Russia’s war on Ukraine based on flawed logic, Chinese military scholar wrote in article scrubbed from the web
- Russia has chosen a path ‘long forsaken by human civilisation’, military scholar and Sino-Vietnam war veteran Gong Fangbin says
- Gong is among a small but growing number of Chinese intellectuals voicing scepticism about Moscow’s rationale behind invading Ukraine
“I still don’t see how any country would have dared to invade the world’s No 2 military power,” Gong Fangbin, a retired professor of the People’s Liberation Army National Defence University, wrote in a recent online article.
“What’s the real reason [for Moscow] to attack Ukraine? I think it’s because the Russian leaders have taken the wrong path for rejuvenation.”
The article, however, has since disappeared from the social media platform.
Gong confirmed to the Post that he wrote the article but declined a request for an interview.
Gong, a military veteran who fought in the China-Vietnam war of 1979, is among a small but growing number of Chinese intellectuals voicing scepticism about Moscow’s rationale for its military aggression against Kyiv, despite heavy censorship of the sharing of such views.
At a Beijing seminar in April, China’s ambassador to Ukraine between 2005 and 2007, Gao Yusheng, argued that Russia had shown signs of having lost the war and its global status was set to decline. A summary of his remarks, first published by news outlet ifeng.com in mid-May, was quickly censored.
But there are others making their opinions known. Yan Xuetong, dean of the Institute of International Relations at Tsinghua University, said earlier this month that China had not benefited from the war and Russia was set to pay “a huge price”.
China has gained nothing from Ukraine war, says leading scholar
As the war enters its third month, Beijing still refuses to condemn Russia’s act of aggression, despite mounting pressure from the US and its allies. It has also sought to rally international support to criticise the sweeping sanctions imposed on Russia, citing disruption to the global economy.
Military scholar Gong had argued in another article earlier this month that the Ukraine war underlined how foreign policy flexibility might suffer if it was too closely tied to domestic politics.
Failure to understand this, Gong argued, would lead one to also believe in the narrative that China’s economic development in the last 50 years owed much to Russia’s confrontation with the United States.
“If a country is full of convictions related to strategic barriers and buffer zones, it will tie itself to the vehicles of others and thus lose autonomy, consistency and necessary flexibility,” he warned.
Additional reporting by Jack Lau