the momentum of globalization based on regional cooperation. Especially in the context of the emergence of cooperation mechanisms in different regions, proposing the concept of the “Asian Mediterranean” will help advance the process of the RCEP. In other words, if an effective economic cooperation zone can be established between Russia in the north and ASEAN in the south, it goes without saying that, from the perspective of China, which is located between these regions, the surrounding geopolitical environment will improve to a considerable extent. In addition, there will be a strong foundation and more space for further promoting cooperation in a wide range of areas. Therefore, the “Asian Mediterranean” offers an alternative long-term approach for us to re-evaluate the strategic position of cooperation with Russia based on the overall situation of the global transformation and our Eurasian strategy.

Fifth, China’s domestic and foreign economic circulation will gradually evolve from our position of being dominated by European and U.S. markets over the past four decades to striving to maintain our market share in Europe and the United States while seeking to leverage strategic fulcrums in continental Eurasia and the Western Pacific to balance and fill the gaps in the European and U.S. markets. The original intention of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) was to find a strategic breakthrough by working westward across the Eurasian continent. Although the Belt and Road Initiative has made progress in other areas over the years, there is still room for significant improvement in creating connections between Russia and the BRI. Sino-Russian cooperation not only can develop into areas deep within Eurasia, but also play an important role in promoting the development and cooperation between Russia and countries in the Western Pacific region. The further economic development and increased security assurance of China’s eastern coastal areas also require opportunities provided by “Asian Mediterranean”-style cooperation. Whether it is the acquisition of the Tumen River estuary, the development south from the Bohai Bay to the entire Chinese coastal space, or the stability of the two sides of the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea, the participation of Russian factors will be an inevitable trend. In terms of form, this starts with the economy, but as this situation develops, there will likely be opportunities in the security field and prospects for increased stability for the entire region.

As far as the development of China’s eastern coastal areas is concerned, the Tumen River region in northeast China already has a strong foundation for cooperation with Russia. The overall launch of the “Asian Mediterranean” will inevitably be conducive to the improvement of port conditions in Northeast China. With the deployment of Sino-Russian industrial joint development in the eastern coastal areas, the environment for the construction of large-scale deep-water ports in China’s eastern coastal areas, especially in the eastern coastal areas of Jiangsu, is also rapidly improving. As an essential part of north-south sea passage, this provides good infrastructure conditions that have already taken shape for future cooperation and development between Russia and the southern region of the Western Pacific. As early as 2007, Vladivostok had become a transshipment port for domestic trade goods for Heilongjiang. It is gratifying that in May 2023, the General Administration of Customs agreed to Jilin Province’s request to add Vladivostok Port as a transshipment port for domestic trade goods. This is an important step forward in China-Russia cooperation.

However, the Russia-Ukraine conflict continues, and the original cooperative ties in the Asia-Pacific region are facing severe challenges posed by decoupling and the severance of supply chains. Moreover, bringing out the willingness to cooperate and the potential for cooperation of the various parties described above is far from easy. It requires a long and difficult development process. However, future regional construction with the medium- and long-term goal of creating an “Asian Mediterranean” will not only bring new opportunities for Sino-Russian cooperation, but also, through the stable development of the Western Pacific zone, we can expect it to provide vitality and space for the process of global transformation for the entire Trans-Pacific region and even the entire world.