On April 25, Senior Colonel Zhou Bo (ret.), a senior fellow at Tsinghua University’s Center for International Security and Strategy and a China Forum expert, spoke with Stan Grant on ABC’s China Tonight on China and the Solomon Islands.

In response to Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s “red-line” warning about the China-Solomon Islands security pact, Zhou argued that the agreement was originally a request from the Solomon Islands, and the Australian government is in no capacity to lay a “red line” for cooperation between two other sovereign states. Having only provided humanitarian aid in its overseas military operations, China has no global military ambitions and no intentions whatsoever to build a military base in the South Pacific, he said.

On the Russia-Ukraine war, Zhou noted that the West has been ignoring warnings from all Russian leaders since Mikhail Gorbachev about NATO’s endless expansion until this time when it backfired, so what’s important now is not only talking about invasion, but to prevent all these things from happening again. The security in Europe, now as in the past, is a deal between Russia and Europe—unless an agreement is reached, there is little hope for peace and prosperity.

China is not a weight that would be added to the Russian side or to the American side, Zhou added. No matter what has happened in the world, it does not change the fact that its political and economic shifts are moving toward the Asia Pacific, with China standing right at the center.

Read the transcript of the interview here:

https://m.guancha.cn/ZhouBo3/2022_04_27_637067.shtml?s=fwrphbios