‘They were fooled by Putin’: Chinese historians speak out against Russian invasion

An open letter written by five historians denounced the war and called on Beijing to make its stance clearer

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For Xu Guoqi, a Chinese historian, Beijing's reluctance to denounce Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine is alarming. I'm a historian of the first world war. Europe sleep-walked into a huge conflict over 100 years ago, which also had had enormous consequences for China," Xu said. The world may be at the point of no return again".

But looking at how Chinese diplomats are responding to it, and how Chinese people have talked about it on social media in the past week, he said, I'm afraid it seems we still have not learned the lessons of the past tragedies. As a historian I'm very disappointed."