Senior Colonel Zhou Bo (ret.), a fellow at Tsinghua University’s Center for International Security and Strategy and a China Forum expert, spoke with TIME about Ukraine and was quoted in the magazine’s opinion piece “China’s Embrace of Putin Is Looking More and More Costly,” which was published on April 1.

According to the article, Beijing has adopted a contradictory position on Ukraine: on one hand upholding sovereignty, territorial integrity and the rules-based international order; on the other refusing to condemn Putin’s invasion or even call it one. How much sway China has over Putin’s Ukraine invasion is a contentious issue, but it’s looking increasingly likely that Beijing has its strategic calculus wrong when it tried to deal with the crisis through inaction, as NATO has rarely been more united and Putin’s offensive is foundering (for now, at least), the article writes. Things are happening on a scale that is compelling China into taking more proactive positions, and siding with Russia will incur a higher cost, which is antagonizing and angering Western countries who remain China’s biggest trade partners.

For a major power like China, which is poised to become the world’s largest economy in less than 10 years, the most important thing is to strike a balance, Zhou Bo argues. “If China and Russia engage in a military alliance, the whole world would change,” says Zhou. “Western countries, no matter how strong their economic relationship with China, will definitely follow America and stand on their side. Then we inevitably will have two camps and a repetition of the Cold War. So it is extremely important for China to have this nonaligned relationship with Russia in spite of our friendship. And this is totally possible.”