How Russian invasion of Ukraine could manifest the psyche of a potential neo-imperialist project of China?

On 23 February 2022, Putin made a public speech, revealing himself an extremely hateful, resentful figure who did not acknowledge the independence of Ukraine, before finally launching an invasion on Ukraine. Dubbed by Putin as "special military operation", the world has been stunned by large-scale inhuman violence caused by Putin and his military gang, many nations were immediate to impose economic sanctions and boycotts toward everything made in Putin's Russia. In response, Putin has become even more aggressive, deploying nuclear missiles warning about a war against the West, referring the West "empire of lies" rather than addressing his imperialist manifesto crashing.

Ultranationalist psyche of Putin's Russia has some supports, but mostly from autocratic leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Nicaragua, North Korea and Myanmar - which do not include the people of these nations. Yet, one country stands out - not just only from the leadership but even within the populace - is China. China has opposed all forms of sanctions on Russia, instructing media to promote sympathetic view about Russia on its aggression in Ukraine while censoring anti-war opinions. The war is also highly popular among Chinese, most cheer Russian invasion. Meanwhile, China has not officially released its support to whom, it has just abstained from voting in a UN resolution (which Russia vetoed) about the Russian invasion, but that doesn't matter when China has lifted many trade restrictions on Russia.

Yet one thing that will have to be taken: China is also watching it carefully to calculate a potential war against Taiwan - and this will require how the West handles the crisis in Ukraine. If the United States and its allies can't make it right, it will embolden Xi Jinping to roll back time for a medieval dream of reconquest.

A long history short of Chinese imperialism

China's expansionism has dated back since the ancient era, when China was still being divided between various warring states in an era known as Spring-Autumn Periods.

Map of China's Warring States.

During that era, various Chinese entities sought to fight for the domination of the Huaxia region, which also includes two major rivers, Yangtze and Yellow - which formed the core of ancient Chinese civilisation.

The Qin state triumphed in 220 BC, officially founded the Chinese nation, by naming itself "中国" (Zhongguo), which means "The Middle Kingdom". In the way, China sees itself the leader of human beings and others must accept Chinese power. And this is why Chinese idea of expansionism began. By clashing with the Yue tribes, who would go on to establish Vietnam, invading Korea and expanding westward, the Qin set a standard that the future Chinese dynasties would follow.

The Han dynasty marked China's first golden age. Under the Han, Korea and Vietnam were annexed, China expanded to Central Asia. The collapse of Han dynasty had led to the demise of China's first expansionist dream and fractured into the Three Kingdoms, only briefly unified, then divided, again and again until the Sui dynasty, a span of 361 years. During that era, China could only maintain full control of Vietnam.

The Sui dynasty proved to be short-lived, but Li Yuan, an aristocrat of the Sui dynasty, succeeded in founding the Tang dynasty, which would become the second golden age of China. The Tang dynasty also marked the greatest expansion of China, successfully conquered various territories like Korea, Vietnam, Tibet, Central Asia and even partial territories of what would become Mongolia, Laos and Burma. This allowed China to increase its economic wealth and military might, making it the most formidable in ancient time. China was also where ancient innovation really birthed under, and it appeared China would not just stop there, it was where the Silk Road begun.

The An Lushan rebellion in 755 proved costly and destructive, ruining the future of China and set it back for three centuries, and paved way for eventual demise of the Tang dynasty. With the collapse of Tang dynasty, China lost almost everything it gained, including the blowing defeat to the Vietnamese in 938. The new Song dynasty struggled to consolidate control before it fell to the Yuan dynasty. The Yuan dynasty was actually not a monolith Chinese dynasty - it is also part of a wider Mongol Empire founded by Genghis Khan. While it succeeded in restoring Chinese Empire's might, including conquering many territories used to be Chinese (Tibet, Central Asia, Korea) as well as incorporating some new ones (Kashmir, Burma), but because it functioned as a part of the greater Mongol Khans, it left a divisive legacy in modern China.

The Mongols were kicked out in 1368 and the Ming dynasty was founded under Emperor Hongwu. First years under Hongwu saw relative peace. Yongle, the next Emperor, wanted to emulate from his ancestors and invaded Vietnam. The Ming only succeeded in controlling Vietnam for 20 years, from 1407 to 1427 before it was removed by the Lam Sơn uprising. Overall, except for Vietnam, the Ming dynasty had largely stayed in the history as the dynasty with little interest about expanding, which qualified as a "peaceful" Chinese dynasty. In fact, the Ming even helped facilitate the Silk Road of the sea and helped the Koreans to fight the Japanese.

That peace was not to last. The Ming dynasty was toppled in 1644 and China was handed to the Manchu Qing dynasty. But differ from the Mongol Yuan, the Manchu Qing was assimilated to Chinese history and culture. The Manchus embraced a third golden era of Chinese expansionism (after the Han and Tang), with Chinese empire rapidly developed into an aggressive manner, conquering Taiwan, Mongolia, Central Asia, Tibet and fought wars against South and Southeast Asian nations also for colonial design. The Qing could have continued its expansions if not for the Brits to settle the Opium Wars. The demise of the Qing dynasty also came from it, and it would not withstand aggressions from other European empires and later Japan.

The new Republic of China in 1911 sought to follow the same pattern, but political turmoil prevented it from ever achieving the same status. When China later changed to the hand of the communists, the Communist Party initially refused to follow the same path, fighting in Korea as part of its attempt to halt American advance. Since 1960s, the situation changed when China invaded India twice, before it engaged in a bloody conflict with Vietnam in 1979 (later escalated to territorial wars from 1979-1989). The war with Vietnam coincided with economic reforms initiated by Deng Xiaoping, and since then, China has not fought again, but its economic muscle has reached zenith and fear of Chinese expansion has never waned.

The neo-imperialist psyche of China

Given the economic size of China, the country has also offered greater respect than that of megalomaniac Putin's regime in Russia. Still, there is a need to understand: China has never hidden its ambition to restore its long-lost empire.

As underlined by Tseng Hui-Yi, China had already published Map of National Shame in 20th century, and was endorsed by Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong. The idea is, China has lost lands to them and it must take back. Some of these lands were actually never controlled by Chinese, but rather tributary states. This means nations from Central Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia and East Asia are not independent states - they must be subverted and restored to Chinese control. Other Asian nations in West Asia can simply be left for Iran and Russia to wrestle.

Map of National Shame back in 1938, also including many territories not under Chinese control. It's worth noting that the map is just one of the very different versions of similar maps.

The foundation of "Map of National Shame", done in the time of the Republic, was sustained under the People's Republic. Expansionism, therefore, marked into the line of the Communist Party. Not just only seeing itself the true inheritor of Sun Yat-sen, the new PRC regime also offers a stance similar to that of Russia - it should rebuild its imperialist nature. Both Putin's Russia and CCP's China see themselves true successors of these nationalist claims. For Putin, it is about restoring Soviet power spanning from Germany to the Balkans that was lost after 1991; for Xi Jinping, it is to redraw the map in accordance to the Map of National Shame.

Another revisionist map of China, recently published in 2010, author unknown. This time, China lays claim to every Asian nations.

Unsurprisingly, imperialistic manner has also begun to make headway into the young people of China, who are now being taught with falsified historical versions of China. This ultimately led to the claim "everything is Chinese since ancient time", bearing with the grudge of Century of Humiliation, spanned from the first Opium War in 1840. Systematic brainwashing has also proved to be significant as now Chinese people are more willing to take arm and fight for what they thought to be the "legitimate territory of China". This is something far more than just a battle cry - it is an unexpected action from the PRC to enhance that nationalist orthography to sustain alive.

A more illustrated irredentist map by the Chinese government, built from the bulk of Map of National Shame.

As for the result, we have seen growing nationalist echoing claims over lands and lands of the other nations by Chinese nationals, in particular under Xi Jinping's reign. Scandals about Chinese nationalists' laying claims about nations like Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Vietnam have triggered public criticism and increased resentment against the government of China. Meanwhile, megalomaniac attempts to reconstruct the "Chinese Empire" has been ongoing, possibly by brainwashing population at home. This is not a great thing to enjoy for a country with such a gigantic economy.

A future conclusion

As we are watching Putin's invasion on Ukraine with horror due to Putin's ruthless tactics with his delusional "denazification", one thing to be sure - China is eager to continue approaching with the process. If Putin's war ends in a failure, it will be a problem for China to instigate a similar war with neighbour, which Taiwan will be the first on the hit list. If Putin can achieve success, Xi Jinping will be emboldened. As much as the West has imposed massive sanctions and joined by many nations around the world, the Chinese regime is quite impressed by how Putin can still speed up his brutal war machine and even defied sanctions, although this could be the worst hit for Russia. Easy to say, Putin has turned Russia into a pariah state, China will still support this pariah nation.

This put us to think about the future. A future where dictators show defiance for their aggressive imperialist plans, is what the people from the other nations must expect. Putin's aggression on Ukraine is setting that example. Xi Jinping admires that. Iranian regime has also shown its will to continue its wars as underlined by the systemic Supreme Leader. And there are also authoritarian nations like Belarus, Myanmar, North Korea, Cuba, Taliban and Venezuela willing to cheer Russia and China. Only this time, Putin will move into shadow for the main leader, Xi Jinping, to lead this dangerous order. This is not just a concern now - Douglas MacArthur, the veteran General who fought the Korean War, has long warned about the rise of an imperialist state settling within China in the near future under the Communist Party.

However, let's not loop all authoritarian nations at the same feather; there are also a number of authoritarian nations that do not appreciate Russian/Chinese and maybe Iranian control either, this includes the likes of Saudi Arabia, Poland, Bulgaria, the UAE, Brazil, Bahrain, Hungary, Vietnam, Colombia, Thailand and Turkey have shown no sign of welcoming either one of them too far. These authoritarian states are likely to provide something for the West to understand that: not all authoritarian nations are neo-imperialist, nor even ideological expansionist. In fact, these authoritarian nations could have been the fortress for the West to push for its perpetration against imperialist Russia and China.

China, currently, is not that stupid to play the same Ukraine textbook for Taiwan now, Beijing is, by far, smarter and more strategically thoughtful, it is aware about a war with Taiwan could be pretty deadly because of massive military perpetration of the island against China. But time doesn't tell - we must be aware that the lessons of pre-WWII experience still exists - and it is happening fast.