Ukraine should continue dialogue with China - scholar

First Vice-President of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Ukrainian Institute for Security Studies Volodymyr Horbulin believes Ukraine should continue dialogue with China in view of the Beijing’s stance on the non-use of nuclear weapons.

Horbulin expressed the opinion in an interview with Ukrinform.

He recalled that for Ukrainian science and the defense-industrial complex have long worked for China within the framework of military-technical cooperation projects, but the strategic nature of cooperation with China was not mentioned in the new National Security Strategy signed off in 2020. According to the scholar, to a certain extent this was a logical development, since during the Russo-Ukrainian war, China and Russia were getting closer in all areas, including defense.

"China knows how to balance – this is their tradition. Ukraine is learning to defend its national interests, although it is extremely difficult to turn this into a tradition amid a large-scale war. Russia’s big war of on Ukraine, among other things, led to the division in the world, and we de facto found ourselves in different camps with China. However, the dialogue never stopped," Horbulin noted.

In this context, the expert noted how revealing the episode was when Vladimir Putin announced his intention to amend Russia’s nuclear doctrine, which would allow the use of nuclear weapons in response to attacks by non-nuclear powers using conventional weapons.

"China, perhaps unexpectedly for some, issued a joint statement with 11 other states with a warning against the use of nuclear weapons. There is no doubt that the warnings were addressed to the dictator in the Kremlin. For us, this is evidence of the need to continue the dialogue – even when it seems to some to be a hopeless case," believes the first vice-president of the National Academy of Sciences.

As Ukrinform reported earlier, Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman Zhang Xiaogang said late September that China adheres to a consistent and predictable policy of nuclear deterrence, will not use its nuclear arsenal against non-nuclear states and neither will be the first to use nuclear weapons.