LONDON (Dispatches) -- The Ukraine war shows that the West’s dominance is coming to an end as China rises to superpower status in partnership with Russia at one of the most significant inflection points in centuries, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair said.
The world, Blair said, was at a turning point in history comparable with the end of World War Two or the collapse of the Soviet Union: but this time the West is clearly not in the ascendant.
“We are coming to the end of Western political and economic dominance,” Blair said in a lecture entitled “After Ukraine, What Lessons Now for Western Leadership?” according to a text of the speech to a forum supporting the alliance between the United States and Europe at Ditchley Park west of London.
“The world is going to be at least bi-polar and possibly multi-polar,” Blair said. “The biggest geo-political change of this century will come from China not Russia.”
President Vladimir Putin says the West has declared economic war by trying to isolate Russia’s economy with sanctions and the Kremlin says Russia will turn to powers such as China and India.
The war in Ukraine, Blair said, had clarified that the West could not rely on China “to behave in the way we would consider rational”.
Chinese President Xi Jinping has continued supporting Putin and criticized sanctions “abuse” by the West. Putin has forged what he calls a “strategic partnership” with China.
China in 1979 had an economy that was smaller than Italy’s, but after opening to foreign investment and introducing market reforms it has become the world’s second-largest economy.
Its economy is forecast to overtake the United States within a decade and it leads in some 21st century technologies such as artificial intelligence, regenerative medicine and conductive polymers.
“China’s place as a superpower is natural and justified. It is not the Soviet Union,” said Blair, who was prime minister from 1997 to 2007.
Its allies are likely to be Russia and Iran.
The West should not let China overtake militarily, he said.
“We should increase defense spending and maintain military superiority,” Blair said. The United States and its allies “should be superior enough to cater for any eventuality or type of conflict and in all areas.”
Medvedev Warns of ‘Judgment Day’ Response to West
The refusal of Ukraine and Western powers to recognize Moscow’s control of Crimea poses a “systemic threat” for Russia and any outside attack on the region will prompt a “Judgment Day” response, former president Dmitry Medvedev said.
Russia annexed the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 after a pro-Moscow president in Kyiv was toppled amid mass street protests. Moscow then also backed pro-Russian armed separatists in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine.
In the event of an attack on Crimea, Medvedev was quoted by TASS news agency as saying, “Judgment Day will come very fast and hard. It will be very difficult to hide.”
Medvedev did not elaborate but has previously warned the United States of the dangers of attempting to punish a nuclear power such as Russia over its operation in Ukraine, saying this could endanger humanity.
His comments were aired a day after a Ukrainian official suggested that Crimea, which most of the world still recognizes as part of Ukraine, could be a target for U.S.-made HIMARS missiles, recently deployed by Kyiv as it battles Russian forces.
On Sunday, Interfax news agency quoted Medvedev as telling World War Two veterans: “If any other state, be it Ukraine or NATO countries, believes that Crimea is not Russian, then this is a systemic threat for us.”
“This is a direct and an explicit threat, especially given what had happened to Crimea. Crimea returned to Russia,” said Medvedev, who now serves as deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council.
Vadym Skibitskyi, an official at Ukrainian military intelligence, was asked on Saturday in a televised interview if HIMARS could be used on targets in Crimea.
He said Russia had carried out strikes on Ukrainian territory from Crimea and the Black Sea and so these were also justified targets.
Crimea is of particular strategic importance to Russia as it includes the headquarters of its Black Sea fleet at Sevastopol.