对话英文原文实录：

DW Richard Walker: Zhou Bo, thank you very much for joining DW here at the Munich security conference. Now, you're a former senior colonel in China's military and the PLA. You're a member of the Chinese delegation here, and we've heard from Wang yi, China's top diplomat, making a speech here. A very impactful speech, certainly. Let's pick up on one thing. He spoke about the importance of sovereignty and territorial integrity. He said, these are cornerstones of the international system. Now, I just want to be clear: should we understand that as a criticism, then, of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which was, of course, a breach of Ukraine's territorial integrity?

Zhou Bo: Well, China, as a country that is not fully re-united, certainly is more concerned with this issue of sovereignty. So we understand how sovereignty matters really, be it in China or in the rest of the world. Talking about this war, I'm sure Mr. Wang Yi is referring to the war in Ukraine. And clearly, I believe this is the violation of sovereignty of one country by another country. This is clear.

But I think China's thoughts on this issue, it just goes a bit further to the root causes. Because if you talk about a murder, an investigation always started from murder. But actually the murder was planned long time ago. Because we have some sympathies with Russia in knowing that the fundamental reason for Russia to take this kind of military action is because of NATO’s expansion. And actually, Russian leaders have been talking about this ever since the Soviet time, from Mikhail Gorbachev to Boris Yeltsin to President Putin. And what makes President Putin different from his predecessors? He'd not only give a warning, but he also carried it into action.

So then we have this question. Why would he do this? So people talk about the sphere of influence. Sphere of influence is a dirty word. But if Russia believes it has a sphere of influence that would like to defend it with military means, then there is a sphere of influence for Russia. And given the history of the two countries and think of  the great connectivity between these two countries, so I kind of know what Putin would look at this issue from this perspective, which of course doesn't mean he's right.

DW Richard Walker: But just to drill down into this argument, which we've heard from the Chinese side. So sort of accepting Russia's motivations, as you suggest, but doesn't this ignore the right of the people of Ukraine to choose what they want?

Zhou Bo: I think that it is really miserable to see the great atrocities that occurred in Ukraine. And this is the aftermath of the war. So to see the results, you of course need to know who actually has made this possible. That is the right way of thinking. But you also need to know why this has happened at all. And that is the root cause of this thing. We just sit simply look at these things in front of eyes without thinking about how it actually has happened. And without knowing how it has happened, you don't know how to resolve this eventually.

DW Richard Walker: But it is interesting to see, China has been very openly critical of what it sees, what you describe as NATO expansion into eastern Europe, but it has not been critical of Russia for the invasion. And you describe the invasion? Well, it is the murder, not the motive. It is the actual crime, not the reason for it. Why doesn't China simply say this is wrong?

Zhou Bo: I think China would put it in a more balanced or subtle way. Because by stressing the importance of sovereignty, I believe that China has already made its attitude clear. And I believe at this conference, Mr. Wang Yi has actually spent more time talking about the importance of sovereignty. And he talked about this as a principle. And he talked about this as found in the UN Charter. So I think this message should already be clear to all the people here. It cannot be misunderstood.

DW Richard Walker: But I'm still curious because it's still leaving it on the level of implication rather than outright, explicit language. Whereas China is very clearly using explicit language with respect to its criticism of the United States. So why is it holding back on Russia but not holding back on America?

Zhou Bo: Well, I think there is a difference indeed, in an attitude toward the United States and toward Russia, because we were taken differently by these two countries as well. We were taken as the primary competitor by United States, and we were taken as the strategic partner by Russia. Therefore, the attitude of these two countries are different toward China. And we have to consider China is also Russia's largest neighbor and vice versa. In this regard, we have to make sure that our relationship with Russia is a good one, is a sustainable one.

When you look at the China-Russian relationship, do not always judge it from the eyes of a third person. This relationship has to be put into context of bilateral relationship. But if you look at this from the bilateral relationship, then you would understand we really need to develop this relationship with Russia. Because we're not just a neighbor, because both of us have all what we need from each other. This kind of a good relationship should be good and normal state to state relationship. It should not be put on the test by other countries on something that China has nothing to do with. Being a Chinese, I sometimes feel flattered in that nowadays everything seems to be related to China. Even about this war in the heart of Europe, which has nothing to do with China.

But people would still say, which side do you want to take? And all your questions seem to be suggesting indirectly that China should have a clear cut position. And this actually is a kind of asking China to take a side. And then we have this question whether China would be that serious mediator.

This is what I learned at this conference: could China just persuade Russia, make use of your influence towards what Russia should or should not do. And then it even give people some imagination as to how a similar conflict might occur in Taiwan Strait. So all these things what I mentioned is because this war has nothing to do with China. But still it invites so many people's imagination or discussion about the role of China. In the one aspect, this is good. This shows that China is really powerful, China is really important. And China also wants to play this role in a responsible manner.

DW Richard Walker: So Wang Yi did say that China will soon present a peace proposal. So it is becoming evident China is prepared to become quite active in the search for a political solution. What can we expect in that proposal?

Zhou Bo: Well, I'm not so sure what are the details of his proposal. But as a Chinese, I believe I share the same feeling that this war is not in China's interest. If it can stop immediately, we would be most happy. But we know it won't stop. Probably not at all this year. And so how long this war will last, nobody knows, but I don't believe right now we are seeing de-escalation of the situation. We're actually seeing escalation of the situation. Because from all what I heard at the Munich Security conference, the west is adamantly supportive of Ukraine. And they have expressed that they would support Ukraine by all means. But on the other hand, Russia could not be defeated. So people talk about defeating Russia, but in what context? Russia will still remain a large country with the largest nuclear arsenal. So I see a stalemate. Putin will not win the war. But he can hardly lose the war. So what would happen then? It is a miserable situation.

DW Richard Walker: Do you think Putin might use nuclear weapons?

Zhou Bo: I don't know, but I worry about this. So that is why I'm the first Chinese who talked he should not use nuclear weapon.

DW Richard Walker: When Olaf Schulz, the German chancellor was in Beijing, he spoke to Xi Jinping. And there was a statement that came out also from Xi Jinping criticizing nuclear threats even. Is China prepared to use influence on Moscow to at least not go to that grim step of using nuclear weapons?

Zhou Bo: I think China has already played a pivotal role in dissuading any possible use of nuclear weapons by Russia. I'm only a former PLA officer, I wrote this opinion: I know the relationship between our two countries are good, but this is about humanity. Nuclear weapons should not be used in any cases. So I wrote it. But I was most happy that my president talked about it in a week's time. And the German chancellor Schulz said that even with just this agreement, his visit to China was worthwhile. And my president in his bilateral talks with president Biden at the G20, reiterated China’s clear cut position about no use of nuclear weapon. And this is not only China's position, this is Russia's own promise. Because in a joint statement by five nuclear weapon states, they have made a joint statement that a nuclear war cannot be won. So therefore should not be fought. This is Russia's own promise.

DW Richard Walker: you mentioned that the prospect of a potential conflict in the Taiwan Straits, and also referred to China as a not united country. Because in the view of Beijing, Taiwan should be reunified with China. There have obviously been serious tensions there in recent months. Wang Yi, again from his speech, he was asked at the very end whether he could reassure the people, the delegates here in Munich, that China is not planning an imminent attack on Taiwan. He dodged the question. He essentially turned it around and put the blame on the Taiwanese government, accusing it of being separatist. Why did he dodge that question? Why can't he say, don't worry, we're not going to attack, at least in the next few years?

Zhou Bo: I cannot predict what is on his mind. But I know, and I would like your people to know that China has never laid down a timetable for reunification with Taiwan. This is the first thing. The second thing is, defense budget, like geography, would not lie. What do I mean by that? Normally, if you are worried about your security environment, you would increase defense budget. And China's defense budget this year, that was announced after this war, was still less than 2%, like in decades. Remember, this is announced after the war. This war in Europe didn't change China's mentality. China still remains calm, although it has a lot of pressures, although in our 20th congress report, we talked about the high wind, the heavy storm. So China's confidence about its own security environment matters even to the rest of the world. If China believes, OK, the United States takes us as an extreme competitor, so we have to compete with the United States. It's good that China, is still talking about cooperation, while United States describes this relationship as one of a competition.

DW Richard Walker: And yet, I mean, even if it's not increasing as a percentage of GDP, military spending is increasing. Certainly the Chinese military is expanding at a significant level. And we saw major exercises around Taiwan after the US house of representative speaker Nancy Pelosi visited there last August. Her successor , speaker of the house, Kevin McCarthy is said to want to go to Taiwan, he is maybe even planning a trip. What will China do if he goes?

Zhou Bo: I think even in theory, China's response would have to be greater. Because Nancy Pelosi’s visit was not agreed by president Biden, by the pentagon, but she still insisted to go. And our unprecedented large scale exercise was a response. If United States believe in one China, why would you provoke China to this extent? Did anything happen that shows that mainland China would attack Taiwan tomorrow? There's no such indication at all. And so my answer for this is that the United States right now actually is highly divided. This kind of division is not only between the ordinary people and the elite. It's also between the different branches. The legislative versus the executive branch.

And this kind of division is also found even within the military. For example, four star American general talked about mainland China about to attack Taiwan in 2025, only out of his gut feelings, without any proof, without any statistics, he could give his subordinates a memo telling that China was about to attack Taiwan because of his gut feeling. And this is not even agreed upon by pentagon. So there have come this question, how could he make such irresponsible remarks? And why didn't Pentagon regulate him? So it just raises many questions, rather than this genuine question on whether mainland China would really attack Taiwan in 2025.

DW Richard Walker: And there are significant questions at the moment also about the stability of the US-China relationship, which have been thrown up partly by this drama over spying balloons, which in themselves don't necessarily pose any threat, but they've raised concerns of the ability of China and the US to manage a crisis, if an accidental crisis could come up. It said that there really aren't proper hotlines between the two sides to deal with that. How concerned are you about that?

Zhou Bo: This question basically is about how possibly we could have some kind of guardrails about the relationship. You have to make it stable. And ironically, both sides have the same good wish, but they don't know how to do it. You see, because if you talk about the setting of guardrails, it's difficult in that the weaker side probably would consider the stronger one want to freeze the status quo, so as to maintain a kind of superiority. So guardrail can only be established when the strength of the 2 sides is more or less equal. And this is found either during cold war. Because ever from the very beginning of the cold war, the strength of the two superpowers were more or less equal. So they could establish so many confidence building measures, especially in nuclear fields. And this is not the case between Chinese and America's military strength. We are much weaker than the United States. But in a way it doesn't matter.

DW Richard Walker: But not for much longer. It's anticipated that the Chinese military will approach parity with the United States in quite important ways, say in the 2030s. So does that mean that until the 2030s we're going to have to get by with none of these hotlines and guardrails between the US and China?

Zhou Bo: Well, I don't think by 2030 the Chinese military will be as strong as the US military. Because previously we only talk about China becoming world class military by mid-century. We still have a long time to go. So the question is, what does a world class military mean? So of course, the United States is a world class military. For China to catch up with the United States, you have to wait until mid-century. But in the latest report of the 20th congress, we talked about speeding up this process. But still, I would believe it won't be as early as 2030. But remember one thing. This kind of disparity in strength doesn't matter that much in the Western Pacific. Because globally speaking, Chinese military won't compete with United States for global dominance. So long as we are capable of defending our sovereignty, territory integrity in the Western Pacific, that's good enough for us.

DW Richard Walker: And that is the time when you feel that there will be some kind of showdown, do you feel, between the US and China in the coming years in the western pacific? Is that becoming more and more inevitable?

Zhou Bo: No, I don't think so. On the contrary, I believe that will be the time when this relationship become somewhat stabilized. And before it becomes stabilized, this is the most dangerous time. From now to that time, this is the most dangerous time.

DW Richard Walker: And let me finally return to the question that was posed to Wang Yi about the risk of some attack on Taiwan. People around the world are really concerned about that. They've seen the impact that the Ukraine war has had. A war on Taiwan could create even greater destabilization in the world. You’re ex-military in China. What can you say to reassure people that maybe it will simply never happen?

Zhou Bo: I think this kind of comparison, or just because people have seen a war in Europe, doesn't suggest that another similar war will necessarily occur in Taiwan strait. We want peaceful reunification because that is of course in our own interest. What is the use of Taiwan that is totally battered and shattered? So people should not doubt about our sincerity to have peaceful reunification. But we won't just relinquish non-peaceful means. But that is only reserved for different extreme situations.

DW Richard Walker: thank you very much for speaking to us, Senior Colonel Zhou Bo.

Zhou Bo: Thank you very much indeed.

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