China not ready to confront the West: scholar

While China has been collaborating with Russia and at the same time carefully calculating the possible impact of this partnership on its ties with Western states, Beijing stratagems could mean that “China is not ready to confront the West”. TVP World’s guest Marcin Grabowski from the Jagiellonian University discusses the impact of Chinese foreign policy on the war in Ukraine.

“China perceives the West as violating its interests,” Grabowski said, referring to Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen’s visit to the U.S. on the turn of March and April this year.

“Despite this, China would not take the risk of weakening its trade relations with the West,” he added.

The scholar demonstrated how Russia perceived China as its protégé across decades and how this dynamic underwent an about-face in the early 2000s.

With Beijing’s One Belt, One Road initiative becoming a reality “Russia realized China played it and demonopolised Central Asia.”

“The war in Ukraine is just the next stage of removing Russia as a crucial player” from the area of Russian-Chinese competition.