A new renaissance is needed with Eurasian vision
FOREIGN Minister of Ukraine Dmytro Kuleba in his article titled “Ukraine is Part of the West” published on August 2, 2021 writes that China has broken the myth of shared borders interest and has cultivated deep ties with a number of countries that historically have fallen squarely into Moscow’s sphere of influence.
Since Dmytro Kuleba is the Foreign Minister of Ukraine so his viewpoint is helpful to understand a European lookout about emerging Eurasia.
I certainly believe that presently Eurasian vision is not dependent on landmass and proximities rather it can cover the whole of Europe and whole Asia.
The traditional concept of limited Eurasia has already died. Moreover, Eurasia cannot become a bloc in a traditional way of political or philosophical divide rather it can become a socio-economic bloc that actually China is working for.
In Capitalist World, the economy is the strongest weapon that China has already achieved and it does not demand any country to involve in wars rather offers opportunities.
Look at the economic arena where China is at the top doing 13.3 percent of total global exports according to UN figures for 2020 while the United States stands second with 8.8 percent and the difference between China and the US is quite significant that is 4.5 per cent.
Professor Taras Kuzio who is one of the top analysts of Europe said in his latest interview that all countries except the United States do not see China as a security threat.
Born in England and studied at the University of Sussex and holds a doctorate in political science from the University of Birmingham, Taras is of the opinion that the United States and European Union have different approaches towards Russia and China.
Even on the Afghanistan issue, the majority of European Think Tanks have a different approach than the United States.
The majority of them believe that the abrupt withdrawal of the United States embarrassed the Europe that stood with US for 20 long years and the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban will be used by anti-western powers as the European defeat in rugged country and fan anti-Americanism.
EU member states also fear to increase supplies of narcotics to Europe in case Afghanistan falls into civil war.
European Think Tanks and global experts are of the view that bygone are the days of Geopolitical vision that died with 20th century while 21st century is an era of Geo-economics and China took maximum advantage of first two decades of the new century when Europe was engaged in War on Terror and war in Afghanistan.
They believe that European Union should remind the era of the Renaissance when trade was determining the future of nations and EU members should revitalize the idea of globalization that was severely harmed under the War on Terror in Europe and China took the opportunity of globalization.
Renaissance, a period from the 14th century to the 17th century brought many new ideas and goods to Europe and a bustling economy created prosperous cities and new classes of people who had enough money to support art and learning.
History testifies that Europe was the biggest beneficiary of trade and commence during Renaissance but it was a loser in forthcoming world wars
Europeans understand well that a harmonious world is far better than a chaotic one and China is offering this harmonious world through its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
This is time Europe should come out of old NATO and Non-Natoglobal divide and should think larger than only militarily vision to revitalize its economic power.
—The writer, currently Prague-based, is an analyst writing for national and international media outlets.
