If you ask Joe Biden, the answer is Xi Jinping and China. If you ask Xi Jinping, the answer is Joe Biden and the United States.
If you ask Norwegians, you get a completely different answer.
For Norwegians, Russian President Vladimir Putin poses the greatest threat to world peace, according to a poll conducted by Ipsos on behalf of Dagbladet.
Putin fears
In contrast, Norwegians fear Vladimir Putin more than Chinese President Xi Jinping, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and US President Joe Biden.
- Of these, almost two out of five, 38 percent, answer that Putin poses the greatest threat to world peace.
- One in four, 25 percent, believe that China’s Xi Jinping poses the biggest threat.
- For one in five, 20 percent, North Korea’s Kim Jong-un is the one they fear most.
- Only four percent believe the same is true for America’s Joe Biden.
- Seven percent believe none of these pose a threat, and another seven percent answer that they do not know.
The scenario that could trigger a major war
– Threat from Russia
Iver B. Neumann is an expert on Russia and international relations and director of the Fridtjof Nansen Institute. He is not the least bit surprised by the findings, and thinks it is only natural that Norwegians fear Putin’s Russia the most.
He lists three specific reasons that may explain Norwegians’ fear of Russia:
– Firstly, we have had close contact with a threat from Russia for most of a century. People are obsessed with Russia. Secondly, it is much closer to us than both China, North Korea and the United States, says Neumann.
Russia is gearing up for the north
The third reason is perhaps the most urgent.
– Russia constantly uses military force as a theater, and has long been active in acts of war. Syria is probably the most glaring example, where they participate in battles and test various weapons, says Neumann.
Military theater
Last spring, such a military theater took place.
Along Russia’s borders with Ukraine, the Russian military mobilized about 120,000 soldiers from “all of Russia.”
In the eastern Donbass region of Ukraine, a civil war is still raging between Ukrainian government forces and pro-Russian separatists. Ukraine and a number of other Western countries accuse Russia of supporting these separatists both physically and materially.
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The civil war arose in the wake of Russia’s annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea.
– Small player in the world
Although Norwegians have “good reason” to think that Vladimir Putin poses a threat to world peace, Russia is “a small player in the world”, Neumann believes.
– We are talking about a nation with about 145 million inhabitants and an economy the size of Spain’s economy. Russia is first and foremost a regional power, no global power or a superpower, says Neumann.
Shocked: – Idiotic
China, on the other hand, with a manpower of 1.2 billion people and an economy that will surpass even the US economy in a relatively short time, is, although not a direct threat to world peace, an upcoming challenge for world peace, according to the director.
– Would have thought people woke up
– China is the power that will change things, and it has been clear for the last 15 to 20 years. It should have been more urgent, but I do not think it is particularly strange that people answer what they answer, says Neumann.
For China, there is no direct threat to Norway, Neumann believes.
– But in the years after the Norwegian Nobel Committee handed out the peace prize to the Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, we saw that China does not take five øre to attack Norway and Norwegian foreign policy. This is nevertheless perceived as abstract, says the department director.
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But, Neumann adds:
– I would have thought that people woke up to a greater extent when they saw what the Chinese government was doing in Tiananmen Square in 1989, when they openly slaughtered students who demonstrated for democracy, and now in Hong Kong, where they imprison the people to live as they have always done.
Found secret documents at bus stop
Xi and Biden
Asia researcher Stein Tønnesson at the Department of Peace Research also focuses on China, but not on China alone.
“It is the deteriorating relationship between China and the United States, and Biden and Xi Jinping, that is the most critical,” says the researcher.
He is not sure who he would choose, if he had to answer who he thought was the biggest threat to world peace.
– I would have had a hard time answering that question. I had to take the couple Xi and Biden, and like the largest group in the investigation, I would point to Putin’s relationship with Biden, and his strategic partnership with Xi as the biggest threat, says Tønnesson.
– Threat to his own people
“Serious incident”: – Will find scapegoats
The North Korean leader is something you have to worry too much about, he believes.
– I would not say that Kim Jong-un is a threat to world peace. He is a threat to his own people, who are strongly oppressed and isolated from the world, says Tønnesson.
This does not mean that the North Korean is not involved, should anything happen.
– Kim could become a threat to world peace if he triggered a conflict between China and the United States. It can lead to a direct war, which in turn can lead to a third world war. It is a conceivable scenario, says the researcher.
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Among other things, Tønnesson points out the conflict in Taiwan as a possible triggering cause of war.
Now Kim has prepared the population for what he calls a “hard march”, says Tønnesson. It is the same term that was used about the famine in the country in 1997-98.
– Will get their heads crushed
– Absolutely conceivable
“It is certainly a conceivable scenario that something Kim does will trigger a US military intervention in North Korea, which in turn will lead to a Chinese reaction, since they do not want a US presence so close to the borders,” he said.
