Thread by @thomasdggeddes

🇨🇳-🇷🇺 relations have almost always been marked by a certain amount of mutual distrust.

Feng and Wen's critique of Putinism is a useful reminder that both sympathisers and sceptics of 🇷🇺 most likely coexist within the confines of Zhongnanhai.

A SUMMARY 🧵
sinification.substack.com/p/a-damning-cr…

🔹 The authors:

▫️ Feng Yujun (冯玉军): Director of the Centre for Russian and Central Asian Studies, Fudan Univ. Former CICIR analyst (1994 to 2016).

▫️ Wen Longjie (文龙杰): Postdoc researcher at Fudan Dev. Institute and Chief Kazakhstan correspondent, China News Service.

🔹Summary:

1⃣ #Russia believes in the superiority of its culture and is on a Messianic mission to spread its conservative values to the rest of the world.

2⃣ Its turn towards conservatism was both a reaction against neoliberalism and a result of its failure to Westernise.

3⃣ Conservatism under #Putin and the values it supposedly upholds have no solid foundations and are more akin to a “discursive bubble” and an “empty shell”.

4⃣ #Russian conservatism is merely a tool for Moscow to advance its own political interests and gain support for its policies both domestically and abroad.

5⃣ #Moscow is also encouraging the current political polarisation of Western societies and using its status as a flag-bearer of conservatism to gain a following of sympathisers and apologists across the world.

6⃣ The “imperial logic” underlying its invasion of #Ukraine and its ambition to recover lost #Russian territories is not only alarming but has also shattered its long-advocated principle of the primacy of state sovereignty.

7⃣ If #Putin and #Russia do indeed seek to overturn the current US-led international order, then it should at least have a credible alternative to offer instead, but it does not.

8⃣ Worse, its economy, politics and society are beset with problems that have yet to be resolved. Russia has no viable development model to offer.

9⃣ The #UkraineRussiaWar has damaged Russia’s global image, undermined the appeal of its Messianic conservatism and is weakening its economic and political influence in the world.

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