James Palmer (@BeijingPalmer): Quick thoughts on this interesting Hu Wei piece - https://uscnpm.org/2022/03/12/hu-wei-russia-ukraine-war-china-choice/
a) This is a cogent and I think accurate take on what China should do. b) It has little bearing on what China will do.
James Palmer (@BeijingPalmer): c) It's not coming from any position of power or government sanction - think of it as like, say, a professor writing a piece for a think tank. It's possible people might read it and be influenced by it, but it's not reflective of Chinese politics or govt position.
James Palmer (@BeijingPalmer): d) if Russia's invasion of Ukraine continues to fuck up Russia's place in the world and reassert Western unity, that's going to be used by experts in China to attempt to argue for a return to more cautious policies and approaches for a variety of personal reasons.
James Palmer (@BeijingPalmer): (Hu reads to me like a man who has a moral/political argument to make here too but is wisely framing it in the terms of power, influence, and pragmatism)
James Palmer (@BeijingPalmer): e) one of the underlying arguments that may end up having real power in Chinese internal discourse is 'the US and the West are stronger than we thought and not necessarily in decline.' The problem with that argument is that it implies the last decade of Chinese FP fucked up.
James Palmer (@BeijingPalmer): That makes it a particularly tricky case to make in the Xi-ist era, given who was in charge for that decade.