Richard Walker: We’re here at the Munich Security Conference, where transatlantic relations and ending the Ukraine war have been the primary focus. But we want to get the view from the other superpower in the world, China. And we're going to speak with Senior Colonel Zhou Bo, who is a former member of the Chinese military. He's now an analyst at Tsinghua University. He's a regular at the Munich Security Conference.

Zhou Bo, thanks for speaking to DW. We've seen what's been going on these last few days in Munich – the Trump administration is pushing a new idea of bringing about peace in Ukraine. Donald Trump once talks with Vladimir Putin, does the PRC welcome this? Do you see Trump potentially as a peacemaker?

Zhou Bo: I think any ideas about peace in Ukraine is welcomed in China. In fact, Donald Trump himself has asked China to help. This is interesting for me to observe as a Chinese, because he previously talked about how to resolve this within 24 hours. Of course, that is a kind of rhetoric during the election, but the fact that he asked China to help really demonstrates that China might have a role in the war in Ukraine. I believe China's role, first of all, is in joining other major powers in providing kind of a collective security guarantee to Ukraine and even to Russia. Why? Because this kind of collective security guarantee is often talked about by President Zelensky, and is also deep in the memory of all Ukrainians when Ukraine decided to relinquish nuclear weapons in the 1990s, so this is what they remember.

So yes, we don't know how long the war will last, except that the war will last for a while, but no war will last forever. So there definitely will be a time when people will discuss how to have a ceasefire. Then the question, as raised by Ukrainian from time to time, is who is going to guarantee this ceasefire. So I think at this time, China can join other major powers in providing this kind of collective security guarantee.

The second possible assistance from China is that, if people have so decided, I mean, the warring countries have decided to have peacekeeping operations, then I believe China, and countries like China and  India, might be the best troop-contributing countries in that for Europeans to do this, as proposed by the Polish Prime Minister, and proposed by the French President, it would not be realistic. Russia definitely would take it as another way of NATO’s presence in Ukraine.

The third possible assistance is the post-war reconstruction. China's capability in infrastructure is next to none. So I don't need to elaborate on that; I think this is just self-evident. China can just do it more quickly and do it more efficiently at a lower cost.

Richard Walker: You mentioned NATO, the Trump administration has sort of indicated – although there's some confusion about this – but indicated that it might take the idea of Ukraine joining NATO eventually off the table. Do you think that's a good thing to remove that? Because China has generally been pretty critical of NATO expansion.

Zhou Bo: We in China really consider that this war has something to do with NATO expansion. Because, yes, people talking about the war, talking about this kind of invasion by Russia against Ukraine, but people forgot that actually, starting from Mikhail Gorbachev down to Boris Yeltsin down to President Putin, that means from Soviet time to Russia today, Soviet and Russian leaders have been warning about this kind of expansion.

Then about the future of NATO. The question is, with the Western democracy going down, would NATO become really stronger? Probably people say that the membership of Finland and Sweden might be proof of NATO's growing strengths. I don't think so. I used to say that NATO is a zombie that is still walking. Why? Because this kind of military alliance – all military alliance  – lives on threat. They're just like leeches sucking blood, so they have to find enemies.

Richard Walker: Isn't it true that the threat is Russia?

Zhou Bo: I'm not just trying to defend Russia, but it's true that even before this war, NATO has taken Russia as a threat, because after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the future of NATO is not that certain. But for NATO to survive, they have to find a kind of threat. And who can be the threat? In the old days， it is the Soviet Union, and nowadays, of course, it is Russia. So I believe that this kind of military alliance actually would not strengthen Western democracy. On the contrary, it actually invites the war. The fundamental question about security in Europe is that NATO has to coexist with Russia, like it or not, because Russia cannot be washed away. So the security of Europe is essentially how they can coexist. People have to think about that. You just cannot look at a few simple events.

Richard Walker: That's part of the history, certainly the Chinese view of it. This conference has been dominated, really, by the discussions around these halls by conversations about this speech by JD Vance, the US Vice President, in which he criticized European democracy, particularly German democracy. Many see this as an opportunity for China to improve relations with Europe, which is reeling from this criticism. Do you see that opportunity taking shape?

Zhou Bo: I think definitely Europe will think about what Vance said, and what is going to do next. In fact, according to the Financial Times, this kind of inching together between China and EU is already happening, because this is what I read from Gideon Rahman’ opinion, in which he quoted an European official saying: “believe me, this is already happening”. So I think this conference will tell how Europeans would actually become disappointed with JD Vance’s speech, because, even as a Chinese, I was surprised. I thought, because people's concern here is primarily Ukraine, therefore he will talk a lot about Ukraine, and then, because the United States is in so-called strategic competition with China, therefore he will talk about US-China competition, but he has not talked about all these at all. Instead, he's talking about something that surprised Europeans and angered them, so this is interesting.

Richard Walker: Is it feel like a gift to the Chinese delegation?

Zhou Bo: I think this is not what we have created. But as a result, I think the Europeans will feel that they have to strike a balance. Because this is what is already happening, because Ursula Von der Leyen talked about having new agreement with China, so even before this conference, the European leaders have said something, and is always in China's interest to have good relationship with Europe. Because for China, this war actually is somewhat unfair for China, in that China is not involved in this war. China is not informed about this war. But because of this war, China's relationship with European capitals has become sour, and this is not in our interest.