As Russia was invading Ukraine, Chinese political scholar Zheng Yongnian wrote that the war in Ukraine will divert the strategic energy of the United States and that, “the geopolitical scales are tilting towards China again.”
Zheng is regarded as an advisor for the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) General Secretary Xi Jinping. According to Zheng, the new world order is unfolding along two lines: the eastward expansion of NATO and the sense of insecurity in Russia, and the rise of China and the U.S. preventive defenses against it. The current Russian military actions in Ukraine have tipped “the geopolitical scale in China’s favor again.”
Zheng considers that the European geopolitical dispute triggered by the war in Ukraine will greatly delay the shift of U.S. strategic efforts to the Indo-Pacific region. As long as China itself does not make strategic mistakes, not only will the United States not interrupt its modernization process, but China can play a more important role in the process of constructing the New World Order.
Zheng added that the United States is no longer able to maintain the original world order centered around a single superpower. In addition, the New World Order will develop towards diversification. “In today’s world, there is not only Putin’s Russia, but also Modi’s India, Erdoğan’s Turkey, and France and Germany of the European Union.” Western liberal ideology will continue to exist, but will no longer dominate the international order.
“In this situation, we need calmly to analyze the new changes and trends in the interaction between major countries and to be more rational and less emotional.”
Source: Central News Agency (Taiwan), February 27, 2022
https://www.cna.com.tw/news/acn/202202270133.aspx