From Russian rain to Chinese storm
“I kind of look at Russia as the hurricane. It comes in fast and hard. China, on the other hand, is climate change: long, slow, pervasive.”
Rob Joyce, director of the Cybersecurity Directorate of the National Security Agency (NSA) in 2019.
By the end of 2020, the director general of the British Security Service MI5 Ken McCallum used similar terms as he described Russian actions as “bursts of bad weather, while China is changing the climate.”
Joyce and McCallum were on the money with their assessment that Moscow would probably shake up the geopolitical situation in the shorter term. However, China is currently also creating considerable turmoil for the world economy. Not because of foreign adventures, but via coronavirus and the actions of the government to contain the pandemic.
Xi Jinping and those around him seem to have doubts about the best approach. At any rate, and at any cost, Xi wants to avoid too…