Opinion | Ukrainian President—a former comedian—is now staging a world-class Shakespearean tragedy

By Augustus K. Yeung

"As long as Washington takes a global policeman's dim view of countries with national interests different from its own, almost any perceptible difference anywhere could be made into a major issue." Said Prof Tom Plate of LMU.

Introduction

Since World War II, Washington has always been the epicenter of world power. There is this perspective in Washington that President Putin of Russia is "evil". Washington's former high-level insiders, Fiona Hill and Clifford G. Gaddy, the co-authors of a book on Mr. Putin, portrayed him as a Machiavellian.

Recently, Madeleine Albright, former Secretary of State, wrote in the New York Times. She, too, described Mr. Putin as having a sinister face, insinuating that he is a conspirator. Not worthy of public trust.

Presently, Russia is invading Ukraine. Isn't this proof that the Russian leader is a bad guy, and that by implication, the Americans are good policemen of the world?

And, in this conflict between Ukraine and Russia, will China be on the side of the "evil"?

The following article by Professor Tom Plate may help the readers solve these multi-national riddles.

Mr. Putin: Operative in the Kremlin

"Regarding the Ukraine crisis, suppose I were not the sunny optimist I try to be, but instead, a dark pessimist always anticipating the worst?"

Consider Russian President Vladimir Putin. Just try to stay optimistic after reading the depressing but immensely useful book, Mr. Putin: Operative In the Kremlin. Published by the Brookings Institution years ago, the book by Fiona Hill and Clifford G. Gaddy is a sprawling portrait of evil. As such, it caught the eye of high-level people in the US foreign policy establishment.

Putin, a former Soviet intelligence operative, comes across as a man so manifestly wired for no good that he could make Machiavelli look like the second coming of a teenage environmentalist.

What a package: nurtured in the shadows of the KGB over a 16-year career. Canny blackmailer. Conniving for years to suck Ukraine into the big belly of Mother Russia. Patient plotter of anti-Western warfare, whether via assaults by tank or technology. Master of political multiplicity.

President Biden, too, Buys the Book's Perspective

"Since 2000, Mr. Putin has been the ultimate international political performance artist," write Washington insiders and co-authors Gaddy and Hill (a widely respected US National Security Council official for the Russian and European portfolio now replanted at Brookings.)

That's the reason I … wonder whether a pessimist might make better sense of what will happen next in Ukraine...

In a 2013 Rolling Stone magazine interview, then vice-president Joe Biden specifically praised the book. "Insightful," he said, adding of Putin: "He's an interesting man." An understatement, indeed. When Biden, now US president, declared in a nationwide address late last week that he was convinced Russia would in time invade Ukraine, he startled the nation.

Switch to Asia: maybe I should re-examine my relatively optimistic perspective on China. After all, President Xi Jinping just staged a major spectacle of concurrence with Putin on a number of issues.

Suppose I were to become a Fiona Hill-level pessimist on China. How exactly would that look? Perhaps I would imagine that Xi has abandoned the traditional approach of grinding down Taiwan psychologically year after year and is now in a hurry, and so may seek to use the coming distraction of a Ukraine invasion to launch his forces against Taiwan…

China Has Been Careful Not to Interfere, As Usual

In the matter of Russia's stance on Ukraine, we must note that the Chinese government has been careful not to muddle its vaunted foreign policy of non-interference in the internal affairs of other nations with an overt endorsement of any invasion. And that is a good thing.

At the same time, anyone could make the point that, geopolitically, Ukraine is to Russian as North Korea is to China. Buffer countries make the nicest neighbors, don't they? Look at the United States: over Central America, it has insisted on suzerainty consistently since the 19th century. Under the Soviet Union, Moscow had the comfort of Eastern Europe standing by. So why shouldn't Beijing have big power sway in the South China Sea?

The link between Putin and Xi is less ideological than geopolitical – not global Leninism but time-honored Machiavellianism.

As long as Washington takes a global policeman's dim view of counties with national interests different from its own, almost any perceptible difference anywhere could be made into a major issue.

Cool Head and Careful Analysis Will Help Us to Understand…

Take, for example, the post-Cold War expansion of NATO membership towards Russia when Washington, in some eyes, had all but signaled that it would limit the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's expansion. Even Mikhail Gorbachev – the West's favorite former Soviet leader – saw this as a violation of the spirit of the assurances given to Moscow in 1990 by the West.

Is it a sign when we find that Germany, which historically should doubt the utility of warfare as much as anyone, is out in front in the anti-war campaign? Last week, Olaf Scholz, Germany's new chancellor laid it on the line in Moscow when he put it to Putin that today's leaders have an absolute obligation to avoid war.

"Notably, the utopian German philosopher Ernst Bloch (1885 – 1977) insisted that humanity must live by "the principle of hope" if we are to remain human... That's precisely why I stick with optimism, especially for Asia." ("Reason for optimism". By Tom Plate. South China Morning Post. Tuesday, February 22, 2022)

Conclusion

People or nations in power (such as the United States) tend to look "trustworthy": The newspapers and the images on TV all attest to the "fact" that President Putin is "invading" Ukraine. Or he is now feverishly responding to NATO's non-stop eastward expansion? As the Russians fearfully believe it.

Fortunately, in the UN. the Chinese ambassador is urging the two conflicting parties to stop fighting, start negotiating for a settlement, despite China does not buy Washington's perspective that Russia is "bullying" Ukraine.

Mr. Gorbachev, the naive former Russian president who was once coaxed into believing Washington (as a peace-loving and trustworthy nation) by President Ronald Regan and Margaret Thatcher, former British Prime Minister, who had teamed up against Russia, successfully convinced the Russian president into "freeing up" the Soviet Union and giving up its nuclear weapons, leading to the rapid collapse of the bloc.

And when Gorbachev was visiting China, he almost succeeded in bringing China down with Russia--had it not been for the political shrewdness and sagacity of Deng Xiaoping. That was China's turning point.

Unlike China, President Zelensky of Ukraine, a professional comedian-turned politician, is as naïve as Gorbachev. And now—with President Putin's determination on squaring even with the US and its allies (NATO)--he is plunging his poor country into a Shakespearean tragedy.

 

The author is a freelance writer; formerly Adjunct Lecturer, taught MBA Philosophy of Management, and International Strategy, and online columnist of 3-D Corner (HKU SPACE), University of Hong Kong.

The views do not necessarily reflect those of DotDotNews.

Read more articles by Augustus K. Yeung:

Opinion | Beijing's feat wows IOC Chairman, but there's something else that he's not mentioned

Opinion | American journalists aboard China's high-speed train on scenic route to the Olympic venue