Polish scholar: China-US relations are particularly important for European regional security

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Jointly promote global development and build a common future. From November 18 to 19, 2023, the first "Tongzhou Global Development Forum" hosted by Chinese Renmin University and co-organized by Chinese Renmin University and Tongzhou District People's Government was successfully held. Sławomir Majman, Deputy Director of the Institute for Security and International Development in Warsaw, Poland and former Director General of the Polish Information and Foreign Investment Agency, attended the conference and delivered a speech on "Sub-forum 4: Building Peace: Jointly Addressing New Challenges to Global Strategic Security".

▲ Slavomyr Mayiman

I would like to start by describing this era, but I can't describe it better than President Xi Jinping. Now we have very big risks and storms, and I fully agree with him when he recently met with Biden that our planet is big enough to accommodate two great powers, and it sounds a lot like what one of our 17th-century English philosophers said. On behalf of the Central European region, I would like to begin with a few words about the geopolitics and economics of the region, which has been a battleground in the past, and finally about the importance of security.

China has entered a new historical era, and I am from Central Europe, and I would like to talk about what China can do. First of all, I would like to quote from a Czechoslovak writer's description of Central and Eastern Europe 50 years ago: this era is neither particularly rich nor particularly poor, there is no extreme left or extreme right, nothing else bipolar has appeared, nothing particularly good and nothing particularly bad. This has been maintained for 50 years, which is a description of the Central and Eastern European region in the past.

China's entry into CEE was around 2012. Before the "16+1" mechanism, China decided to achieve economic and social changes, China proposed reform and opening up, put forward its own economic development plan, and Central and Eastern Europe also started its development process, but the difference is that China is a big country, and any number of big countries is very large. So, they ended up uniting 16 countries in Central and Eastern Europe. The United States is also a big country, and they did the same thing. Originally, there was no "16+1" region, there was no common history here, and there was not much cooperation between these countries.

It seems to me that only short-term opportunities for cooperation between countries exist in this region. During the First and Second World Wars, Germany captured Warsaw, and the writer describes that some Central and Eastern European countries were not united. Many of these countries in Central Europe are in a state of conflict and confrontation, and these Central and Eastern European countries are often victims of competition between major powers. Before that, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, then the United States, and then Russia, for a long time, there were many forces in Central and Eastern Europe that occupied and exerted very great influence. Now we see that the US strategy is global hegemony.

And Russia. Putin has also invaded Central and Eastern European countries in the past to maintain influence in the region. He used some extreme means to maintain their influence in Central and Eastern Europe, to show their determination, to maintain their influence in Central and Eastern Europe. The only less active power in Central and Eastern Europe is China. China only uses economic means, such as the Belt and Road Initiative, but there are really no other means. In this regard, we can say that official China is neutral about the Russian-Ukrainian war, and China's ideology and strategy are in line with Russia's, but there is still a lot of room for non-political relations: we don't want to politicize everything.

So, we still have a very good relationship with China. China and CEE face a number of common problems: we have to look at the architecture of Europe and what is Russia's place in the future architecture, what is its position, and how can we avoid mistakes? How can we find ways to solve mistakes? How to predict Russia's policies and how to anticipate trends in the region?

Now China is undergoing tremendous changes. In my opinion, China has gone through three stages: 1) in the first stage, we see that among all the big countries, China has benefited the most from globalization; 2) the new stage is also a process of deglobalization to a certain extent, in the era of Western hegemony, most of the modernization is equivalent to Westernization, and in our view, politically and economically, China is showing its modernization rather than Westernization; 3) Now we are seeing another new form and change, that is, the changes in China and the European Union. China devotes all its efforts to the development of the underdeveloped regions, that is, the countries of the Global South.

As I mentioned earlier, China's Global Security Initiative, the Global Civilization Initiative, and so on, which are not heard of by everyone in Europe, and scholars know about them, but most politicians do not know about them, because these initiatives are not for Europe, but for countries in the Global South and developing countries. When we talk about China's confidence, we mean that China has joined the SCO and BRICS, and now China has its own platform, its own development mechanism and organization, and China is the initiator and host. An Italian left-wing politician said that it is possible for China to achieve good development without bringing war and harming the environment, which is feasible in the 21st century.

Let's consider China-EU relations from the perspective of European security. There are a lot of policies in the world that are aimed at China and Europe, and these are also related to European policies, and some are related to soft power. On the other hand, there is the issue of demonization of China, and many people have concerns about China's development and have begun to demonize China.

For China, it is necessary to think about how to play a more important role in the region from the perspective of security. In fact, many factors in China and Europe are related to Sino-US relations and Sino-US competition, and many security issues are related to Russia. So, for our region, the main theme is security, and the relationship between China and the United States is actually very important to the security of the region. China should actually adopt more aggressive policies in order to capture more opportunities. For example, on Russia, it is more proactive, as it has been in the Middle East, and it is more involved in the economic life of the region.

(This article is based on shorthand and has not been reviewed by the author.) ）

Chongyang, the National People's Congress

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Established on January 19, 2013, Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies of Chinese University of China (Renmin University Chongyang) is the main funding project donated by Chongyang Investment to Chinese University and set up an education fund for operation.

As a new type of think tank with Chinese characteristics, Chongyang has hired dozens of former politicians, bankers, and well-known scholars from around the world as senior researchers, aiming to pay attention to reality, advise the country, and serve the people. At present, the Chongyang National People's Congress has 7 departments and 4 operation and management centers (the Center for Ecological Finance, the Center for Global Governance, the Center for China-US People-to-People Exchange, and the China-Russia Center for People-to-People Exchange). In recent years, the Chongyang National People's Congress has been highly recognized at home and abroad in the fields of financial development, global governance, major-country relations, and macroeconomic policy.

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