context: Ding Gang spoke at the 2019 Macro Situation Annual Forum and the 4th China Think Tank International Influence Forum on 16 Jan 2023. The tone was noticeably 'realist', disparaging popular ideas of a 'China solution'.
The Russia-Ukraine conflict will be crucial for grasping changes and invariance in the global pattern, argued Ding Gang 丁刚 People's Daily senior editor and Chongyang Institute senior researcher in a speech on 16 January. He added that it is hence important to gain an all-round, objective and accurate grasp of the relationship between change and invariance and to properly handle global affairs, relations between major powers, and crises in the future, stressing
- the primary game between change and invariance determines the game between the great powers and how the US and the entire West view the current international order
- this naturally affects how they view China's rise
- it indicates the future direction and intensity of the game between the grouped rise of new economies and the traditionally-defined developed countries
Ding sees the basic elements of the old IR system retaining important roles, including the US
- suppressing PRC manufacturing globally
- curbing exports of high-end chips to the PRC
- forming 'cliques'
- controlling the US' dominant position in the political and economic situation, NATO's continued eastward expansion and Russia's efforts to retake Ukraine through war.
These are difficult to change in the short term, but there are strengthening trends, namely
- the Russia-Ukraine conflict has confounded the expectations of many people
- the EU and NATO's support for Ukraine can be grasped as defending Western civilisation and the modern order established on its basis
No fundamental change has yet altered the old security order and security pattern
- to solve these problems today, we still have to go back to the previous system, which remains US-dominated, created post-war, and divided by spheres of influence
- states involved will be ever more dependent on the US and the West, which harms Sino-Japanese and Sino-ROK mutual trust
- the conflict bolsters the internal solidarity of the US with the EU, and the EU with NATO
- the conflict has changed Europeans' view of China and will profoundly impact their future policies towards it