Conflict and international politics analyst, expert in peace processes, Vicenç Fisas has just published Win-Win. The Chinese strategy to seduce the world (Akal) and Hegemonies, blocs and powers in the 21st century. The world order after the war in Ukraine ( Cataract). Fisas thinks that China will be key in resolving the conflict in Ukraine, but considers that the peace plan presented in recent days is still too vague.
The bulk of his latest book on China is an analysis of the speeches of its leaders. Do we need to resort to semantics to understand how Asian power works?
The Chinese mentality is to do things little by little and always think long term. This is why these speeches are important, they are all similar, but they contain key ideas that are transmitted from one to the other and evolve. Who builds a first vision of China in the world is Jiang Zemin, general secretary of the party between 1989 and 2002. It is in that period when the idea of ??commitment to world peace, cooperation and mutual benefit between countries is developed as formula to open up to the world. His successor, Hu Jintao, consolidates this idea.
At the last Congress of the Communist Party, in October 2022, Hu Jintao is unusually expelled from the meeting. Is this a reflection of the changes?
In fact, with the turn of the century, a leap is already perceived in the language of Chinese leaders. With the arrival of Xi Jinping in the general secretariat in 2012, the emphasis on representing China as a great power is absolute. We must be respected, he says again and again. We will never return to the century of humiliation [referring to the period of intervention in the country by the imperialist powers, Japan and Great Britain, between 1839 and 1949].
You talk in the book about seducing the world. Did they succeed?
They have enormous economic power and also good investment capacity. They are a technological and commercial power, and this has translated into geopolitics and diplomacy. It is also perceived in the votes at the UN. You can say yes, they have seduced the world, but it is a temporary seduction. It’s something that may change in a couple of decades. In Africa, for example, China has built the infrastructures that the European colonial metropolises did not. But he has done it through credit. The result is that these countries have become heavily indebted to China. This is not sustainable in the long term…
How credible is all this talk of peace and cooperation?
Only up to a point. In recent years, Chinese power has entered into contradictions, between what they say and what they do. They talk about peace, but their goal is to become a military power and year after year they have not stopped increasing military spending. They are already a military power in the Pacific, a world region that has become a powder keg and can explode at any moment for Taiwan. The United States has more than 80 military bases in the Indo-Pacific. They have agreed to sell five nuclear submarines to Australia. Japan has abandoned the limits it had on military spending. All this is stimulating an arms race in the area.
To what extent has the war in Ukraine altered the plans that the Chinese leaders had?
Just a few months ago, Xi Jinping said during an interview that Vladimir Putin is his best friend. Saying something like that is very strong. And I don’t know if it suits him. The Chinese president can make an easy reading of the West as a rival. But the truth is that China has many economic interests in Europe, and Europe is very positioned in this war. That should get you thinking…
Is China the key to ending this conflict?
Certainly. Xi Jinping can stop the war with a simple phone call. can do it
China has presented a ten-point peace plan that arouses Western suspicions. What opinion does it deserve?
It doesn’t seem like much to me. The first point is very abstract. If it is true that they believe in the territorial sovereignty of countries, it is not understood that they follow Putin’s game. It remains to be seen how far Xi Jinping is willing to go with this plan. In any case, it is good that they have taken a first step. But they have to go quickly to talk to Volodymyr Zelensky. If they don’t move forward, it means they don’t want to do it. And then all his speech about peace will be empty.
In Xi Jinping’s last visit to Moscow, Russia quickly said yes to this plan.
Russia can’t say no. Whatever China’s proposal is. The issue is in this first point that I mentioned before, which is the territorial integrity of Ukraine. China must explain how it understands it. If he is talking about withdrawing Russian troops from the area or leaving them there. He must explain whether they propose to return to the borders of 2014 [when Russia invaded Crimea and the regions of Donetsk and Luhansk). Nobody knows.
Guess they get to start these conversations. What contents would they have?
Well, I think the issue will be peace by territory. It will be to know what part of Ukraine is willing to cede to Russia. Or if one and the other agree to give a special status to these territories. Sooner or later, Europe will tire of sending more weapons. And Russia has the capacity to hold out for two more years. It will hold badly. But it will hold. Then the number of dead on both sides, and the hatred, will not have stopped growing. The current generation will no longer be able to reconcile.
