The Ukraine crisis: a multidimensional analysis in China

Abstract:

As one of the most serious geopolitical crisis since the end of the Cold War, the Ukraine Crisis has an impact not only on the reshaping of the Eurasian political architecture, but also on the reconstruction of the world order. This paper deploys content analysis of 45 academic papers on the “Ukraine Crisis” in Chinese core journals (CSSCI) from December 2013 to April 2015, which are further compared with 56 papers whose research subject is “Ukraine politics” in the same journal database from January 2004 to November 2013.

Therefore, the current paper explores what the Chinese academia discussed about Ukraine, from a wider range of perspectives, including international political economy, politics, security and international relations over the past 10 years. The findings of the conducted research suggest that Chinese scholars offer a multidimensional analysis on the development of Ukraine Crisis. From an institutional transformation perspective, Ukraine is an important case of political failure leading to social disorders. From a geopolitical perspective, Russia, the United States and the European Union each have their specific objectives in Ukraine.

From an imperial studies approach, although the “new Cold War" thesis has been overplayed, Russia seeks to double its efforts in order to look for alignment with anti-West forces, resulting in more complication among major countries. The impact of the crisis is yet to be felt globally and its warning lessons are to be learned by China.

This article appears in Thematic issue of the Eastern journal of European studies: Ukrainian crisis. Rethinking geopolitics in Europe